Dan Snow's History Hit - Dresden Survivor: Remembering Victor Gregg

Episode Date: October 17, 2021

On 12 October 2021 World War Two veteran Victor Gregg passed away peacefully in his sleep just before his 102 birthday. He was part of a unique generation that with the passing of the years is sadly disappearing all too fast. Victor joined the army in 1937 and served and India and Palestine before the war. During the Second World War, he fought in the Western Desert before joining the Parachute Regiment. He was taken prisoner as the Allies retreated during the Battle of Arnhem, and was taken as a POW to Dresden, where he was alive during the Dresden firebombing. In this episode, we pay tribute to him by replaying the last interview at the time of his 100th birthday. He spoke to Dan about what he learned over his extraordinary life, his wartime experiences, and the profound impact they had upon how he saw the world.You can also watch Out of the Inferno: Surviving Dresden, where on the 73rd anniversary of the firebombing of Dresden, Dan accompanied Victor, as he returned to the city for a historic meeting with Irene Uhlendorf, who was just 4 years old on the night of the bombing. Together they are able to talk about the horrors of that night and the effect that it has had on the rest of their lives.

Hi everyone and welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. It is inevitable of course, but every time we lose a veteran from the Second World War it feels like a shock. It feels like a profound loss. A loss of that link to a very special generation. A generation who I've been lucky enough to spend so much time with, interview, and yet I'm sure when they're gone I will struggle to believe it ever happened. The idea that I'll be able to tell my grandchildren I could just pick up a phone and talk to men and women who served in so many theatres in the Second World War, who were captured at Singapore, who were at Alamein, Pearl Harbour, Stalingrad, who jumped into Normandy on

D-Day, who survived extermination camps in Central Europe during the Holocaust. I'm sure that will be extraordinary to them, and I think it should feel extraordinary to us too. There's been a particular loss this week. On the 12th of October, Victor Gregg passed away peacefully in his sleep. He was 101 years old, and his 102nd birthday was just days away. Bizarrely, and I almost don't expect you to believe this because it's so odd. My kids had made birthday cards for Victor. They've met him a couple of times. We go and look in on him. And I was putting them all into a big A4 envelope. And I checked my phone. It was a message from a family member that Victor had slipped away the night before peacefully. So those birthday cards remained unsent and now they're sitting downstairs in my house. I'm not

really sure what to do with them now. Victor Gregg was a pre-war regular soldier. He served in the Middle East, North Africa, Italy. He jumped into Arnhem, was captured in Arnhem and taken to Dresden as a prisoner of war where he was imprisoned, possibly about to be executed for making trouble whilst a prisoner, and was freed when the bombs started falling on Dresden during the terrible firebombing of early 1945. He may have been saved from a summary execution by the Nazis, but he was tossed into an unimaginable hellscape in which he witnessed things he talked to about 75 years on that profoundly changed him, made him harder, made him angrier, gave him lifelong psychological issues. On Victor's last trip outside the country, he visited Dresden a couple of years ago,

just as history had started. I accompanied him. I took my kids on that trip. And I'll never forget Victor holding hands with my son and daughter and taking them around central Dresden, pointing out buildings that had been repaired from the state of destruction and flames in which he saw them during the firebombing. We were able to bring him together with a fellow survivor, a lady who, as a young woman, had suffered terrible burns on her legs during that

bombing. And he wrote to me afterwards and said that that brought him some peace. He was an extraordinary character. Of all the veterans I've met, he's the one who talked most honestly about the mental damage, the mental wounds sustained during the Second World War. He was incredibly articulate and he became something of a spokesman for his generation before he passed away. In this episode, we're repeating an interview I made with him on his 100th birthday a couple of years ago. Little did we know we were about to be tossed into the madness that was COVID. It was just the last few months of innocence before the lockdown. I went round to his house, made a good old chat

and he gave me some reflections up on turning 100. They were pretty remarkable at the time, not so you got in touch to say how much you enjoyed them. They feel even more special now given his recent departure. If you want to watch the trip that we made to Dresden, you can do so at historyhit.tv. If to historyhit.tv. If you want to listen to previous podcasts with Victor in which he talks about his experiences at Dresden and elsewhere, they're also available at historyhit.tv. But in the meantime, let's just enjoy this, my last interview with Victor Gregg as he turned 100. So it's your 100th birthday this week.

There were times in your life when you must have thought, I'm not going to make 100. Oh, no, no, no. I never had the name of making 100. I can honestly say, Dan, the only time I've felt a little bit insecure and the earth has started wobbling is when that German officer, A little bit insecure, and the earth has started wobbling,

is when that German officer, after the building, like the soap factory, crashed to the ground and we was ruled into his office in Dresden. This is, okay, this is people who don't know, this is when you burnt a soap factory down when you were a prisoner of war. Yeah, when I, and he said, he says, I can't do nothing about it. He says, the Fuhrer has decreed that any POWs who don't behave themselves have got to be shot. So you're going to be shot tomorrow morning, the pair of you. And then I thought, well, I don't know how I'm going to, how am I?

I really thought that I wasn't going to get away with it. I thought, well, that's it. But Harry, no, he was still taking the mickey out of him. Harry, it didn't seem to affect Harry at all, what he said, but I thought to myself, well, I don't see how we're going to get out of this. Of course we did. No, I've been in all these battles and I've been surrounded by the enemy and I've always had a sort of idea that I'm clever enough to get away with it or we'll find a way out or it'll all come out in a wash.

A bloke said to me, there's an old soldier who said that to me first at the City of Izay. And we were sitting by the carrier and a couple of the wheels were old. The old detractors had been shot away. And we're sitting down by the side of the carrier taking a bit of shelter.

Everything that's going on, we're in the middle of a big battle. And this bloke was a rural soldier. Don't worry, Vicky, he says. Don't worry about it. He says, it all come out in the wash. And that's a saying I've never forgotten. No, even today, I know that I've got enough sense to realise I ain't got long to go now.

If I have got a long time to go, then I'm going to finish up a millionaire. But I ain't cut the years at the most, I think. But I'm not worried about that. It doesn't worry me. I've seen everything. I've seen the worst

that people can do, and I've seen the best. Personally, I think that everybody I think once you've reached 85 or 86 I think it's time to go because when you get over that you're too old to do anything you're no bloody good

you're living on your dreams you're not achieving anything so go to sleep and kick it. Well, you say you're not achieving anything. How many best-selling books have you written since you were 85? I don't know whether they're best-selling. They sold a lot, I suppose. I don't know.

Well, what have I got? I've got about 10 on the shelves now, haven't I? Yeah, so I think you're being a bit... Well, maybe include the audio books. You've got two audio books, haven't I? I've asked people what they want me to ask you before this interview. And a lot of them said,

what was the toughest situation you faced during the Second World War, during your service, before you were taken prisoner, what was the toughest battle or situation you were in? I can't really say that because being in the rival brigade you was always

right in the front whatever battle you was in you was always surrounded if you take the first Sidi Salah in 1940-41 and when we captured the old of the Italian retreating army.

But then there was a tank on top of our gun pit. We thought we had it then, we'd had it. Then, of course, there was a Citi Visee, which lasted about a month. Different battles, that was terrible. The fighting at Arnhem must have been pretty tough towards the end. Arnhem wasn't really a month. Different battles, that was terrible. The fighting at Arnhem must have been pretty tough towards the end. Arnhem wasn't really a battle.

Arnhem was a complete balls-up in which there was groups of allies and groups of Germans roaming around looking for each other. I'm not going to say we was looking for the Germans, but the German general, Model, he didn't have an army. He didn't have any,

all he had was all these odds and sods who were being rested or their tanks were being repaired and he sorted them out in small groups.

You cut the roads, you get to do anything, sort them out. So it wasn't really a battle on where two sides were faced up against each other like it was at Alamein or all these other battles.

It was probably one of the worst times was the actual dropping zone at Arnhem because that was lit with dead bodies. He was jumping on the top of men who had jumped the day before or say an hour before you and they were dead. I'm not going to say that was unnerving to people like myself because we'd seen it all. But the majority of the lads who'd never fired a shot in anger and been told it was a cakewalk,

I think it affected them a little way. After three or four years, you get accepted that that's the way of life. You listened to Dan Snow's History Hit. We're talking one last time to Victor Gregg. More coming up. Land a Viking longship on island shores. scramble over the dunes of ancient egypt and avoid the poisoner's cup in renaissance florence each week on echoes of history we uncover the epic stories

that inspire assassin's creed we're stepping into feudal japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week.

One thing that you and I talked about in a recent TV programme and something that people were asking about on Twitter was how did you go back to civilian life after spending all that time? Well, I didn't, did I? I didn't. I was a complete nutcase. I was a murderous sod.

After Dresden, Dresden made me turned me completely berserk and I was a sort of a jack-of-the-nob person

and anybody with any sense any authority was my enemy no matter what sort of bloke it was anybody in authority

was an enemy and that went on for what until I met this German woman No matter what sort of bloke he was, anybody in authority was an enemy. And that went on for, what, until I met this German woman in Coventry Cathedral. So it went on for about 45 years. Smashed my first marriage. No, it was a battle to... I used to do all this training on this bike riding, because if I didn't, I couldn't get to sleep. This is the thing.

If I didn't work myself, if I didn't make myself really tired so that when I went to bed, I went to sleep, I'd lay awake overnight. Sometimes. It wasn't constant. It wasn't constant. I mean, I could go for weeks as a normal person and then somebody would say something. And I met a few blokes who were like that. I met a chap who was in the bar room when it got sunk. And I was working, well he was working for me really.

And he said he used to wake up the night and he could hear the blokes banging on the waterproof doors they couldn't get out as the boat was sinking and then I there was another bloke he was a rear gunner and he'd done a full turn plus on on these heavy bombers he was another nutcase. He couldn't control himself. No, no, no. It turned me completely antisocial, completely. And yet you've got the good side of you who wants to live a life of peace and wants all your kids around you and everything like that.

And then the other half, which wants to go around leaving evidence of vengeance and stuff like that. I'm going to make somebody pay for it. And one side doesn't recognise the other. And that's what my life's been like. It's not really been...

The longer you live, the longer you remember them. It's the two women, the two German women, really, the one at Coventry Cathedral and the one that you introduced me to. She was holding my hand all the way through that interview and she was holding me like that. And then she was crying at the end, as you know. And she wouldn't let me go.

And that was in Dresden when we went back? In Dresden. And that's when I felt that I was forgiven. Because I think that this trauma, which they discovered later, I think what I suffered from, I think it was caused through guilt by association. I used to think that I was guilty for, I used to hear the screams. You can't talk to people about it because they've never,

you had these people who was jumping in these water. They had about three of these big water things, made of cement, what they built in the middle of Dresden, and they were filled up with water. That was in case it got bombed. So when it was getting hot, people were jumping in the water to get away from the heat, and then eventually the water boiled because of the heat and they couldn't get out.

They couldn't climb up the sides of these things and they were being boiled alive. When you hear people screaming and you can't get anywhere near there because it's too hot, that's when it turns you into a psychopath. And there's no way out of it. And I felt that I was guilty for it because I was British. The British had done this and it was terrible.

It was terrible. And those two German women, the one at Cormonday and the one in Dresden, the one in Dresden finished me off. She really made me feel that she really made me feel that it wasn't my fault that she was forgiving me. Whether I could say she was forgiving

me or not, I don't know. But I felt entirely different after that Dresden visit. So I'm in your debt, really. I came with you. It was your trip. I came with you. I'm in your debt, really. I came with you. It was your trip. I came with you. I'm in your debt.

I remember her name. It's Ulandorf or something. Let me ask you about your childhood on the streets of London. Do you think the world's a better place today to grow up or in the 1920s? It's entirely different. There's no comparison.

There's absolutely no comparison whatsoever. In those days, in the 30s and the 20s, you had to fight for everything you had. You had to fight. If you had a shirt on, then it was somebody else's shirt before you got it. If you had a pair of shoes on, then it's more than likely you had a bit of cardboard in the bottom,

because you couldn't afford to take the shoes, the boot menders. You had all these sort of, everything you had to get, your scrounge food, your scrounge this, your scrounge that. If your mum couldn't pay the rent, then we moved to another, same street,

there was another, say, sort of landlord who moved into his, people used to do that, go and borrow a barrel off the gringo and part of something. It was hard. So it was a very, very hard life. Now, after the war, when these couples got together again, started producing children and things, all these young people who had experienced the 30s and the 20s, they more or less made it their business.

Their children wasn't going to suffer that. So they used to, because there was all the work in the world. If you didn't have a job, it's because you didn't want to work. And anything the kid wanted, he should get. Mum, Mum, Mum, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want. Yeah, yeah, come, we'll go round and get it. And the kids, I don't think children suffered. I'm not saying we suffered because it was the norm.

It's the way you lived. But children are, anybody brought up after the war has been brought up in a different world, a different society altogether. And so are you optimistic in the hundred years that you've... No. No, because I've always believed that if they've got a weapon, sooner or later somebody's going to use it.

Well, if they don't, of course, we're all going to starve to death or die of lack of water, aren't we? Sooner or later, that lot which live on the periphery of the equator, there's going to be no way that they're going to extract a living from the land. So they've all got to move out. And where are they going to move to? Up there? No, no, no.

Unless these young people today can find, it's possible they can because they've got this technology now where they can all move together en masse all over the world and they're all speaking English and they've only got to get on to that and I can see them in China as long as he's on the same program. No, will these young people find a way out? They better get their skates on. What have they got?

What have they got? 40 years top rack. I should think in 20 years' time, we'll be having trouble, if not before that. What would you say to any young people? What lessons have you learned? What lessons? Well, I don't know.

I'm an old party member, aren't I? Dialectical materialism and all that. I never criticise anybody unless I know jolly well that I can justify the criticism. So, no, I just don't know what to tell them.

I tell them that they forget all the past, forget land of open glory. They've got to start thinking that there's no difference between a brown skin and a white skin or a black skin and that we've all got the same amount of brain and we've all got to live or if we don't live together then we're going to die together that's the answer the answer is to find a common denominator where everybody can live together i think they've got to get really really i think they've got to get rid of

religion and put it in a nutshell, I think they've got to be very suspicious. Anybody who wants to run the country and said, now I'm going to go and pray that I can run it correctly, will kick him out straight away. Because if he's got to pray to somebody who he don't know he's praying to,

well, I know I'm going to lose millions of supporters by just talking like that, but religion is divisive. And you said, you know, you think you've only got a couple of years left. What's it like? It's like, well, what's it like? You want to do you want to keep doing things

but you can't now I've thought a way out of that see I've got well I'm not able I've got to watch

driving a car yeah I can do it but it's dodgy it's got to with me so I've brought myself a little scooter

it's in that room there it does about 10 mile on the charge it folds you up You've got to admit it. So I've brought myself a little scooter. It's in that room there. It does about 10 miles on the charge. It folds you up the size of that, and I just press a button and it unfolds. See? Away we go. Now I can drive that around to the bus stop,

put it on the bus, go to the railway station, go down to London, take it off, have a little ride to the bus stop, get on the bus, take it off, press the button, I could go anywhere. Yeah. No, I think we sort of, really, really, as I said before, I think if we could find a way, Richard, after you're about 86, 85, go to bed and don't wake up.

Well, I'm very glad that didn't happen to you. What one thing would you change about your life? I can't think of anything. If there's anything which I haven't had, which I've missed, is an education. I've missed an education. That's not because of the schoolmasters where I went to school, because they were very good. But I've never been taught, really, I've never been taught how to use a brain.

I've been taught when Trafalgar Day is, when Empire Day is, and what's the capital of India, and what's the capital of this, that, and the other, and what's the date of 1066, what does that mean? But that's put in my brain. I've never been taught really how to use that brain, and that's what I regret. I haven't had a good education I haven't held you back

Victor, Greg the new book is out at the moment, what's it called? Rhypham in the Frontline Life Going by everybody thank you very much and happy birthday Victor Oh yeah Going by everybody. Thank you very much and happy birthday, Victor. Oh, yeah.

I feel we have the history on our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. Thank you for making it through this episode of Dan Snow's History. I really appreciate listening to this podcast. I love doing these podcasts. It's a highlight of my career. It's the best thing I've ever done.

And your support, your listening is obviously crucial for that project. If you did feel like doing me a favour, if you go to wherever you get your podcasts and give it a review,

give it a rating, obviously a good one, ideally, then that would be fantastic and feel free to share it. We obviously depend on listeners, depend on more and more people finding out about it, depend on good reviews to keep the listeners coming in.

Really appreciate it. Thank you.