Bert Pooley in the Media
After the war, Bert Pooley was featured quite regularly in both the national and local newspapers. A number of these cuttings have survived and the details below are taken from cuttings from the private collection of Jeannette and Greg Hawkes. More cuttings can also be viewed by visiting our Media section by clicking here.
Writing in the Hayes Gazette of February 19th,1982, reporter Martin Geary reported on Bert's death under the headline "Last Post for an Old Campaigner." The openig paragraph seems to sum up Bert's strength of character:
"Brave Albert Pooley's battling days have come to an end, almost 42 years after German bullets should have knocked the fight out of him for ever."
The article tells us that "He (Bert) battled to convince the British authorities that the massacre had actually happened, then toured dozens of prison camps around Europe with the single-minded mission of finding the SS officer responsible."
"In the years before his death the old soldier fought a constant battle against the mental and physical pain stemming from that day of savagery."
The article states that Bert had to withstand 47 operations and live with the memories of seeing most of his friends murdered.
Wife Connie talks of her husband in the following terms:
"He was a wonderful character. He was a fighter but never complained about the pain he was in. I never thought he would survive to see 60, let alone 70, but he was that sort of man."
The article gives us an additional insight into Bert's younger life informing us that Connie and Albert grew up alongside each other in Woodlands Road, Southall, and got engaged in 1939, before he went off to fight in France. They married in March 1940, just a few months before Connie was told that her husband was "missing in action." Of course at that time nobody knew what had really happened.
In our interview for this site with Bert's daughter Jeannette Hawkes we are told that Connie saw a changed man returning from the war and this is borne out in the article:
"I thought what a changed man he was, just skin and bones. When he went out to France he had been a burly six footer," Connie said shortly after being re-united with her husband in Roehampton Hospital.
After the war Bert collected bullets, cartridges and tattered pieces of uniform from the massacre scene all designed to prove the massacre took place.
Connie Pooley goes on to say: "The war finished him physically - he never really recovered from the injuries he received that day."
"Brave Albert Pooley's battling days have come to an end, almost 42 years after German bullets should have knocked the fight out of him for ever."
The article tells us that "He (Bert) battled to convince the British authorities that the massacre had actually happened, then toured dozens of prison camps around Europe with the single-minded mission of finding the SS officer responsible."
"In the years before his death the old soldier fought a constant battle against the mental and physical pain stemming from that day of savagery."
The article states that Bert had to withstand 47 operations and live with the memories of seeing most of his friends murdered.
Wife Connie talks of her husband in the following terms:
"He was a wonderful character. He was a fighter but never complained about the pain he was in. I never thought he would survive to see 60, let alone 70, but he was that sort of man."
The article gives us an additional insight into Bert's younger life informing us that Connie and Albert grew up alongside each other in Woodlands Road, Southall, and got engaged in 1939, before he went off to fight in France. They married in March 1940, just a few months before Connie was told that her husband was "missing in action." Of course at that time nobody knew what had really happened.
In our interview for this site with Bert's daughter Jeannette Hawkes we are told that Connie saw a changed man returning from the war and this is borne out in the article:
"I thought what a changed man he was, just skin and bones. When he went out to France he had been a burly six footer," Connie said shortly after being re-united with her husband in Roehampton Hospital.
After the war Bert collected bullets, cartridges and tattered pieces of uniform from the massacre scene all designed to prove the massacre took place.
Connie Pooley goes on to say: "The war finished him physically - he never really recovered from the injuries he received that day."
The Hayes Chronicle of December 10th, 1955 reports on the writing of the book "The Vengeance of Private Pooley" by Norfolk author Cyril Jolly and talks about Bert's fight to be believed in the following words:
"The determination of a Hayes Post Office sorter to prove to himself that he was sane and had not dreamed one of the worst atrocities of the last war, led to the trial and execution of a Nazi SS major and the writing of a book to be published in January."
On returning to England Bert Pooley's account of the massacre wasn't believed:
"Arriving back in this country, Pooley told the Intelligence Service what had happened. The authorities refused to believe him.
"By 1946, Mr Pooley had saved enough money to take a holiday from Hayes Post Office and revisit Le Paradis and meet the people who had helped him during those ten days after the massacre. He re-visited the mass grave where 67 of his comrades lay buried, tin helmets hanging from the wooden crosses.
"While he was there he told the story to the local police, who passed it on to the French Military Intelligence, who in turn passed it on to the British War Office.
"Now Mr Pooley is back at his job in Hayes Post Office, satisfied that the world will know how his 67 friends died, the defenceless victims of a Nazi butcher.
"Few of his friends or workmates know of his experiences and he is keeping the story from his two daughters, 11-year-old Pat and nine-year-old Jeannette until they are old enough to understand."
"The determination of a Hayes Post Office sorter to prove to himself that he was sane and had not dreamed one of the worst atrocities of the last war, led to the trial and execution of a Nazi SS major and the writing of a book to be published in January."
On returning to England Bert Pooley's account of the massacre wasn't believed:
"Arriving back in this country, Pooley told the Intelligence Service what had happened. The authorities refused to believe him.
"By 1946, Mr Pooley had saved enough money to take a holiday from Hayes Post Office and revisit Le Paradis and meet the people who had helped him during those ten days after the massacre. He re-visited the mass grave where 67 of his comrades lay buried, tin helmets hanging from the wooden crosses.
"While he was there he told the story to the local police, who passed it on to the French Military Intelligence, who in turn passed it on to the British War Office.
"Now Mr Pooley is back at his job in Hayes Post Office, satisfied that the world will know how his 67 friends died, the defenceless victims of a Nazi butcher.
"Few of his friends or workmates know of his experiences and he is keeping the story from his two daughters, 11-year-old Pat and nine-year-old Jeannette until they are old enough to understand."
The Eastern Daily Press newspaper of Monday April 27th, 1964, reported that Bert Pooley had "lost his second great fight."
"He has finally been compelled to agree to the amputation of the leg that was smashed by six machine-gun bullets in the small farmyard paddock at Le Paradis," the paper reported.
The report goes on to say that Private Pooley refused to allow German surgeons to amputate his leg:
"This time it was British surgeons who tried to persuade him to have his leg off. Still he refused and he aggravated the damage to the leg during his search for evidence against the SS Colonel who gave the massacre order..... In all Mr Pooley has had ten operations on his leg but he has now had to accept the surgeon's verdict that it must be amputated."
"He has finally been compelled to agree to the amputation of the leg that was smashed by six machine-gun bullets in the small farmyard paddock at Le Paradis," the paper reported.
The report goes on to say that Private Pooley refused to allow German surgeons to amputate his leg:
"This time it was British surgeons who tried to persuade him to have his leg off. Still he refused and he aggravated the damage to the leg during his search for evidence against the SS Colonel who gave the massacre order..... In all Mr Pooley has had ten operations on his leg but he has now had to accept the surgeon's verdict that it must be amputated."
SLAUGHTER AT THE BARN - (Eastern Evening News Wednesday March 27 1985) By James Ruddy
The massacre of Le Paradis still burns in the minds of many of Norwich and Norfolk’s war veterans.
Almost 100 Royal Norfolks were mown down after surrendering to the German SS on the withdrawal to Dunkirk in 1940.
Two badly wounded survivors helped to bring the officer behind the atrocity to the gallows.
Both are now dead. But they and the massacre victims will be remembered shortly when members of the Dunkirk Veterans Association leave Norwich for their annual Pilgrimage to the scene.
The black and white print will be presented to the local French mayor as a poignant reminder of a wartime episode recalled today by the EEN.
* * *
CAPTURED British soldiers, some clearly wounded, are marched at gunpoint by German SS troops past a damage barn on a sunny French day.
Shortly afterwards, their bodies lie under the same blistering sun, riddled by the bitter hail of machine gun fire.
The pictures on this page bear witness to the wartime atrocity which stole so many of Norfolk’s sons, Le Paradis.
The graphic study of the Royal Norfolks being marched off at gunpoint was taken by a young SS soldier and came to light a few years ago.
But the blurred snapshot of the barn and the bodies, which can just be seen in the middle ground, adds an even more tangible reality to the tortuous memory of the massacre story.
UNCLEAR
It has never been published before and its origin is unclear. What is certain, however, is that the French man or woman who took it faced violent retribution from the conquering Nazis if found out. That may explain the poor quality, a result of the likely haste in which the scene was photographed.
The picture has arrived in Norfolk via the High Wycombe branch of the Dunkirk Veterans’ Association, where Bert Pooley, one to the two Le Paradis survivors, was a member.
It has been sent to the association’s Norfolk branch secretary, Stan Baines, of Eastern Road Thorpe, after being sent some time ago to Mr. Pooley from an unknown correspondent in France.
Both branches are currently organising this year’s pilgrimage, at which the picture will be presented to a French civic party in a ceremony at the massacre memorial site. It will be attended by Connie, the wife of Mr. Pooley, and also Dennis, the son of the other survivor, Bill O’Callaghan, from Dereham.
As a commemorative symbol, the picture is priceless. It’s value as a record is underlined, however, by the courage of the photographer.
“The SS were in the village for a day or so afterwards so the picture would have been taken surreptitiously” said Dunkirk veteran Bill Priest, a retired teacher.
Mr. Priest of Beach Road, Gorleston suspects it was the work of the same French photographer who went on to take pictures of local people tending the graves of the Norfolks.
It was certainly taken in contrasting circumstances to the picture of the prisoners being marched to their deaths – a study now in Mr. Priest’s possession, and the work of a 17-year-old SS soldier, Herbert Brunnegger.
Now a successful hotelier, Herr Brunnegger is now in regular contact with Mr. Priest, whom he has told of the revulsion of other German troops on learning of the atrocity.
Herr Brunnegger, who says he left the scene before the shootings, has also told of the general assumption that the man responsible, Capt. Fritz Knoechlein, would be court martialled.
Yet retribution was not to come until 1949, when Knoechlein, the beast of the SS “Totenkopf” death’s head unit, was hanged for his ghastly crime – and then only because of the tenacity of the two Royal Norfolk survivors in pressing their case.
The horror of the atrocity, mirrored in these pictures, is amplified in the book, “The Vengeance of Private Pooley” by Cyril Jolly. Private Pooley told how the machine guns began to spit fire and disbelief overwhelmed him.
“For a few seconds the cries and shrieks of our stricken men drowned the cracking of the guns. Men fell like grass before a scythe. The invisible blade came nearer and then swept through me.
“I felt a searing pain in my leg and wrist and pitched forward engulfed in a red world of tearing agony. My scream of pain mingled with the cries of my mates, but even as I fell forward into a heap of dying men, the thought stabbed my brain. ‘If I ever get out of here the swine who did this will pay for it’”
Editor's Note
The day following the massacre an SS war correspondent and a Totenkopf legal advisor visited the scene and photographs were also recorded as taken.
The massacre of Le Paradis still burns in the minds of many of Norwich and Norfolk’s war veterans.
Almost 100 Royal Norfolks were mown down after surrendering to the German SS on the withdrawal to Dunkirk in 1940.
Two badly wounded survivors helped to bring the officer behind the atrocity to the gallows.
Both are now dead. But they and the massacre victims will be remembered shortly when members of the Dunkirk Veterans Association leave Norwich for their annual Pilgrimage to the scene.
The black and white print will be presented to the local French mayor as a poignant reminder of a wartime episode recalled today by the EEN.
* * *
CAPTURED British soldiers, some clearly wounded, are marched at gunpoint by German SS troops past a damage barn on a sunny French day.
Shortly afterwards, their bodies lie under the same blistering sun, riddled by the bitter hail of machine gun fire.
The pictures on this page bear witness to the wartime atrocity which stole so many of Norfolk’s sons, Le Paradis.
The graphic study of the Royal Norfolks being marched off at gunpoint was taken by a young SS soldier and came to light a few years ago.
But the blurred snapshot of the barn and the bodies, which can just be seen in the middle ground, adds an even more tangible reality to the tortuous memory of the massacre story.
UNCLEAR
It has never been published before and its origin is unclear. What is certain, however, is that the French man or woman who took it faced violent retribution from the conquering Nazis if found out. That may explain the poor quality, a result of the likely haste in which the scene was photographed.
The picture has arrived in Norfolk via the High Wycombe branch of the Dunkirk Veterans’ Association, where Bert Pooley, one to the two Le Paradis survivors, was a member.
It has been sent to the association’s Norfolk branch secretary, Stan Baines, of Eastern Road Thorpe, after being sent some time ago to Mr. Pooley from an unknown correspondent in France.
Both branches are currently organising this year’s pilgrimage, at which the picture will be presented to a French civic party in a ceremony at the massacre memorial site. It will be attended by Connie, the wife of Mr. Pooley, and also Dennis, the son of the other survivor, Bill O’Callaghan, from Dereham.
As a commemorative symbol, the picture is priceless. It’s value as a record is underlined, however, by the courage of the photographer.
“The SS were in the village for a day or so afterwards so the picture would have been taken surreptitiously” said Dunkirk veteran Bill Priest, a retired teacher.
Mr. Priest of Beach Road, Gorleston suspects it was the work of the same French photographer who went on to take pictures of local people tending the graves of the Norfolks.
It was certainly taken in contrasting circumstances to the picture of the prisoners being marched to their deaths – a study now in Mr. Priest’s possession, and the work of a 17-year-old SS soldier, Herbert Brunnegger.
Now a successful hotelier, Herr Brunnegger is now in regular contact with Mr. Priest, whom he has told of the revulsion of other German troops on learning of the atrocity.
Herr Brunnegger, who says he left the scene before the shootings, has also told of the general assumption that the man responsible, Capt. Fritz Knoechlein, would be court martialled.
Yet retribution was not to come until 1949, when Knoechlein, the beast of the SS “Totenkopf” death’s head unit, was hanged for his ghastly crime – and then only because of the tenacity of the two Royal Norfolk survivors in pressing their case.
The horror of the atrocity, mirrored in these pictures, is amplified in the book, “The Vengeance of Private Pooley” by Cyril Jolly. Private Pooley told how the machine guns began to spit fire and disbelief overwhelmed him.
“For a few seconds the cries and shrieks of our stricken men drowned the cracking of the guns. Men fell like grass before a scythe. The invisible blade came nearer and then swept through me.
“I felt a searing pain in my leg and wrist and pitched forward engulfed in a red world of tearing agony. My scream of pain mingled with the cries of my mates, but even as I fell forward into a heap of dying men, the thought stabbed my brain. ‘If I ever get out of here the swine who did this will pay for it’”
Editor's Note
The day following the massacre an SS war correspondent and a Totenkopf legal advisor visited the scene and photographs were also recorded as taken.