Obituary: Andy Masson, engineer and former prisoner of war

Andy Masson, engineer and former prisoner of war.

Born: 27 August, 1909, in Benholm, Kincardineshire.

Died: 27 July, 2011, in Stonehaven, aged 101.

AS A boy growing up in the shadow of the Great War, Andy Masson was no stranger to hardship. Winters were so tough that he and his sister had to sleep in a byre with the cows for warmth. The house was so cold a bucket of water spilled on the flagstones would freeze for an indoor slide.

As a young man he endured most of the Second World War in prisoner of war camps, was put to work by the Germans in an oil refinery and was then herded on a freezing death march.

That he lived to 101 is testament to his strength of character as much as his physical longevity.

Born in 1909, in the village of Benholm near Johnshaven, in the farmland of the Mearns, he attended Arbuthnott Primary before going on at nine to Kineff School, which he left aged 14. He worked for a few years and, when his father died, he was expected to take over running the farm.

However, young Masson had always been fascinated by the buses he saw from the fields and was more interested in them than in farming. At 16, he moved to Stonehaven and started an apprenticeship with Kincardineshire Motor Garage, which later became Alexanders. Around the age of 20 he began working with the firm in Aberdeen and went on to be promoted to engineering workshop superintendent.

He had just turned 30 when war broke out in 1939 and was called up to serve in the army, training in Aldershot before being sent to France. The following May, Germany invaded Belgium and, with his unit close to the border, he and his comrades were soon overwhelmed by enemy troops.

Hiding among trees to avoid shrapnel, of the 100 in his unit only a dozen survived. Of those 12, only Masson and two others managed to escape. Without a compass, they aimed to reach the coast using the sun as a guide. They were fortunate to be spotted by a farmer's wife who gave them civilian clothes, aiding their escape bid.

They spent several months on the run, living off berries, before being captured by a German officer who took them to a chateau and offered them tea. Although he treated them kindly - he had a good command of English, having once visited Britain to buy horses - the next day they were put on a cattle truck to Poland.

There, when his captors established that he was an engineer, Masson was sent to help build an oil refinery. He never saw his two companions again.

With Germany suffering a fuel shortage, synthetic oil plants were being built and large industrial complexes, like one at Blechhammer in Poland, were created and staffed by inmates of forced labour camps, which included British PoWs.

Masson worked on one oil refinery construction site for a couple of years, supplied with a harness for safety and a daily ration of turnip soup and black bread. He also received a weekly Red Cross food parcel - of soup, powdered milk, sardines and corned beef - which he would eke out over the ensuing seven days, unlike some of his fellow inmates who would devour it all almost immediately.

The morale of the men was very low and each night many would talk despairingly but Masson always attempted to remain positive, telling them the Germans would never win the war.

The area was being subjected to constant bombardment, all day by the Americans and at night by the RAF, leaving Masson with permanently damaged hearing as a result.

In the cruel winter of 1944-45, when the Russians advanced on Poland, he was among the thousands of PoWs forced to march westwards in unimaginable misery. In the depths of winter, he trudged ten miles a day. Any prisoner who fell by the wayside froze to death within minutes. The bodies of those who died in the night were loaded onto a four-wheeled cart the next morning.

Nonetheless, the sound of gunfire in the distance was "music to their ears" as they knew they were ever closer to reaching British and American lines.

They were eventually liberated by the Americans, who gave the Germans the option of throwing down their rifles or handing over the British prisoners. Finally a free man again, Masson immediately plunged back into warfare. When the American commander reportedly asked for volunteers to fight, in order to give his men a break, the former PoW stepped forward and apparently ended up in the US ranks for several weeks.

He was later flown back to Britain, arriving in Luton from Brussels in an American Dakota. From there he caught a train to King's Cross and then on to Aberdeen, but his journey home was marred by the news that his mother, whose one wish was to see her son again, had died of cancer just weeks before his return, unaware he had survived.

Masson's life resumed much as it had been before war intervened and he returned to Stonehaven and his former job. However, it wasn't long before he was in charge of 14 depots, with responsibility for up to 700 buses from Dundee to Inverness.

In 1948, he married Eileen Marjorie Brown, and they had one son, Thomas. He was widowed just four years after retiring in 1974. He continued working, in a part-time job with Caronhall Engineering in Stonehaven, until he was 75.

A member of the town's Rifle and Vintage Car Clubs for 20 years, latterly serving as a senior judge, he continued to live in his own home, growing his own fruit and vegetables and making his own jam, until he was in his 90s. At the age of 97, he moved into a care home and celebrated his 100th birthday last year with a meal at a local restaurant for family and friends.A quiet, friendly man, who never had a bad word to say about his German captors who, he maintained, were just doing their jobs, he remained contented and quietly satisfied with his life.

He is survived by his son Thomas, daughter-in-law Shirley and granddaughters Sarah and Jennifer.