The Habitual Escaper - Smokey Hibbens

Sgt Vivian Joseph HIBBENS (Smoky) RAAF SN: 400712

The Habitual Escaper

Vivian Joseph Hibbens was born in Bemboka NSW on 16^th January 1922. His parents were Herbert Ernest Mingus Hibbens and Ethel Cecilia (nee: Pritchard). He had one younger sister, Norma Pearl.

In 1938 he was given a 17 hands high race horse which could no longer race. He promptly went out and enlisted in the 8^th Light Horse - telling a white lie about his age to be eligible - being rather patriotic he chose the 26^th January 1917 as his birth date.

He enlisted with the Royal Australian Air Force on 13^th October 1940 in Melbourne. At the time he was employed as a Bank Officer with the Commonwealth Bank.

After his initial air training under the Empire Air Training Scheme at 5 Elementary Flying Training School at Narromine NSW - he was shipped to

V.J.Hibbens - 8th Light Horse

Canada where he gained his wings at Camp Borden Ontario. He then sailed to the UK and undertook Spitfire Training at Hawarden Wales and was  attached to the 234 Squadron at Ibsley in Hampshire. After gaining his endorsement on Spitfires – he flew a few volunteer night sorties over France. Whilst here, his mother sent him a Koala mascot - whom he named ‘Anzac’.

In April 1942 he was posted to service in the Middle-East to fly Spitfires with the 145 Squadron RAF, travelling via Sierra Leone. After completing only eight operational sorties with his squadron, he was detailed to transport a Hawker Hurricane fighter to 33 Squadron RAF, at Landing Ground 154 near Alexandria during the First Battle of El Alamein, on 18 July 1942. He encountered a sandstorm, turned to the east to avoid it, and was then blown off course by wind and attacked by 13 German Me109 fighter aircraft. His aircraft was badly damaged and running out of fuel when he crashed close to German tanks near the El Alamein front line - but not before he shot down two of the  German fighters. His only injury was a bayonet wound to his right arm, sustained from an over jealous German. 

Koala Mascot - "ANZAC"

He took his mascot Anzac with him as he left the aircraft. He was taken via the usual route via Mersa Matruh on the coast for interrogation, then to Dulag Luft at Frankfurt in cells for a week before being transported to the largest POW camp the Germans had - Stalag 8B at Lamsdorf Poland.  This was the only POW Camp in WWII where all the Australian Airmen were housed together in three barracks. There were 84 of them. He became POW No. 25096.

Being a country boy, he found the life in the POW camp boring as an RAAF Officer. The captured allied airmen were not permitted to go out on the working parties as the Germans accorded them the same respect as they did their Luftwaffe - whom they considered the elite of their forces. They were not for trivial manual labour. He was delighted when he was appointed the ‘Camp Librarian’ – only to discover that the books rarely came back. Those that did had most of the pages torn out by the borrowers to be used as toilet paper. Apparently the newly arrived in camp were given this dubious position as a bit of a joke. He also earned the nick name of Smoky - for his battering with cigarettes for food - this name stayed with him for the rest of his life.

When the British and the Germans agree to repatriate and swap sick and wounded POWs – Anzac was smuggled to a man being sent back to England with the message that “the owner is alive and well in Stalag 8B - send this message to his mother”. Unfortunately the POW could not remember who owned Anzac - except that it belonged to an RAAF man. Anzac was placed behind Reception at RAAF House in London. One day someone who knew him recognised the Koala . . . “That is Viv Hibbens’ Koala”. Anzac was reunited with his owner at the end of the war.

He attempted several escapes from within the confines of the camp – all were quickly thwarted. He would do his time in ‘the hole’ and then would try again. Realising that this was all futile - he then signed up to become part of the ‘Swap-Over’ group.

During an interview with Ron Wall in late December 2007 (also a RAAF POW in Stalag 8B) he is quoted as saying when asked if he remembered him “Oh yes. He was a quiet man. But he was never there – he was always out escaping. He would get caught and brought back and then he would turn right around and do it again. We got used to not seeing him.”

First, he became Private Stanley Francis Weir from the New Zealand Army (POW No. 5239). He apparently made 6 unsuccessful bids of escape during this time from the working party at  the Tichlau paper factory – but none of them were documented. Later, from 15^th September 1944 as Private Douglas William Simpson (POW No. 8033) from the Australian 2/2 Battalion, he made three unsuccessful bids for freedom.

First attempt was on the 12^th November 1944 – he broke out of camp and joined a working Commando at Oberglau (a beet factory 40 kms south of POW camp), 16 kilometres west of the Oder. He attempted to cross the Oder to join the Russians. He was free for 13 days, getting food from farmers and picking up some on the wayside. He was eventually picked up by the German S.S. Front Line Patrol, and sent back to the working party.

His second attempt was on 16^th December 1944 where he again broke away from the Working Party near the town of Frapatz, was on the run for 10 days – once again being picked up and returned to the Working Party.

Again on January 3^rd 1945 near Frapatz he escaped again and was on the run for 9 days until being picked up and returned to the Working Party.

When the orders came through to March out the Prisoners from Stalag 8B on 22^nd January 1945 - he was still with the working party. The real Private Simpson, who was still acting as Sgt Hibbens, decided marching off in the cold was not a good option - so he went back to the Army enclosure and was later taken out by cattle car.

He was returned to Stalag 8B and later taken out by cattle car down through Czechoslovakia. However, he was off loaded at near Teresenstadt Czechoslovakia just NE of Prague and here he witnessed the evacuation of the remaining 173 allied POWs from the Terezen Fortress who were in such an appalling condition that they could not walk let alone march - so they were placed in the cattle cars for transportation. These men were escaped POWs who had the misfortune to be re-captured in Czechoslovakia. They were tried before a civilian German court, stripped of their uniforms and placed in the striped pyjamas of the Jewish POWs and committed to the hell hole of the Terezen Fortress where they were either worked to death or brutally murdered by their captors for sport. Both the British, Australian and New Zealand Governments denied that any servicemen had been treated in this way. It was totally against the Geneva Convention. It was not until 1987 that the Australian and New Zealand Prime Ministers finally acknowledged these men and the dreadful travesty that had happened to them.

His final and successful bid for freedom was on the Death March on 11th April 1945. Some of the other POWs on the Death March who had also escaped, were picked up by the Czech Partisans. They asked the Partisans to go out and find him. He was found huddled under a bush where he had been sleeping and he was taken to a small town called Kdyne in the SE of Czechoslovakia where he was hidden in the basement of a Delicatessen shop. This tiny town had hidden around 400 escaped POWs - which was incredibly brave, since if any had been discovered by the Germans - whole families would have been shot. When he heard that the Americans were on their way - he headed off to meet them on the 4^th May to join up with the 9^th Infantry Regiment of General Patton’s Army.

Czechoslovakia 1945

In a letter written from Kdyne on 7^th May 1945 - he talked about playing cards with an escaped Canadian and two Czech girls . . .  “none of us can speak the other’s language - but we are managing to have fun. The whole town is draped in decorations and flags and flowers adorn the US Army tanks and Jeeps”. The Americans kept him with them to act as Interpreter to the M.63 Signals Air Corps. He went with them into Prague and then on to Berlin. In mid-May they endeavoured to send him home - but not before he kept his promise to his mother that at the end of the war he would “see the sites of Europe”. He went on to Belgium and then Paris and eventually was repatriated back to England in mid-June 1945. He was the last man home of the RAAF POWs in Stalag 8B.

Smoky was a staunch RSL man all his life, leading the local Marches on Anzac Day and Memorial Day each year. He became a member of the Odd Bods UK - NSW Branch until his untimely death at the age of 50 in 1972 from a heart condition which his doctors believed was a result of his time as a POW and the Death March.

Anzac’s flying days did not end with the war. Smoky’s daughter, Jennifer, took him with her during her flying training in the late 60s and early 70s. Sadly, by that stage he had no fur left and had been sewn up after having been ‘examinated’ by the Germans. He is now housed at the Australian War Memorial along with hundreds of letters and other war memorabilia which his mother had diligently saved.

Smokey receives his wings.

Middle East with "ANZAC" 1942.