Barbed-Wire Blues: A Blinded Musician's Memoir of Wartime Captivity 1940–1943

Bernard Harris

Mei 2021 · Pen and Sword Military

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“Quite uplifting . . . This book looks less at the usual escape attempts but concentrates on lifting people of the camp through entertainment.” —UK Historian

As the author, a young Army bandsman lies wounded at the Battle of Corinth, he is shot between the eyes at point blank range. Miraculously he survives but is blinded. In a makeshift hospital a young Greek volunteer saves his life with slices of boiled egg. Captured Allied medics later restore the sight in one eye.

In this moving and entertaining memoir Bernard describes daily life in POW camps in Greece and Germany. He established a theatrical group and an orchestra that performed for fellow POWs and their German guards. A superb raconteur, as well as a gifted musician, the author’s anecdotes are memorably amusing. Bernard was repatriated via Sweden in late 1943.

While blinded in one eye and seriously wounded, the author was told by his New Zealand doctor, fellow POW and musician John Borrie, “When nothing else will do, music will always lift one up.” Barbed-Wire Blues’ inspirational, ever optimistic tone will surely have the same effect on its readers.

“While not a story of blood, guts and bullets it does do a very good job of telling the story of a man’s recovery from a wound that should have killed him until his repatriation and the return of the use of his arm, and then the return of the sight to one eye. This book is worth taking the time to read, as it can be considered to be the story of one man’s battle against adversity.” —Armorama

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Bernard Harris was born in Herefordshire in 1917. He left school at 14. With a deep love of music, he paid for his own organ lessons, worked as an organist, and joined a Concert Party as a pianist. Bernard joined the British Army as a bandsman and was posted to Greece. Captured at the Battle of Corinth 1940, blinded and badly wounded, he was a POW until being repatriated in 1943. He was awarded the Military Medal. Post-war Bernard became a successful composer and musical director. His film credits included, appropriately, Adolph Hitler - My Part in his Downfall and Dad’s Army. He married Marie in 1940 and they had two daughters. After Marie died unexpectedly in 1974, Bernard re-married. He died in West Clandon, Surrey in 1990.