“The next day was a Sunday, bright enough with the breath of Spring. In all Europe at that time, there was a hope in the air – the war must end soon. For a Sunday it was quiet. I wondered what was wrong - of course, no church bells. Yet today, of all Sundays, there was surely more reason than ever to invoke the protection of the Almighty. Nature carried on, but men and women took cover, wondering who would die and whose house would be destroyed before nightfall.

The front windows of the Schloss were crowded with spectators from early dawn, both in the Allied and the German buildings. From there was a splendid view high across the town and clear to the woods two miles away at the top of the rising ground from the river below us. It was all open and slightly rolling country. The village of Hohnback lay between Colditz and the forest. A few hollow tracks led out from both town and village and across the landscape in all directions, some of them lined with bushes or small trees. Generally speaking, there was very little cover apart from these tracks for the whole distance between the town and the horizon woods, except for folds in the ground.

Upstream from the town, the river ran between cliffs about sixty feet high. That way, on the other bank, was the china clay works, where a few machine-gun posts were established. The local Kreisleiter with his Home Guard was in the Hainbach valley this side of the river with three 3-inch guns.

A little after 9am five American tanks came out of the woods to the west and advanced on Hohnbach. They set fire to a couple of houses without reply. One tank moved forward and then out of sight to the south. Suddenly a shell hit our guardroom close to the main gate. The castle made a good target, standing high on the skyline and dominating all the surrounding buildings and countryside. The American gunner lifted his sights and moved along the building. Crash! – he hit Wing Commander Bader’s window, on the third floor of he Saalhaus, where it overlooked the German yard. No one killed yet. The room was empty.

The next shot skimmed the north-west corner of he castle, crashing over the pagoda and through he tree branches. Then a couple of high ones – one short and one over. He had us now!

As the lower walls of the Schloss were proof against 2-inch shells, the next thing was that a 6-inch howitzer came into action. All of us, prisoners (were they still prisoners?) and Germans descended from the upper floors. Broken fire from the howitzer continued throughout the morning, and one of our sergeants was killed near the bridge outside the castle. Two shots hit the Kommandantur building, but that was all the damage we suffered.

In the afternoon, finding little resistance from the town itself, the Americans shifted their attack north to the kaolin works and after some resistance got over the river by the railway bridge. An attempt was made by our own troops to destroy the town bridge over the river below the castle, but although over a dozen shots were fired at thirty yards’ range with a bazooka, less than half the central support was destroyed. They tried to blow it later, but the charge was too small.

The Allied officers and men in the castle spent most of the time on the ground floor or in the cellars, where it was safer. If the Americans had set fire to the place, they were all going to move out down into the park below the eastern front, where they would find some shelter.

During the night the Americans came round into the town from the north, working downstream against stiffer resistance, but by the morning of the 16th there was no further firing from our side. A mortar battery fired spasmodically in the direction of the town and over it, perhaps so that we should keep our heads down while the infantry filtered forward. White flags appeared from various windows in the town, and in due course one or two civilians went over the bridge and told the Americans that there were no more German troops about.”