Pedro's adventurous life

Pedro de Treend says life should be an adventure.
At 90 years old, this plucky war veteran still enjoys getting out every day for coffee at a Hastings cafe, and the odd sky dive. His latest jump was merely two weeks ago. "It's not as exciting when people aren't shooting at you," he jokes.
Pedro fought in the Spanish Civil War and World War II for the British paratroopers, French Foreign Legion, British Armoured Division and finished his time in New Zealand's Japanese Occupational Force.
Friends have convinced him to finally write his memoirs and he shared one of his final war-time "adventures" with Hawke's Bay Today.
Although, after the Spanish war where he was involved in some of the bloodiest battles and taken prisoner, Pedro didn't have much time for friends.
"I never kept in touch with people after I had left a place because of the kind of life I wanted," he says. "I had no close friends among the groups, because over the years I had lost so many mates that I never got close to anyone."
 When Allied Forces crossed the Rhine into Germany in 1945, it seemed the war would soon be at an end and Pedro's war-time experience was winding down.
Aged 25 at the time, Pedro was serving in the British paratroopers but acting as tank driver for the Royal Armoured Corps. His tank was on recon duty, heading in front of the advancing Allied army to locate enemies and report their strength to regiment headquarters.
Entering a small town on an early morning Pedro remembers how quiet the day was.
"We advanced very slowly, staying close to the side of the road.
"Everything was silent, not a sound disturbed the peace of the morning apart from the squeak of our tracks and the throb of the engine. Pulling into a corner we stopped to allow the next tank to advance."
All of a sudden the crew saw the other tank take a hit. None of the crew emerged.
Pedro believes the shell came from a panzerfaust rocket-launcher - a shoulder held anti-tank weapon.
 Before they could move there was a loud blast behind Pedro and his lap-gunner, who he only remembers as Jack. "The tank shook and I was completely deafened by the loud explosion and hardly had I shook my head than another one hit us, also in the turret."
The interior of the tank was filled with choking smoke and Pedro's only thoughts were on the whereabouts of his commander and gunner.
Pedro and Jack managed to escape the burning wreckage with the commander slung over their shoulders. "I could hear bullets zipping past us and as I staggered across the road."
Still dazed and deaf from the explosions, Pedro and Jack were taken prisoner by the German soldiers and marched down the road.
The pair were taken to a farm house and placed in front of a German officer for interrogation. "He told us that he was there to ask us some questions and continued by saying no doubt we have heard that they torture prisoners to obtain information.
"He paused long enough for us to think he might say that it was right. For some strange reason I am adverse to having my fingernails pulled out."
Leaving the prisoners the officer went and opened a double door and there inside a huge room was a colonel playing a grand piano. Accompanying him were two young women - one sprawled across the piano, the other stood behind.
The colonel shared a glass of schnapps with the prisoners, raising a glass and saying; "a toast to a rival not an enemy".
"I couldn't help thinking this could be a set for a Hollywood movie, it seemed so unreal," Pedro says. "He wished us good luck and returned to his ladies."
Shortly after, Allied gunners began shelling the area and the two prisoners were taken on the road with retreating German troops. That night they were kept in a cold barn and not one to have his spirits downed, Pedro hatched what he thought was a cunning plan.
He placed dirt in the fuel tank of a German staff car, not realising it was the one he and Jack would be travelling in the next day. The car spluttered and stopped just in time for it to be strafed by US planes.
"Their cannons where firing straight along the road and shredded the car as well as setting it on fire."
They were picked up by an army truck and after two days the pair were joined by several other POWs.
The group was told they would be heading to a stalag (prison camp) and were marched through Germany. Passing through towns the prisoners were spat on, beaten by locals, jostled by Hitler youth troops and had their faces cut by rocks thrown at them.
After about five weeks travelling the group arrived at their destination - a Nazi concentration camp.
"Because all the stalags had been cut off by the Russian advance so we had to be held somewhere," Pedro says. "Thank goodness we knew very little about the concentration camps at that time. All the horror stories came out after the war."
The group of POWs were treated mercilessly and fed raw turnips and potatoes, suffering sleep deprivation from late night roll calls and kept in a turn hut, no wider than a corridor.
But Pedro believes this fate was better than their civilian counterparts in the rest of the camp.
"Our neighbours were like skeletons they were obviously being starved to death.
"One of them came to our wire and called out to us when - bang - a shot rang out and he dropped flat on the ground one hand still holding the wire. That time he was just left there for a few hours until he was dragged away.
"That seemed to be happening quite regularly, everyday some unfortunate prisoner would be shot for no particular reason."
As the Allied Forces advanced through Germany conditions in the camp became worse with systematic executions of large numbers of prisoners. "We were praying that our people would arrive soon because the guards kept saying to us, 'krieg kaput, gefangerner kaput', then they would draw their finger across their throats. "They were saying 'if the war is finished so are you', implying that we would be done away with rather than be liberated."
After several weeks, the prisoners could hear shelling and fighting coming closer to the camp and executions escalated.
Then British tanks came "roaring" through the camp's gates, followed by jeeps and medical staff. "Ambulances were coming in one after the other taking away the emaciated prisoners."
Pedro and the rest of the group had to stay in the camp and be observed for another four days to slowly increase their diets. Having been starved for so long, their bodies would have reacted badly to normal food consumption.
"As we drove slowly along the length of the camp past areas we had never seen we came across a scene we will never forget," Pedro says.
"Behind a stone building was a long line of dead bodies piled up on top of each other three deep. They looked like skeletons except for the fact they still had skin. How lucky we were to get away, it was truly a death camp."
Despite the horror and shame of his ordeal, Pedro remained upbeat and asked to join the armed forces again.
He went to Palestine for a short time before joining New Zealand's J-Force.
After returning from Japan, Pedro moved to Samoa where he began teaching. He has been married twice and has one son, having spent more than 30 years teaching at Hastings Boys' High School.
Pedro's life became a bit less action-packed after moving to the Bay, throwing himself into his new career. "There wasn't time for much else, there were always class plans to do and other things - I guess I had the knack for teaching."
Despite the harsh reality of his warfare, Pedro still maintains his upbeat attitude about the world to this day. "I never looked on the dark side of things. You've got to be bold, life is an adventure."