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Remembered Today:

German PoWs, Swindon; SMS Mainz


Owen D

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What happened here, Moonraker??

Your post doesn't exist??

Dunno, Owen. I composed a message, included the scan, previewed and posted. If there's a gremlin around it's sure to find its way to me (if I didn't conceive the little b****** in the first place). Just had an email from a reliable guy saying that an email I had sent him six months ago had only just turned up in his inbox- but the fault was with his email account. Anyway, what I tried to post was this, more or less:

Very pleased to have won this postcard on eBay; on its back is written "In remembrance of the days spent happily together Joe Hopsdorf Swindon Mai 1918". Postcards of PoWs in the UK are hard to come by, unless, apparently, they were at Dorchester or Frimley Heath.

Two of the men's caps bear the title "SMS Mainz", sunk very early in the war (thanks to the Forum for info on this); I can't make out what's on the cap of the guy seated front left: "......klische Marin."??

The vendor, a well-informed guy who offers to do research at TNA, reckons the guards are wearing the cap-badges of the General Reserve, but the badges of the two standing men are different to those of the three seated in the centre of the middle row; the former's uniforms are lighter as well.

I reckon that the PoWs came from Chisledon Camp, a few miles outside Swindon. (In the Great War many PoW camps were sited at army camps and airfields - certainly in Wiltshire.)

The Germans look under-nourished but by mid-1918 food rationing was quite severe; further south in Wiltshire PoWs were slipping out of camp at night to steal sheep for food.

I tried blow-ups of the cap-badges but without much success.

Any informed comments on the card would be welcome.

Moonraker

post-6017-1174758370.jpg

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Pictures of German PoWs are hard to come by in the UK but turn up fairly often on e-bay. I have picked up a couple this year out of interest (Stobs and Catterick) and not bid on many more. The problem with e-bay is the difficulty in searching it.

In common with Germany many army camps were used as PoW camps as they clearly were of no use to the army at the time with all the troops being elsewhere, I am not sure that any airfields were used as such. Airfields were relatively new during WW1. I have looked briefly through the list of WW1 PoW camps in Wiltshire and did not find any though it was not a thorough search. There may have been some employed in making the airfields as they were in Germany though I have not even heard of that.

As for food, the prisoners would have recieved the same rations as the guards. This was enshrined in the Hague convention and by and large Britain stuck to it on the basis that it was difficult to complain about the treatment of your own troops in captivity if you were not playing by the rules. Reports from German PoWs are difficult to come by but those that I do have do not complain about the food and indeed make the point that it is one of those things that could not be complained of. There were however isolated incidents such as the riot at Douglas in 1914 in which 5 died. Overcrowding and the poor quality of the food in which weevils were found was the stated cause.

Prisoners stealing sheep sounds like a good excuse for farmers for compo from the goverment. Sneaking out the camp would be difficult, butchering a sheep and sneaking back in with it would be even harder.

Doug

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... In common with Germany many army camps were used as PoW camps as they clearly were of no use to the army at the time with all the troops being elsewhere, I am not sure that any airfields were used as such. Airfields were relatively new during WW1. I have looked briefly through the list of WW1 PoW camps in Wiltshire and did not find any though it was not a thorough search. There may have been some employed in making the airfields as they were in Germany though I have not even heard of that...

Prisoners stealing sheep sounds like a good excuse for farmers for compo from the goverment. Sneaking out the camp would be difficult, butchering a sheep and sneaking back in with it would be even harder.

Doug

Doug: there were PoW camps at many Wiltshire WWI camps, including those built during the war. I assume that the POW facilities were added on because there were British soldiers around to act as guards, and later the prisoners provided a useful source of labour for Wiltshire farms. I've noted PoW facilities at RFC Yatesbury, RFC Upavon and RFC Netheravon, the last being described as a "civilian labour camp", though I don't know whether this means the work was of a civilian nature or the inmates were (ie, internees).

In September 1918 The Times reported that two Germans who had escaped from Upavon had been recaptured, followed a day later by news that two more from the same camp had given themselves up at Banbury, sixty miles away.

In early 1919 six prisoners from Yatesbury appeared in court accused of stealing bacon fat from the factory of C & T Harris & Co of Calne. They had stuffed the fat down the fronts of their trousers. The camp commandant, Captain Mursell, told the court that the prisoners had bread and coffee before leaving camp and took with them a light lunch of coffee, cheese and bread. Each man's daily allowance was thirteen ounces of bread, one and a half ounces of cheese and four ounces of beef or horseflesh. This was, the captain said, "sufficient to keep them going but it was not sufficient to satisfy their abnormal appetites. They are gross eaters". All the accused were sentenced to two months in prison with hard labour.

The sheep-eaters were from a "Salisbury Plain internment camp" and were caught by Amesbury police in October 1919; they had been slipping out of confinement to kill sheep, taking the carcasses to eat back at camp. "Internment" suggests civilian internees rather than prisoners, and eleven months after the Armistice security would have been relaxed.

In July 1919 Private L Bruckmann rescued the pilot of a British plane that crashed at an unspecified Wiltshire airfield where he was employed; he was released forthwith, given a free passage home, and presented with some money and a silver watch.

Moonraker

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  • 7 years later...

I am researching Lt John St Clair Shadwell Labour Corps whose death in 1924 was attributed to tuberculosis as the result of strain during the spring of 1919 when he was Commandant of the Prisoner of War camp at Upavon. He was also suffering from insanity of confusion and died in the Manor hospital Salisbury.

I want to find out more about the conditions that precipitated these illnesses. I have looked at his WO339 file at the TNA which has been heavily weeded, and also looked for material on Upavon but without success.

Does anyone know what went on at he camp other than the occasional escapee or tell me where I can find more about the POW camp?

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Upavon was "only" a working camp, in comparison to some of the major PoW facilities in UK. Many camps and airfields had these, providing a source of labour for the installations themselves and perhaps the neighbourhood. Major J L Isler of Switzerland (the "protecting power" for PoWs in Britain) visited five Wiltshire working camps in October 1917 At Upavon 101 German soldiers and one navy man had a German feldwebel (sergeant) as camp captain. Their camp was 60 yards square and comprised 13 tents, 11 serving as dormitories; the feldwebel and camp interpreter had a tent to themselves, and another was used as an isolation tent and sitting-room. The men did excavations, road repairs and fencing of roads and paths, and were paid 1d, 1½d or 2d an hour (these lower rates presumably being due to the fact that their work was not subject to union regulations, as may have been the case at Codford Camp). They worked 53½ hours a week. The camp was to be closed at the end of October.

These comments come from a file at the National Archives at Kew. I blush to say that my notes are vague as to which one, but it was probably in the ADM 1 series.

Camp commandants were usually unfit for active service and it may be that Lt Shadwell had been ill before his appointment. Do the remnants of his file give any clues?

Moonraker

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Thank you for the interesting information on Upavon. I will try ADM 1 next time I am at the TNA.

According to his file, Shadwell was considered unfit for military service on account of his defective eyesight, but otherwise fit B1. He was recommended for a "Garrison Bn (medical)" which I have interpreted as ok for home service on medical grounds, so that fits withthe Upavon posting. No mention of TB in 1918 when he enlisted and had his army medical but his death certificate Sept 1924 states that he had had the disease(not acute) for 6 years. this was in addition to the mental health issues that he was being treated for in various sanitoriums. All very sad.

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In a fit of conscience, I searched the National Archives catalogue for "Upavon Prisoner" and discovered that the file was in fact FO 383/277. I've now amended my notes!

For a previous thread on tuberculosis,

see here

Moonraker

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Thank you for the TNA reference. When I was there I could not find anything on Upavon via Discovery, so that is really helpful. The discussion you pointed me to has been very relevant and informative. I had no idea that TB could move around the body. As he was studying medicine before he joined up I suppose he would have had a good idea what he would face, poor lad.

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