POWs from Michael and Georgette: Help Required

[sjustice]

Hello all,

This may be a big ask (Verb. Noun. I know. Sorry!), but I need to enlist the forum's assistance to track down personal accounts. For my Ph.D. research I am trying to garner as comprehensive a view as possible of the experiences of men captured in the two great offensives launched against the British Armies in France in March and April 1918. Can you help?

Papers, diaries, accounts in books and journals. Anything. Anecdotal 'my mum used to tell me' stuff is also very interesting, and I'd love to hear it, but written, contemporary accounts are of greatest use to me in this project.

If you're willing to share, please fire away and don't worry about whether you think something is too insignificant, obvious or commonplace. All information will be thankfully received and faithfully applied, referenced and credited.

Private messages can be directed to smj703@bham.ac.uk if preferred.

Cheers,

Simon

[Colin W Taylor]

Simon

Can I ask what aspects you are interested in - point of capture or the experience of PoWs from capture to camps in Germany. I've been studying the 34th Division 21st-23rd March and have got some info on the former - the later has not as great interest for me. I can let you know of a few IWM documents and can provide several CAB 45 letters if you have not got them and WO339 and 374 accounts of capture by various officers. In fact the CAB 45 docs for the Fifth Army will be of use. 'Tinker's Mufti' by Basil Peacock is certainly a good personal account which I found of interest.

I hope this is of assistance.

Kind regards

Colin

[sjustice]

Simon

Can I ask what aspects you are interested in - point of capture or the experience of PoWs <snip>

Hi Colin,

Thanks for your reply; the documents you mention will be of great use as I haven't gone too deep on this yet. Like yourself I am not interested (interesting as it may be) in the experience of POWs. I am trying to get personal perspectives on a) the circumstances and events leading up to contact, the experience at point of capture and c) escapes effected on the field of battle. 34th Division is of particular interest to me as one of the divisions engaged in both battles.

Cheers,

Simon

[David_Blanchard]

Hello,

I have a number of accounts of men taken prisoner on the Aisne in May 1918, from TNA. And I have just discovered a couple from earlier in the year. I am am sure if you follow up these WO refs you will probably discover more accounts.

And this one from a soldier bizarrely named Stephen Fry:

[sjustice]

Hi David,

Super! Thanks muchly.

Cheers,

Simon

[spof]

Simon

2nd LT Hugh Albert Hendrie 17th Manchesters attd 90th TMB captured on 21 MArch.

Glen

[sjustice]

Simon

2nd LT Hugh Albert Hendrie 17th Manchesters attd 90th TMB captured on 21 MArch.

Glen

Glen,

That's super. Thank you.

Cheers,

Simon

[Mark Hone]

Pre-war Hendrie was a teacher at a Bury Grammar School ( he started in 1914) and an officer in the school OTC. He didn't return to the school after the Great War and I'd be interested to know what happened to him. From evidence on Ancestry he seems to have gone back to London and died in Somerset in 1972.

[EastSurrey]

Accounts from officers are in their WO339 and 374 files at TNA.( Lists of officer P.O.Ws. are readily available.) For 9th E. Surrey , 24th Division in the March Retreat, I quoted from some of these in my ' The Journey's End Battalion' ,including Lt. Blower, 2/Lts.Orchard, B. Bishop, W.S. Austin, also from an account by Major C.A. Clark ,published in 'To the Last Man and the Last Round' in Q.R.R. Newsletter May 1972. The N.A.M. holds written accounts by veterans of March 1918 collected by Martin Middlebrook, not all of which he quoted from in his book 'The Kaiser's Battle'.

Michael

[Chris_Baker]

I'm not sure that Simon J visits the forum nowadays.