Royal Naval Division - Officer Internees Holland 1914

[horatio2]

[LesH]

That was so quick thank you very much. Gives me some more to go on.  He had a son called Ronnie who was run over and killed by a car in 1915 when he was 3 ( when you think how quiet the roads were in those days !!) and his eldest son Leslie ( after whom I am named) was a dispatch rider and died in WW2. The daughter Lily Rose was my maternal grandmother.

Much appreciated

[LesH]

...and a photo fantastic I can vaguely remember him when I was a very small child and he gave me his souvenirs including a fantastic ship in a bottle that he made and the trinket box inscribed made whilst interned in Holland 1916 RJTB. He was always known as Reggie.

[Guest]

One of the names omitted from the Benbow Bn officers is Sub Lt Douglas Boot RNVR who was my great uncle.  A parson's son, he had joined the RNVR in Newcastle on Tyne before the war.  He was interned in Groningen but like the other officers lived out on parole in a local hotel.  Subsequently orders arrived from the Admiralty that all officers were to withdraw their parole.  This was done and all officers were then confined in the camp.  However they still ate in a local hotel where they were marched each day by the Dutch.  On 9 January 1915, during an upheaval at lunch when the Dutch discovered that some other officers weren't there, he and two other officers, Fixsen and Bedwell, took the opportunity to slip out and went to a house where they had been told that an old Belgian was to be with passports and train tickets for three.  The Belgian took one look at Fixsen and Bedwell and refused to take them with him.  However he felt that my great uncle might pass as a woman, and he was then carefully dressed by the daughter of the house.  They then proceeded to the railway station, with Fixsen and Bedwell (who had been given the other passports and tickets) keeping their distance.  Sadly they were quickly picked up at the railway station, but Douglas Boot and the Belgian made it to a carriage.  Douglas decided that the best thing to do was to pretend he was sleeping (he had a veil over his face - not uncommon at the time).  As the train proceeded down through Holland, the worst moment came when a German passenger, after staring at him and leaning across to inspect him. pronounced "Das ist Englischer Offizier".  Douglas kept his nerve and continued to sleep; and when others started to ridicule the German he started to doubt his judgment and then gave up.  In due course they got to Rotterdam and lay up in a safe house kept by an old Scots woman.  There his fine woman's clothing was exchanged for a marine 2nd class steward's jacket and trousers.  He was then able to get on board a ship bound for Harwich, feigning drunkenness to get past the Belgian sentry at the gangway.  On reaching Harwich he and another RNVR officer who had escaped independently (Sub Lt Vere Harmsworth RNVR) took a train to London and reported at the Admiralty.  They were sent for by the First Lord (Winston Churchill) who questioned them closely on the Antwerp expedition and congratulated them on their escape.

 

Douglas subsequently served with the Hawke Bn at Gallipoli until he was evacuated suffering from dysentery.  At Mudros he overheard a doctor saying that he was unlikely to survive the night.  He did survive and returned to England on the Aquitania which had been requisitioned as a hospital ship.  A Medical Board decided he was unfit for further service on land and so he applied to serve at sea.  He served with the Grand Fleet on the Constance and the Courageous until the end of the war, taking part in the Battle of Jutland.

 

An unusual but an interesting war!

 

As I understand it Surgeon Williamson, as a non-combatant, was entitled under the Geneva Convention to be repatriated from Holland as of right.  Douglas Boot, who travelled with him to Antwerp, next encountered Surgeon Williamson in a trench at Gallipoli.  His medical instrument case is in the Imperial War Museum.

 

Others who were interned: Lt Clement Ingleby RNVR, Benbow (escaped); Major C C Cunningham, Indian Army, Brigade Major, 1 Naval Brigade (escaped); Captain Oswald Dyke, Indian Army, Staff Captain 1 Naval Brigade (escaped); Sub Lt Edward Lockwood, Benbow (escaped) (Note: he was an OR at Antwerp and commissioned at Groningen).  In relation to Sub Lieutenant Charles Langbridge Morgan, who is listed above, he became a distinguished author.  His romantic novel "The Fountain" is based on his experiences of internment in Holland and was awarded the Hawthornden Prize.      

 

 

     

[JWK]

@ChrisDickson  What a story!

 

 

The escape was covered by just about every Dutch newspaper, country-wide.

“De Maasbode” (A Rotterdam newspaper) of Monday 11th January 1915 has the most info:

 

“ENGLISH OFFICERS ESCAPED

We ere notified from Groningen:

Of the around 30 English officiers who are interned here, six escaped [in the night of] Friday to Saturday [8 to 9 jan.].

Last night another six tried to get away, but these were apprehended. Four, whilst in a car destined to Harlingen, and two at the train station.

Of two of the escapees it is apparently already known they’re in England.

In the course of next week the new barracks are to be occupied, something which, for the officiers especially, would have meant a considerable loss of freedom of movement.

Apparently said gentlemen took advantage of the favourable circumstances.”

 

 

Here for a detailed report (beautifully written. But it's in Dutch....) of the arrival of 679 English internees in Leeuwarden by train (6 hours late) in the early hours of Monday 12th october 1914. Amongst the officers are Sub. Lts A.D. Boot and T.G. Bedwell. The officers were billeted in the Doelen Hotel.

 

And a week later , on the 18th, Bedwell and Boot escorted the RND Football team for a game against local Leeuwarden stars Frisia 1.  The RND won 5-2…….. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 7 February , 2020 by JWK

[JWK]

It *could be* Douglas escaped the Netherlands on board the SS Cromer which sailed from Rotterdam at 0625 on 10th January 1915 (which coincidentally was the véry same ship anóther English escapee most probably escaped on a few months later!

 

 

[Guest]

Thank you JWK, most interesting.  I see that Harmsworth was in the football team - he must have played football at Osborne.  Douglas Boot had been at a rugger playing school so would not have been much use!

[JWK]

2 hours ago, ChrisDickson said:

Douglas Boot had been at a rugger playing school so would not have been much use!

 

If only he had stayed longer!

On 16th april 1916 the RND internees staged a "Propaganda Game of the famous English Rugby Football" in Leeuwarden.

2.500 spectators watched the game. How many of those bought the "Rules of the Game booklet" for 10 cents history does not tell.

England vs Scotland. England won 16-12

And as complete trivia: one of the players was Frederick Glassborrow, the great-grandfather of Duchess Kate.

 

100 years later the game was played again in Leeuwarden.

England vs Scotland. This time Scotland won 22-8

 

Oh, and the propaganda sort of worked: in 1918 the oldest Rugby-club in the Netherlands was founded, in Delft.

 

And come to think of it: most probably my great-grandfather (and maybe my grandfather and -mother, and who knows my father (he was 5 at the time)) was at that footballgame in 1914! (That is the Football game in post nr 30, not this rugby game (although my g-grandfather may have been there too). Sorry to confuse you all/)

He was secretary of the Committee for Help to the Belgian refugees etc, and a great supporter of Frisia.

Edited 7 February , 2020 by JWK

[aengland]

Looking for information on Lt Clement Rolfe Ingleby, Benbow, who I understand (simply from local family knowledge and therefore doubtful as to its accuracy) that he was interned and escaped in 1914 from Holland

Clement was the son of the King's Lynn MP Holcombe Ingleby, who wrote that treasure of a book about the first Zeppelin Raids in 1915.

Any help gratefully received

Andrew

 

[JWK]

A *maybe possible*  account of his escape. Dated 11 January 1915.

Maybe family-lore got the year wrong, maybe the newspaper got the report weeks after the fact, maybe it's not about Lt. Clement Rolfe Ingleby at all. All possible!

No escapes of British interned officers reported in 1914 (as far I could find). Some more in 1915 (including a British Captain escaping from a Dutch Army Hospital! But also a report on a British officer-pilot Murray who was interned in Groningen, after he landed his seaplane in the Westerschelde river (in Zeeland province) )

"Escaped. GRONINGEN, 11 Jan. 7 interned English officers escaped. Investigations are ongoing"

From the "Nieuwe Venlosche Courant" ("The New Venlo Newspaper). Venlo is in Limburg, down south, whilst Groningen, province of Groningen, is way up north.

 

[horatio2]

There are three records for this officer: for previous RN service (ADM 196); an RND record (ADM 339); and an RNVR record (ADM 337).

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D7605174

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D7278805

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D8642604

His RN service (as a midshipman) was brief: 1905 – 1907.

His two WW1 records are interesting. Commissioned as a Lt RNVR for the RND he served in Benbow Battalion at Antwerp. His ADM 337 record notes that he was interned in Holland. It records his transfer on 14 January 1915 (to Wiesickerhaus ?? The Hague? - can @JWK help here, please?) and a report in March 1915 from The Hague that he had “escaped and returned to England”.

His ADM 339 RND record, however, makes no mention of his internment and escape and is strangely devoid of information about his early RND service. It shows that during the Gallipoli campaign he served in Drake and Anson Battalions and also at the Base Record Office in Alexandria.  He transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in May 1917.

At Antwerp it is known from other accounts that the line of retreat for Benbow Battalion had been reconnoitred by Lieutenant Ingleby early in the morning of 8 October. It is also worth noting that of 700+ 1914 Stars awarded to Benbow for Antwerp, 600+ Clasps were awarded for coming under enemy fire. Lt Ingleby did not qualify for a Clasp.

 

Edited 13 April , 2022 by horatio2

[JWK]

3 hours ago, horatio2 said:

(to Wiesickerhaus ?? The Hague?

That would be Fort Wierickerschans near Gouda/Bodegraven, an internementcamp for foreign officers from January 1915 to May 1917

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wierickerschans

[horatio2]

Many thanks, @JWKI had not come across this as an internment camp for RND officers before.