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Remembered Today:

Lieutenant Charles Bernard Russell Rees Princess of Wales Own Yorkshire Regiment


Dever Mayfly

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I am trying to discover which prisoner of war camps Lieutenant CBR Rees spent time at.  He was wounded at Mametz Wood in 1916 and captured during the final German offensive in 1918 when serving with the 5th Battalion of what became the Green Howards.  Allegedly he was transferred to a PoW camp on an island in the Baltic after a tunnel was discovered under his bed in his first camp.  He was eventually repatriated via Copenhagen in 1919.  His records have been lost but he was born in Melton Mowbray on 1st March 1896 and commissioned in august 1915.  Does anyone know about the German PoW camps in the Baltic or where those captured on 27th May 1918 where sent?

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Hi Dever Mayfly,

 

At one time his captivity appears to have been administered by the camp at Stralsund Danholm, having previously been administered by the Rastatt camp.

 

image.png.a4d0eb36d0b2f45b4c66c5e9005968e4.png

 

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Images sourced from the ICRC

 

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Images sourced from archive.org

 

Regards

Chris

 

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59 minutes ago, clk said:

At one time his captivity appears to have been administered by the camp at Stralsund Danholm, having previously been administered by the Rastatt camp.

Many thanks for this very helpful information.  I am researching for his daughter who will be delighted to learn this.  She said that in the Baltic he had a facial infection which was treated by being "slashed with some sort of knife to release the pus".

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Hi,

 

No problem.

 

Not being an expert, the thing that I wondered about was if Stralsund was the same thing as Stralsund Danholm.

 

Regards

Chris

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12 hours ago, clk said:

Not being an expert, the thing that I wondered about was if Stralsund was the same thing as Stralsund Danholm.

Google maps tells me it is a 9 minute drive from the centre of Stalsund to Dänholm which is on the tiny island of Dan in between the mainland and the much bigger island of Rügen.

 

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Many thanks RaySearching for the link to the Green Howards site which confirms that his NoK lived at Scrayingham Rectory near York.  The site doesn't mention that Charles Rees was wounded at the Somme (Mametz Wood) in 1916, but otherwise is very helpful.

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  • 9 months later...

Although my  main interest is with German POWs held in British hands, particularly in Eastcote/Pattishall and its satellite working camps in Eastern Command, (see my posts on this of many years ago), some of you may like to know that Lt Charles Bernard Russell Rees's hand-written personal diary is in personal hands and not with the Green Howards nor the National Army Museum. I have seen this an, in which Rees states he was captured at 5am on 27 May 1918. After describing some traumatic experiences, a diary entry tells of his arrival at Stralsund on 27 June 1918 which he notes is "Quite comfortable, with eight in a room and lovely surroundings." He later records that on 28 September 1918 he went into Stralsund Hospital for British Officers "with my face". A later entry states that on 5 October 1918 he "Had my face lanced" - which sounds considerably more professional than Dever Mayfly's information of being "slashed with some sort of knife". 

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