New Zealander and Australian PoW Statements.

[charlie962]

I have seen a few original Australian PoW statements (made upon repatriation) online at AWM and also an excellent thesis linked elsewhere on this Forum. But nothing for New Zealand. My interest is for those taken prisoner by the Turks.

 

1.  Are only a small selection of the Australian statements digitised or have I missed something? They do not appear to be copied into the Service Records.

 

2. Where are the NZ statements held ? Are any available online ?   EDIT UPDATE - see links below for Archway.  Not Digitised ?

 

3. Are NZ Service Records available online ?    EDIT UPDATE  Yes, see links in posts below

 

Most grateful for any pointers.

Charlie

Edited 24 March , 2021 by charlie962
Updated 24/3/2021 for replies received, with thanks

[Guest]

I can only give a steer for Point 2 on your list.

 

Yes, such reports do exist and in Archives,New Zealand in Wellington.   Their GATEWAY  archive  catalogue has the following entry , which seems to be the beastie:

 

 

    The date range for these items is 1919 to......1919.

 

I have only tracked one man specifically taken POW at Gallipoli 

 

 

 

 

    Hope that helps a little 

Edited 23 March , 2021 by Guest

[Keith_history_buff]

Hi Charlie,

NZEF service records are mostly digitised and available online. New Zealand Archives reference 10885 corresponds with TNA's WO 363 series.

In addition, there is the Online Cenotaph. Each soldier has a web page. That page can have details added by anyone that signs up for crowdsourcing.

Here's an example of a profile that I have built up. 
https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/war-memorial/online-cenotaph/record/C145728

Thanks
Keith

[Keith_history_buff]

Sorry, I am tired and I typed an incorrect reference, it should be 18805.

The distinctly named John Ambrose Crotty has a surviving NZEF service record, as an example.
https://www.archway.archives.govt.nz/SimpleSearch.do?keyword=John+Ambrose+CROTTY

[frev]

 

New Zealand service records can also be accessed through the Discovering Anzacs website: https://discoveringanzacs.naa.gov.au/

 

[charlie962]

Thank you all very much for those replies. I will follow them up  but if the Service Records are anything like the Australian ones, the PoW Statements are not copied in the personnel files ?

 

One man who should have an interesting Statement is 10/447 Sergeant George McAneny, Wellington Bn. Following your link, @Keith_history_buff I came to two Service Files (presumably the same as for your link @frev thankyou ) for him totalling some 130 pages, mostly post WWI but including this interesting snippet:

           However no PoW Statement! I know he gave one.      

 

I think this is a list of the NZs captured Gallipoli:

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/new-zealanders-captured-ottomans

 

Whilst I can see that first level via archway, by what trickery did you get to an individual statement ?

 

EDIT-  Ahah! Here is a route. I see a number of records but cannot post the link here.

New Zealand Expeditionary Force Headquarters (NZEF HQ) War Records Section [2] [record group]   (17625)
1914? - c.1924  range held: 1914 - c.1942

 

Thanks again

Charlie

 

An example:

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

On 24/03/2021 at 13:37, charlie962 said:

Whilst I can see that first level via archway, by what trickery did you get to an individual statement ?

 

     Er,   typed in the words "PRISONER OF WAR GALLIPOLI" . 

 

 Good on you for finding POW records -It looks as though they might be Western Front- One is listed as "Entrenching Battalion" -were there any designated "entrenching battalions" at Gallipoli-bit early for that?

 

(There are some NZ POW statements in TNA at Kew (7 I think) but they are all Western Front.  I will have another look as I think there will be other NZ stuff tucked away at Kew.

 

It may be that constructing a list of NZ POWs of the Turks comes first and then head for the service records.  The Australian end of ANZAC  seems pretty thoroughly filed and what little I have seen of NZ suggests the same.  I just find the Archives New Zealand catalogue a little clunky 

 

     Would you have any idea who acted as Protecting Power for NZ POWs.?   

 

[charlie962]

head for the service records

As I have said, the Statements are not filed with Service Records but apart; certainly so for Australian and so far so for NZ soldiers.

 

Some British and maybe Anzac statements may have been filed by something known as the Alexandria Commission or Suez Commission. I get no further when I ask Mr G but you seem better than me at finding this sort of thing. Any thoughts please?

 

charlie

 

I should explain that it is not so much the Gallipoli bit I'm looking for but prison life in Turkey. Anzac records put UK to shame. I believe that, apart from a sample of statements that were printed up (I have the references) the vast majority of British statements were weeded. chucked.

[charlie962]

POW records -It looks as though they might be Western Front

The bit I posted as an example was only a small part. There are lots of others that also say 'prisoner of war statements' but they are not always indexed with a name so probably cover more than one man ? The Turkish ones are in there somewhere, for sure. I perhaps need to contact the Archives to find out if anyone has produced a full list of names within these files.

 

charlie

[Keith_history_buff]

A thread on Allied POWs from Gallipoli exists, which is an interesting read.

 

[Guest]

Further to previous. 

 

    Your comment noted but I would lay money that there will be some POW statements in service records.

 

I suspect that , for practical purposes (as well as the admin. structure of the Empire), that the British handled most of the NZ work from London.  Thus, the following FO files at Kew do have materials on NZ POWs in Turkish hands  (Of course, cannot guarantee they are Gallipoli men)

 

    I can see the following on Discovery which will/ hold files.  It seems also that there was an Interdepartmental Committee on Prisoners of War  set up on which there was a New Zealand representative.  It is hard work trying to find the back-up and office papers of committees and royal commissions but they are usually there somewhere.  If it is done through London-as seems to be the case- then the likely conduit is the NZ Agent General in London -I will have a look at this angle, as London as an Empire City is another interest and the work of the Agents General is a little obscure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

 Would you have any idea who acted as Protecting Power for NZ POWs.? 

 

    I will answer my own question-  The Protecting Power for NZ POWs in Turkey was the US and Spain.  There will be the odd bit of stuff in FO records on that but it would be a lot easier to get a list of names together first and then hit the FO index volumes (FO111?)

[charlie962]

On 24/03/2021 at 15:46, Keith_history_buff said:

A thread on Allied POWs from Gallipoli exists,

Thanks for the reminder. A thread you had contributed to heavily and I lightly.

 

I would lay money that there will be some POW statements in service records.

I may take you up on that.

 

I have seen the FO links but apart from what, by chance, has been digitised by FindmyPast I will have to wait until I vist your plague-free country before I can go further.

 

Some of the liberated ANZACs went back to UK first, passing by Alexandria or Salonika and some returned to Australia or NZ via Alexandria. Statements were taken in Alexandria or in London. The London Statements are probably the ones available at National Archives in FO files ?

 

Charlie

[seaJane]

I looked in the index for the online-accessible version of this, but there seems to be no reference to prisoners of war except for German ones in the NZ presence on the Western Front: Carbery AD. The New Zealand Medical Service in the Great War. Based on official documents. Auckland: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1924. http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH1-Medi.html

 

[Guest]

Charlie- a small side question- Is it just Gallipoli or just POWs?  All of the war in the Middle East??

[MaureenE]

There is a webpage New Zealand’s Gallipoli Prisoners of War from a website "Remember Them: The ANZ&Cs – Garrie Hutchinson's stories of Australia, New Zealand & Canada at war"

 

Maureen

[Keith_history_buff]

16 hours ago, charlie962 said:

I should explain that it is not so much the Gallipoli bit I'm looking for but prison life in Turkey. 

This link, found via the Francophone forum, may be of some interest, in respect of Belemedik
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39631091@ ... 412214804/
Extraits:
«...French, British and Australians (POWs captured in Gallipoli) were working along the railway until June 1916...»
«...The Belemedik station was closed at the end of the First World War. After WW I, Belemedik was occupied by the French army, with its headquarters in Pozantı. The French occupying force used Belemedik as a site for a military hospital...»

https://www.flickr.com/photos/50074978@ ... 048039691/

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Keith_history_buff said:

I should explain that it is not so much the Gallipoli bit I'm looking for but prison life in Turkey. 

 

      Charlie-  I have mentioned him before on GWF but just in case .......   Have you come across Sergeant William White, 4th Essex as a POW of the Turks????

[charlie962]

Thank you Maureen, Keith for those further posts.

 

Not specifically, but a quick search tells me:

 

White William, 2038, 200417 Essex Regt Sgt, entered 2b 12/8/1915

Daily CasList 13/10/1915 Wounded (Pte 4th Bn Essex)
DailyCasList 17/1/1918  Missing  (Sgt, Ilford)
DailyCasList 25/3/1918  Prev Missing, now PoW Turkey (Sgt, Ilford)
DailyCasList 2/1/1919  PoW Turkey, Released (Sgt, Ilford East)

No obvious ICRC record ?

This detailed write up on Nat Portrait Gallery site  says captured Gaza 1917            (was that you ? Who has the fuller account, covering his PoW time ? Is it Redbridge Museum?)

No obvious service nor pension record

 

I note that there is a page for W White 2038/200417 on Lives of the First World War with a couple of appended photos and a letter. But the letter is to a William White of the Essex Regt who was in France 1918 so I suspect, sadly,  that poster has matched the wrong man ?

 

Charlie

[charlie962]

20 hours ago, seaJane said:

I looked in the index for the online-accessible version of this, but there seems to be no reference to prisoners of war except for German ones

Thanks for looking

Charlie

[Guest]

 

      Charlie- Then I have some good but tantalising news for you.  William White was a local man to where I live.    He  was, as I said, captured -I think- in one of the earlier Gaza battles.  In the 1930s he wrote up a very,very full account of his captivity with the Turks as a book with the aim of getting it published but he could not find a publisher- it was then out of fashion.  My former local studies service, at the London Borough of Redbridge have a digital copy of the thing and I can assure you it is a big book- all properly typed out, double spaced-the lot.  And pictures.   He had a title for it as well- "A Crusader in Khaki"

    The physical book belonged to his daughter until recently. By chance, for most of his peacetime life after the war he was a doorman for the same local library in Ilford.  She gave it to her nephew who had expressed an intention to publish, which I do not think will happen.  But she did allow a digital copy to be taken.  The local studies concerned can be a bit prissy about copyright- but the beastie is there and there cannot be that many thorough autobiographies out there dedicated to being a prisoner of the Turks.

    As the lockdown ends (if ever), then happy to enquire about access to it or put you in touch with the right people to ask.