P.O.W. camps.

ISTR seeing PoWs dressed in British battledress, but with a large circular, dark coloured patch, in the back.

Correct. I think it was a chocolatey brown coloured patch IIRC.

My Mum and her sister used to walk right through the middle of a POW camp here in West London on their way to school, and many of her school friends used to stop and talk to the prisioners through the fence, even though, they were not supposed to. It was the Italians who used to chat up da laydies 😀
A number of her school friends ended up actually marrying some of the Italian POW’s after the war ended. The camp was built either side of the A40 by the old Aladdin factory, a few miles east of RAF Northolt, and the POW’s were used to build the Central Line extentsion after the war ended, Greenford and I think Perivale tube stations were built by POW’s.
A lot of the camp, including some of the buildings and that main through path, were still there back in the early 1970’s when I was a teenager, and us kids used to play on the site all the time.

ISTR seeing PoWs dressed in British battledress, but with a large circular, dark coloured patch, in the back.

Talking with an elderly local re Feathestone camp : a railway ran close by – the POWs used to throw potatoes (which they had in abundance) into the train – the engineers and firemen collected the potatoes and threw back lumps of coal – so that POWs had extra fuel for the huts.

Become normal for trains to slow down whilst passing this section of track.

What did they do for clothing? in the films they seem to wear the same clothes every day, surley they had clothes or overalls to wear?

In 1988, while based with the Army in Germany, I got into a conversation with an elderly local who, on discovering I was a Yorkshireman, told me how he’d enjoyed spending some time there in a camp just off the Malton to Pickering road. He was quite astonished to learn that his former home during this period had recently become a major tourist attraction.

In 1959 just before I joined the RAF I was given a summer job helping a neighbour who was the scenery carpenter at the old Nottingham Playhouse. My Neighbour ‘John’ had been a prisoner of war at Wollaton Hall. John was captured when he was shot down in a 109 by a Hurricane in the Western desert. Whilst in the Wollaton camp at the end of the war, he and a colleague used to convert ammo boxes and the like into furniture. On a saturday they would get out through the wire and sell their “furniture” on Sneinton Market and go to the pictures on the proceeds. It was whilst doing so he was to meet his future wife. I last saw John a couple of years ago in a local opticians.

John

And a ‘Concentration Camp’ too.

In fact there were 4. Lager Sylt and Lager Norderney were forced labour camps housing Jews (Sylt) and Eastern Europeans and Spaniards (Norderney). Not sure if either held Western Allied POWs. The other two camps, Borkum and Helgoland, were used to house “volunteers”. Bokum for German technicians and nationals from other European countries. Helgoland housed Russian Organisation Todt workers. Approximately 700 inmates died before Alderney was liberated.

I know of two RAF Spitfires that came down on the island but believe that bot pilots were taken to mainland Europe as POW. Several Islanders of British origin were sent to work on the fortifications for crimes against the occupying forces.

On Jersey there was a POW camp at Snow Hill and several allied prisoners were held in the old Gloucester St jail. This is now gone and the General Hospital has been built in its place. There is evidence of the POW camp at Snow Hill, however this is now under threat from development.

I know of at least one German POW camp in the British Isles that held Allied POWs.

And a ‘Concentration Camp’ too.

This may be of interest as it lists all the known camps:
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/upload/pdf/prisoner_of_war_camps.pdf

We had Italian POW working on our family farm and there was a local POW work camp, at Friday Bridge. It is still much as it had been in the war years and has been in use since the POW left as an ” International Farm Camp”.

I know of at least one German POW camp in the British Isles that held Allied POWs.

The next Spring the words ‘Heil Hitler’ were splashed in brilliant yellow against the green of the turf.

I hope it was true, but I have heard it too many times with differences. We’ll probably never know.

Moggy

So they did have a sense of humour!:D

To return to the original question, you may find this interesting…..

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/upload/pdf/Prisoner_of_War_Camps.pdf

Denis, did you check under that stove to see if there was a tunnel entrance!

I’m sure the road which runs along the Southern coast of the Isle of Wight was built by POW’s during the 1st World War, so there must have been camps there.

My family orginate in Bedfordshire and I was always told that many Italian POW’s stayed after WW2 and worked in the Bedford brickfields, hence a large population of Italians / Sicilians in the Bedford / Leighton Buzzard area. My mother reckons there was also an Italian POW camp between Leighton Buzzard and Hemel Hempstead but I cannot find any record of it.

Don’t forget, of course, the Italian chapel on Lamb Holm in Orkney: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Chapel

Beautiful – one of my favourite places.

I always love the story, probably apocryphal, of the German prisoner(s) being set to work on a large estate naturalising daffodil bulbs one one of the sweeping lawns facing the house in a late Autumn.

The next Spring the words ‘Heil Hitler’ were splashed in brilliant yellow against the green of the turf.

I hope it was true, but I have heard it too many times with differences. We’ll probably never know.

Moggy

Thanks moggy.

After the war were they just returned to Germany or let out to freedom?

From what I have seen in passing, quite a number were held on for a considerable time “to rebuild what they had destroyed”… without being offered citizenship.

This link mentions “out-of-camp work”, and that German POWs held in Britain were returned to Germany starting in 1946, with the “hardened Nazis” being held until 1948 or 1949… but it seems a bit “sanitized” compared to what I have seen elsewhere (the ooc work being voluntary post May 1945, for one point).
http://www.historyonthenet.com/WW2/german_pow_britain.htm

At the end of the war, prisoners were subjected to a re-education programme designed to equip them for life in the new Germany. Prisoners were also assessed with regard to continuing loyalty to Nazi ideals. Those that showed continuing loyalty remained in captivity. The first German prisoners of war returned to their homes in 1946, the last in 1949.

This BBC article mentione the use of German POWs post-1945 in a number of occupations:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8564401.stm

This link discusses the change of designation from “POW” to “disarmed enemy forces”, and the accompanying ruling that Geneva Convention rules banning forced labor no longer applied:
http://www.cyberussr.com/hcunn/for/us-germany-pow.html

Don’t forget, of course, the Italian chapel on Lamb Holm in Orkney: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Chapel

hut interior.

Camp Commandants quarters.

Just a few Images from Camp 116 Mill Lane Hatfield Heath, Essex.
Private property, permission was obtained for a photographic ‘sortie’ last year. Fantastic time warp of a place!

Wooden MOWP Huts

Water tower.

Terracotta block Huts,

Mural in dining room

Kitchen.