POW : allied prisoners in europe 1939-1945

102 Pages·2014·0.79 MB·English

by  Gilbert

Pow
Allied prisoners in
Europe 1939–1945
Adrian Gilbert
All Rights Reserved
This edition published in 2014 by:
Thistle Publishing
36 Great Smith Street
London
SW1P 3BU
www.thistlepublishing.co.uk
To Louis, and to Rosie and Freya
Adrian Gilbert
Adrian Gilbert has written extensively on military history. Among his books are
World War One in Photographs; Britain Invaded, an imaginary account of a
cross-channel German invasion in 1940; The Imperial War Museum Book of the
Desert War, featuring firsthand accounts from British and Commonwealth forces
in North Africa, 1940–42; and Sniper: One-on-One, a history of sharpshooting
and sniping.
Contents
Illustrations
Preface
Maps
1. Battlefield Surrender
2. Capture from Air and Sea
3. The Road to the Camps
4. Camps and Captors
5. The Fabric of Daily Life
6. Leadership and Discipline
7. Forced Labour
8. 'Time on My Hands': Leisure, Entertainment and the Arts
9. The Written Word: Internal Escape and Self-Improvement
10. Other Nationalities
11. Medical and Spiritual Matters
12. Resistance, Punishment and Collaboration
13. Escape from Germany
14. An Italian Adventure
15. Migration and Liberation
16. Homecoming
Postscript
Notes
Bibliography
Illustrations
Section One
1. Wounded Canadian soldiers at Dieppe
2. Delmar T. Spivey, SAO of Center compound, Stalag Luft III
3. Jim Witte in PG 78 at Sulmona
4. Revd Bob McDowall in New Zealand, 1940
5. Jack Vietor – a sketch by a fellow POW in Stalag Luft I
6. Bob Prouse shortly after joining up in Canada
7. Jimmy James on his return to England
8. Doug LeFevre on the run in northern Italy
9. Oflag IXA/H at Spangenberg
10. A German guard surveys Stalag Luft III
11. Stalag IVB at Mühlberg
12. A victim of the German shackling order
13. Wash day at a British POW work camp
14. Latrine contents are pumped into a 'honey wagon'
15. American air-force officers at Stalag Luft I
16. Two Indian POWs of a work detachment
17. A Sikh lieutenant of the Free Indian Legion
Section Two
18. British POWs in a work-camp quarry, Stalag VIIIB
19. An imaginary radio show, Stalag Luft III
20. The cast of the 1940 Christmas panto, Oflag VIIC
21. An accordion–guitar band from a British Stalag
22. A Christmas card of Oflag VIIB
23. A scene from a POW production of Hamlet
24. The forged Ausweis of Billie Stephens
25. A British POW redraws a map of Germany
26. The Great Escape 'Harry' tunnel
27. Wing Commander H. M. A. 'Wings' Day
28. The prisoners' courtyard in Oflag IVC, Colditz
29. A convoy of Red Cross trucks en route to Germany
30. British POWs open Red Cross parcels
31. The contents of an American Red Cross parcel
32. A representative from the Swiss Protecting Power
33. Allied POWs cheer their liberation
34. Emaciated POWs from Fallingbostel
Photographic credits: I, Sipho; 2, US Air Force Academy McDermott Library; 3,
J. H. Witte; 4, 11, Mary Tagg; 5, Marc and Francesca Vietor; 6, Linda and Rob
Prouse; 7, B. A. James; 8, Mrs LeFevre; 9, 10, 16, 18, 19, 25, 26, 28, 29, 32, 34,
Imperial War Museum; 12, 14, 27, H. C. M. Jarvis; 13, 15, 21, 30, Museum &
Archive, British Red Cross Society; 17, author's collection; 20, C. Whitcombe;
22, 23, Jonathan Goodliffe; 24, W. Stephens; 31 American Red Cross; 33, PNA.
Preface
A
PPROXIMATELY 295,000 BRITISH and American servicemen were captured by
the Axis forces of Germany and Italy during the Second World War. A precise
number for British, Commonwealth and Empire POWs in Europe seems
impossible to obtain; estimates for the three armed forces and the merchant
marine range from 170,000 to 200,000 men, although the higher figure seems
most likely. POW figures for the United States are more certain, however:
around 95,000 soldiers and airmen were imprisoned by the Axis. Whereas most
American prisoners were captured relatively late in the war – the majority
entering captivity in 1944 – the British suffered several major defeats in the first
half of the conflict, with the bulk of their prisoners being captured between 1940
and 1942. Consequently, the British were the long-stay detainees who tended to
set the tone of the Anglo-American POW experience.
British and American prisoners enjoyed a special status within the prison
camps of Germany and Italy. Their homelands had not been overrun by the Axis
– unlike those of many other Allied prisoners – and, as the war progressed,
Britain and the United States accumulated ever-increasing numbers of enemy
prisoners; the Germans and Italians were aware that the fate of their own men in
captivity was largely dependent on the care of the British and American
prisoners under their control.
But if the treatment of British and American prisoners was better than that
experienced by other POWs, captivity was still a wretched business. The gung-
ho escape narratives that came to define prison life in the post-war years give a
false gloss to the drab realities of existence behind barbed wire: poor living
conditions, chronic – sometimes acute – hunger, deadening monotony, and the
misery of being beholden to the will of the enemy with no release date in sight.
Despite the fundamentally negative nature of POW life, there were positive
aspects that sprang from the prisoners' own determination to make the most of