OUR FORGOTTEN

AUSSIE GREAT WAR POWS

WHAT TRIGGERED THIS RESEARH?

• Studying an Aussie Red Cross worker, Mary Chomley (secretary the POW branch based in London) • Discovery Holzminden POW camp & famous escape

• Intention for a possible film on the coattails of BH60

• Launched a Web page seeking material from descendants

• Overwhelmed by response plus an insight into its amazing POWs...bigger than any film…prompting a refocus

• Book honouring the Holz. POWs (The Real Great Escape)

• Visit to Ballarat & the discovery of Great War names missing on the Ballarat POW memorial

Mary Chomley

MARY ELIZABETH CHOMLEY

• Secretary of POW branch of the Australian Red Cross (father, Magistrate Arthur Chomley)

• Australia’s Florence Nightingale

• Recognised as the POWs’ Guardian Angel - tracked down lost Australian POWs

- corresponded with them & their families

- addressed their requests

- all POWs longed for her letters, “Dear Miss Chomley”

• Remembered long after the Great War

• Sadly faded away & forgotten - received an OBE - promoted equal opportunity for women

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GREAT WAR POW FACTS

• 8 million held in camps - 2.9 million in Russia

- 2.5 million in German

- 720,000 in British and French

- 48,000 in USA

- 4,000 Australians held by the Central Powers

• Much higher survival rate than their peers who were not captured• Most dangerous moment was the act of surrender• Individual surrenders were uncommon - usually a large unit surrendered all its men• Military rank & traditions continued after captivity into the camps• Safer in captivity than trying to escape• Many prisoners died from exhaustion after the Armistice trying to get home• Many prisoners where held in captivity after the Armistice - used as bargaining chips

- used as forced labour by the Central Powers & Russia

HOW MANY POW CAMPS ?

Central Powers:• Germany approx 300 - Camp types

. Mannschaftslager (basic camp) – barracks, huts, tents

. Offizierlager (officers camp) – buildings, castles, hotels

. Durchgangslager (transit camp) – POW distribution / “Listening Hotels”

. Reprisal (punishment camp) - close to front / pressuring enemy

• Austria, Italy & France

• Ottoman Empire approx 50 - Gallipoli & Mesopotamia

- Anatolian railway through Taurus Mountains

WHO RECOGNISED THE POWs ?

• Beyond capability of home countries

• Military too busy conducting war - prisoners were not part of the plan

- ‘home by Xmas’

• 1907 Hague Convention - food & diet

- inspection of camps

- handling complaints

- punishment & discipline

- transfer of wounded & invalided

• International Committee of Red Cross - tracking them

- food parcels/special needs

• YMCA• Aid organisations• Clubs• Businesses• Community groups (Comfort Funds)

Compliance depended on the time & discretion of the Kommandant

HOW THEY WERE TREATED ?Up to Crimea War prisoners were normally executed.

During the Great War:• On the battlefield - invariably robbed

- generally treated with respect - sometimes executed if injured & of low rank (depending on the mood & situation)

• In captivity - sometimes cruelty (depending on the Kommandant)

- sometimes starvation (depending on the Kommandant & period)

- once in a camp conditions improved thanks to the IRC & inspections of neutral nations

- dependency on Red Cross parcels & Comfort Funds

- basically, little to do . keep yourself occupied . boredom & loneliness

Food & Escape

THE DREAM OF ESCAPE• RANK DEPENDENT: - Officers . it was their legal & moral right to escape (multiple attempts)

. few golden rules (no civilian clothing/no camp theater costumes )

- Lower ranks . captured normally executed

. very few successful attempts

• NOTEWORTHY ESCAPES - 4 July, 1915 German Gunther Plüschow . only successful escape from England (WWI & WWII)

. escaped from Donington Park, Leicestershire

- 23/24 July, 1918 Holzminden . most successful Allied escape of the Great War (29 escaped/10 reached England)

(5 August, 1944 Cowra, NSW - 359 escaped/all recaptured , killed or suicided)

(24/25 March, 1944 Stalag Luft III, Poland - 76 escaped /3 ‘home runs’, 23 recaptured, 50 executed)

“SO, EIN TUNNEL”

David Gray Cssper Kennard

Charles Rathborne

Jock Tullis Edward Leggatt

John Bousfield

Cecil Blain Stanley Purvis

Leonard Bennett

Peter Campbell-Martin

• 23/24 July, 1918• 9 months to dig • 50m long • 700 mm wide x 600 mm high• 80 planning to escape• 29 escaped• 3 temporarily buried • 10 succeeded in reaching England

TRUE COLOURS IN CAPTIVITY

• Love for home & family

• Resilience

• Creativity: - poetry/literature/art/music

- inventiveness

. escape ideas

. forging documents

. photography

• Humour• Bonding: - needed for survival

- sad goodbyes

. farewell dinners . group photographs

- continuation of contact . ANZAC day . reunions . clubs/societies - RSLs - Freemasonry

AUSTRALIAN POWS

• 3,848 Western Front held in Germany (WWII / 22,376 Pacific & 8,591 Europe)

- 1/3 (1,142) taken in the 1st Battle of Bullecourt in Northern France (11 April, 1917)

- 337 (8.7 %) died in captivity (natural causes & execution)

. 21 pilots & observers from AFC

- 12 unaccounted for

• 196 held by Ottoman Empire - 50 % light horsemen

- remainder . 32 submariners from AE2 . 14 pilots & observers from AFC

- 66 (30 %) died in captivity (due to insufficient food & disease

• Great War POWs, sadly was not part of the psyche of the Aust. Pubic at wars’ end (overshadowed by 60,000 glorified war deaths) - stigmitised as POWs

- difficulty in having mental scars of captivity recognised

- on many occasions led to depression/suicide

THE WELCOMING HOME TEA PARTY

• Put on for returning Australian POWs by Aust Red Cross

• 36 Grosvenor Place, London - office of the POW branch of the Aust Red Cross• Leading up to & after the Armistice on 11 November, 1918

• Every Wednesday & Friday

• All POW staff suspended normal duties & were involved - greeting POWs

- pouring tea/handing out sandwiches

- posing for photos

• Special guess invited - sometimes Royalty . Princess Louise

. Lady Bertha Dawkins/Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen

- sometimes military . Sir General William & Lady Birdwood

. Sir Lieutenant-General Brudenell White

LIFE IN A GERMAN CAMP

CAMP SPORTS

Oath not to escape

THEATRE British Amateur Dramatic Society (BADS)

ART

CARTOONS

THE CAPTORS

Heinrich Niemeyer

Feldwebel Kasten

Feldwebel Kasten Airfield adjacent to Holz.

Holz. gate

Holz. Landwehr Infanterie-Regiment No. 77

Karl Niemeyer

THEIR LEGACY

• Inspiration for escape books, films & plays (capturing our imagination)

• Legends (known & unknown) - Lt Ernest Cudmore/Aussie pilot with wooden leg (“Douglas Bader”)

- Lt Charles Eaton OBE AFC MID/contribution to Aust Aviation (“Moth”)

- Captain William Stephenson DFC MC / “Intrepid” (1st “James Bond”)

• Contribution to humanity (man can excel when the ‘chips are down’) - finer arts

- medicine

- aviation

- science

• Intelligence gathering/spying

• Modifications to International law on POWs - addressed in 1929 Geneva Convention

Ernest Cudmore

William Stephenson

Charles Eaton

* While our Aussie Great War POWs

may have escaped the ‘butchers’ bill’, they showed their hidden colours in captivity

* Holzminden is the ‘tip of an iceberg’

MESSAGES

HOLZMINDEN POWs

* Ballarat

ABBOTT, Reginald CharlesLKARD, FIDGE, Arthur Stephen Jack McLEAN, George Archibald

ABRAHAM, Joseph FITZGERALD, Henry Chester MILLS, C.

ALLEN, Thomas Fagan FLERE, Clarence Hogarth MINIFIE, Richard Pearman

ANDREWS, Frederick Cudmore FOLKARD, George D’arcy NOBBS, Charles H. F.

ANTHONY, Hugh Creswell FOWLES, Kennion Moseley MORRISON, William

BENNIE, Alan FULTON , Eric Paul PHELAN, Robert Starr

BIGGS, Hesketh St. Johns GARDINER, George Guyatt PORTER, Garthshore Tindal

BROOMFIELD, Frank HONEYSETT, Joseph Huxley RAMSAY, Harrie Skardon

BOYLE, Edward P.C. GARNER, Joseph James RANDALL, Wentworth Beavis

CASH, John Richard GORE, Maxwell REID, Chauncy Wilfred

CASTLES, Hill Knox * GREIVE, Louis “Swaggie” RIDGEWELL, Lesley Percival

COFF, Earl James HAWKINS, Henry Rupert ROBERTSON, Alexander S.

COUTTS, Roy Whitcombe * HILL, Alan Barrington SLEE, Frank

COUSTON, Alexander Wallace KEAY, Robert Alyth SURTEES, Harold Roy

CUDMORE, Ernest Osmond KRUGER, Daniel Johannus TINNY, Harold Gordon *

DIGMAN, Daniel William LEE, Alfred Lionel TODD, David Leslie

DUFF, Robert LOVEJOY, Harold Redman TRESIDER, Stanley

EDWARDS, John Ernest LYON, Peter William WEARNE, Arthur

FENTON, Cyril Boyd MARSHALL, Albert Morris WILMOT, Edmont Percy *

FERGUSON, Harold Alexander McERVALE, Alexander Albert WILLMOTT, Frank Barry

Jenell

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LEST WE FORGET

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