In June 1940 Italy declared war on Britain, and by September 1940 Britain and Italy were fighting in North Africa, by January 1941 Britain was winning and had accumulated 130,000 Italian POW's, many more were captured over the next two years.
There were very few POW camps in Britain at the outbreak of war and these camps were mainly holding and interrogation facilities, for prisoners before they were shipped off to Canada, one of the main reasons for this, was that in the first few years of the war the authorities worried about the possibility of paratroop landings to free POW's. Later on in the war the USA also received many Axis POW's, eventually there were 666 POW camps in the USA and 21 camps in Canada.
It is estimated there were eventually around 435 camps in the UK, each POW camp was allocated an official number, though these numbers did not relate to the number of camps, with some sites having a letter suffix rather than a distinctly different number. There appears to be much evidence that the British were unwilling to release the location of POW camps, the reason as mentioned earlier the fear of paratroop raids to release prisoners. There were also very few POW camps in N. Ireland, most likely because it had a border with the Irish Republic,,which although neutral was sympathetic to the Nazis,and could possibly provide an escape route for enemy prisoners.
Early POW camps included pre-existing structures, huts and tents, the German prisoners within them were interrogated and classified according to their political views, most then transported to Canada. The situation began to change after the North African campaign against the Italian army, the large numbers of prisoners taken were initially held in North African camps, but eventually a large proportion were brought to the UK, to be held in purpose built “Standard” camps, although some of them were built by British construction companies, most were constructed by the prisoners who lived under canvas until completed.
As the war neared its end the need for camps grew, as the numbers of German POW's greatly increased and by the end of the war the British were placing camps in existing military camp camp sites, some of which were WW1 POW camps, also sports facilities were used, like dog tracks, horse racing venues, farms , forests and moorland. Factories like cotton mills in Oldham Lancs, even country estates and houses. The most common type of purpose built camps, consisted of Ministry of War production standard huts [ 18 ft 6 inch span], some were [ 16 ft & 24 ft span]. There were also tented camps, Pingly Camp in Lincs is a typical example, it was built to house 750 prisoners, it consisted of a tented camp, guards compound, prisoners compound, prisoners garden plots, recreation ground a sewage disposal works. Within the prisoners compound there was an inner fence and a further barbed wire entanglement. Contrary to popular believe there were no guard towers at the majority of these camps, as the prisoners held in them were considered “ low risk”.
One of the reasons for interrogation of German POW's when they arrived was to categorise them as “white, grey or black”, non-Nazis were graded white, dubious cases were grey, and hardened Nazis were black, as a general rule the “ blacker” the grading, the further North were the camps where they would be held, prisoners would also be sent to Canada and the USA, to further safeguard security, most German officers were dispatched to camps in the Lake District and North Yorkshire.
For prisoners boredom was considered to be a problem, however giving them work to do was not straight forward, rules of the Geneva Convention prohibited POW's from employment in direct war-related tasks, therefore POW's were mostly used as farm or forestry workers, or to dig ditches or drains. The German officers were more privileged and were mostly taken on forced exercise marches, to avoid boredom and prevent physical deterioration.
It is interesting to note that despite of a large number of prisoners, there was not a single successful escape from Britain, there were however several escape attempts, the biggest occurred in December 1944 at Camp 112 in Ayrshire Scotland, when 97 Italians escaped through a tunnel, all were quickly recaptured. in March 1945 67 Germans escaped from Camp 11 in Bridgend Wales, they also were quickly recaptured.
With regards to food POW's received the same quantity and quality of food as the Allied forces. It is said, though difficult to verify that their rations were somewhat better than those available to the UK civilian population.
The UK POW camps usually provided entertainment and education for the prisoners, there were often camp orchestras and theatre groups, which as well as performances for fellow prisoners were also arranged for local public audiences. Football teams were organised and would sometimes play against local teams in nearby towns and villages, allotment sites were also provided where prisoners could grow food to supplement their rations. Prisoners often created their own entertainment by knitting or carving objects which were sometimes sold to locals. Re-education programmes also existed for German prisoners who had grown up knowing nothing but Nazi dogma.
Once the war in Europe ended in May 1945, the formidable task of repatriating POW's began, the first to be repatriated were the Italians, since after the Italian surrender in 1943, they had the status of “ Co-operating troops”, there were around 150,000 of them in Britain and Canada, most of them returned to Italy, but an estimated 2,000 decided to remain in Britain, most staying in Scotland.
Initially German POW's were returned to the UK from Canada and the USA,and by the end of 1946 there were around 355,200 in the UK. All who could be repatriated were processed and by June 1948 there were only about 2,790 remaining in Britain.
Most of the German Officer class and many of the “ black” category [ eg SS troops] remained as POW's pending being returned to Germany on commencement of war trials. There were some German POW's who could not be satisfactorily repatriated, either because of territorial boundary changes, or because their homes were in Soviet occupied territory, they were permitted to stay in Britain, though some were able to go to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and USA.
During the three year repatriation process, the POW's were put to all kinds of work, they were employed on farming and forestry work, those in urban areas were used to dig drains, clear bomb sites and other public service tasks, during the severe winter of 1947 which brought heavy blizzards, many prisoners were used to clear roads throughout the country. By April 1948 the repatriation process was complete.
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