Month: February 2015

The way home

Boxing Day 1918. Leith dockyard. A pipe band played as the returning POWs walked down the gangplank and onto the dock, where they were greeted by local dignitaries and army officers. Some of the men noted with disappointment that the dock gates were locked and the locals kept away. The enthusiastic public parades that had welcomed arrivals a month earlier were missing.

A letter from King George V was read out

The Queen joins me in welcoming you on your release from the miseries & hardships, which you have endured with so much patience and courage.

During these many months of trial, the early rescue of our gallant Officers & Men from the cruelties of their captivity has been uppermost in our thoughts.

We are thankful that this longed for day has arrived, & that back in the old Country you will be able once more to enjoy the happiness of a home & to see good days among those who anxiously look for your return.

On Scottish soil once more, Andy was tantalisingly close to Ayr and his childhood home. But after a hot breakfast in a dockside warehouse he entrained for Ripon in Yorkshire. As the train left the waterfront, Andy probably saw people waving and cheering from a distance. Despite having been locked out of the docks, locals lined the railway tracks to welcome the prisoners home.

A lady worker of the Victorian League stands on the platform with two buckets, distributing fruit and cigarettes through an open window in the train carriage. The returned Australian prisoners of war entrained at Hull, for the receiving camp at Ripon, in England. Australian War Memorial collection D00175
A lady worker of the Victorian League stands on the platform with two buckets, distributing fruit and cigarettes through an open window in the train carriage. Australian War Memorial collection D00175

At Ripon Andy underwent further medical examination and was interviewed about his time as a prisoner of war. Once the debrief was completed, he was granted leave until 30 January. On 29 January Andy reported to Headquarters with an injury to his middle left finger. He was admitted to the 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, where he stayed until 10 February.

Red Cross postcard 1918
Notification of Andy’s repatriation to London. South Australian Red Cross Information Bureau records 1916-1919. Digitised by The State Library of South Australia SRG 76/1/7574

It wasn’t too long before news of Andy’s freedom reached Jane Duncan in Beaufort. On 16 January 1919 the Barrier Miner newspaper reported

Mrs. Duncan, of Ararat-road, Beaufort (Victoria), writes to “The Miner” stating that she has been informed by the military authorities that her husband, Warrant-Officer Andrew Stewart Duncan, who is well known in Broken Hill, and who was captured by the Germans on March 1, 1918, and has since been a prisoner of war, has been released, and arrived in London, quite well in health, on December 26. In a message to his wife W.O. Duncan wishes the members of his R.A.O.B Lodge and all other friends a happy, and prosperous new year.

Upon discharge from hospital Andy was granted 44 days paid leave in England. This was the ‘Anzac leave’ granted to 1914 enlistees. There is no record of how Andy spent his furlough in England. It would be nice to think he visited family in Ayr, seeing his parents again one last time (his father John would die in 1922; his mother Elizabeth in 1927).

Jane did not know where her husband was. On 11 March 1919 she wrote an anxious letter to the army –

I received your notification informing me that the above named soldier had been released from Germany and arrived in England (London) on the 26.12.1918 and was quite well, for this information I was very pleased to receive in January from you, but Dear Sir, I have had no news from himself since his arrival in England for which seems a very strange thing and I wish you to kindly give me some information of his whereabouts, as I have been waiting for news from him every day

On 12 May Andy finally embarked for home on board HMAT Soudan. It was very different from the 1914 voyage, with training drills and fatigues replaced by reading in the YMCA library on board and by regular concerts.

Troops on the promenade deck of the HMT Kildonan Castle returning to Australia. The decks presented this appearance practically all day long, for there were no drills or exercises and very few fatigues. Australian War Memorial collection J00172
Troops on the promenade deck of the HMT Kildonan Castle returning to Australia. The decks presented this appearance practically all day long.
Australian War Memorial collection J00172

The Barrier Miner newspaper reported Andy’s arrival in Australia

Warrant-Officer A. S. Duncan (1057) [sic], 10th Battalion, arrived in Melbourne on June 29th last, after four years and nine months’ service, having been a prisoner for the last twelve months.

Jane was at Port Melbourne to welcome him. She had written a flurry of letters to the Defence Department about Andy’s return, to secure a train pass to Melbourne and to ask for Andy’s battalion colours. It appears she was instrumental in arranging for him to disembark at Melbourne rather than returning to Adelaide.

It is easy to imagine Jane anxiously scanning the arriving ship and khaki uniforms for the violet and blue colour patch and for Andy’s face. It is not so easy to imagine the overwhelming mix of emotions that Jane and Andy felt as they embraced for the first time in so long.

Waiting to welcome home their loved ones. Australian War Memorial collection H11576
Waiting for a glimpse of their loved ones.
Australian War Memorial collection H11576

Sources

NAA: B2455, DUNCAN, A.S. National Archives of Australia.

1918 157 Company Sergeant Major Andrew Steward Duncan 10th Battalion. Australian Red Cross Society Wounded and Missing, Enquiry Bureau files, 1914-18 War 1DRL/0428.

1918 1st Australian Division 1 February to 7 March 1918. Statements made by prisoners of war [10th Battalion, No 157 CSM A S Duncan, No 2287 Private P M Berthelsen, No 2622 Private W B Crispe, No 5846 Private J Munday, No 5420 Private S T Noble, No 2958 Private J M Searle] AWM30 B5.37. Australian War Memorial, Canberra.

1919 ‘In Broken Hill’. Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW : 1888 – 1954), 16 January, p. 4. [ONLINE] Available at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article45468786 [Accessed 27 April 2013].

1919 ‘Personal’. Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW : 1888 – 1954), 18 July, p. 2. [ONLINE] Available at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article45537445 [Accessed 27 April 2013].

Concert and Theatre Programs Collection – First World War 1914-1918, Series 1, Sub-series 1, File 4, Item 7: Ships concert. PUBS002/001/001/004/007. Australian War Memorial, Canberra.

Duncan, John. 1922 (Statutory Deaths 578/01 0097). Statutory Deaths 1855-2012, National Records of Scotland [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk [Accessed 27 March 2012].

Duncan, Elizabeth. 1927 (Statutory Deaths 578/01 0437). Statutory Deaths 1855-2012, National Records of Scotland [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk [Accessed 24 May 2012].

Henry Thomas Fowler (1882-1947) – a Life. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.thedanishscheme.co.uk  [Accessed 06 April 2014].

‘Hand written Letter of Recognition for World War 1 POW from King George V 1918 sent to Lance Corporal James Cordingley’. [ONLINE] Available at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hand_written_Letter_of_Recognition_for_World_War_1_POW_from_King_George_V_1918_sent_to_Lance_Corporal_James_Cordingley.jpg [Accessed 06 April 2014].

Jones, M.A. 2009. The Danish Scheme: The repatriation of British Prisoners of War through Denmark at the end of the First World War.

South Australian Red Cross Information Bureau. 2016. Packet content | South Australian Red Cross Information Bureau. [ONLINE] Available at: https://sarcib.ww1.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/packet-content/54253#https://sarcib.ww1.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/sites/default/files/packet_images/7574/SRG76_1_7574_1.jpg. [Accessed 11 June 2016].

Featured image: ‘Scenes of returning troops from service overseas who landed at Port Melbourne from the ship City of Cairo and Lancashire’ January 1919. Australian War Memorial collection PB0306

Return to England

Andy Duncan finally left Springhirsch POW camp on 15 December 1918. It had been five long weeks since the Armistice was signed.

The men paraded at 8:30am ready to march to the train station, but there was no move out due some difficulty with the train. They were told to parade again in the afternoon, that there might be a train at 5pm.

Marching orders came at 4pm and the men set out eagerly. A large crowd of local women and children had gathered at the camp gates, hoping for a farewell hand-out of biscuits and food parcels. The men obliged as best they could.

Arriving at the station they met further delay: there was no train. How did Andy feel, confronted with another day of false starts? How did he manage the anxious and desperate men in his charge?

The train finally arrived. At 7pm the ex-POWs were loaded onto trucks for an uncomfortable overnight trip to the port of Warnemünde on the Baltic Sea.

From Warnemünde they sailed for Aarhus in Denmark. It was a good voyage on calm seas, with plenty of food to eat.

On 17 December the men arrived in Aarhus to cheering and songs of welcome from the locals. As the ships for transport to England had not yet arrived, the men entrained and travelled to Viborg and the Hald lazaret (hospital camp). Ironically, after being freed from Springhirsch they were confined initially to the hospital, quarantined due to the 1918 influenza epidemic.

On arrival we were shown to our billets; nice rooms with beds and nice white sheets which looked too good for us in our state. After we went to dinner and had some kind of porridge and stew after it, with beer, very sweet. In the afternoon we had a nice bath, then tea and got to bed very soon after as we got very little sleep since leaving our prison camp

Diary of Sergeant A.E. Mead. Extract of entry for 17 December 1918

Viborg Lazarette at Hald, Denmark
Hald lazaret near Viborg, Denmark

Andy stayed at Hald for 6 days. At about 7am on 23 December he left Hald and entrained again for the trip back to Aarhus. A large number of locals turned out at Viborg station to farewell the men, giving them cigarettes.

At Aarhus Andy boarded the S.S. Primula. Mid-morning the ship set sail for England, cautiously navigating its way through the Baltic Sea minefields. This time the sea was rough, and a number of men spent the voyage with their heads in buckets.

As the Primula passed the coast of Norway the men were given a medical inspection and clothes. Late on Christmas night the ship arrived at the Firth of Forth and the following morning Andy disembarked at Leith.

Sources

NAA: B2455, DUNCAN, A.S. National Archives of Australia.

1918 157 Company Sergeant Major Andrew Steward Duncan 10th Battalion. Australian Red Cross Society Wounded and Missing, Enquiry Bureau files, 1914-18 War 1DRL/0428.

‘Henry Thomas Fowler (1882-1947) – a Life’. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.thedanishscheme.co.uk  [Accessed 06 April 2014].

Jones, M.A. 2009. The Danish Scheme: The repatriation of British Prisoners of War through Denmark at the end of the First World War. MA dissertation, University of Birmingham.

‘Marauders of the Sea, German Armed Merchant Raiders During World War I’. Ahoy – Mac’s Web Log [Accessed 09 June 2013].

Mead, A.E. Private Papers of A E Mead Imperial War Museum collection 17232.

‘POW’s and repatriation’. Great War Forum.  [Accessed 09 June 2013].

Featured image: Returned prisoners of war on the boat at Hull, just prior to disembarkation c1919. Australian War Memorial collection D00178

Armistice – but not freedom

In early November 1918 German revolutionary soldiers beneath a red flag visited Springhirsch POW camp. They threw the gates open and invited the prisoners to leave.

The Regimental Sergeant Majors in the camp visited the bunkhouses and reminded the men that the war was not yet finished and it was not safe outside the wire. In the event of the German guards leaving the camp, the men were to remain in the compound.

Jerry L. Cpl. told us the armistice was accepted and it’s great excitement here

Diary of Sergeant A.E. Mead. Extract of entry for 7 November 1918

On 8 November confirmation came that the armistice had been signed. The Regimental Sergeant Majors’ prediction came to pass: the sentries disappeared and one of the German officers shot himself.

All prisoners in the punishment cells were released. There was no restriction on the men’s movements, and no lights-out. Soon the only parades were head-counts.

Exercise drills ceased but football games were played daily. Camp concerts, cancelled previously by the Commandant in a fit of pique, began again. The band played The King publicly for the first time. The men sang, no doubt boisterously and to the discomfort of the remaining German soldiers.

On 11 November the men had the terms of the armistice read to them. Rumours were soon circulating that the men would be marching out, two companies at a time, for Holland and a ship back to Blighty.

The concert held on 17 November was the last, as the men expected to move out within the week. There were rumours of ships waiting in Hamburg harbour to transport the POWs home.

Jerry meals very much better now than when we much needed it

Diary of Sergeant A.E. Mead. Extract of entry for 10 November 1918

In anticipation of leaving the camp, food rations were dispersed more liberally. The commissary stores were being run down; men were less frugal with the contents of their Red Cross parcels.

Then word came that there would be no move out until the end of November. This caused unrest in the camp. Some NCOs absconded. Rumour had it that these men were arrested in Hamburg, attempting to stow away on ships bringing food into Germany.

[The POWs] in their wild desire to return to England had become quite unmanageable

Ferdinand Hansen An open letter to an English officer and incidentally to the English people

On 30 November British officers visited the camp and addressed the men at the request of the camp commandant. The men were told to be patient, that every effort was being made to return them to England as soon as possible.

Did Andy Duncan step outside the camp while waiting for orders to move out? Other POWs did, enjoying a kind of freedom by exploring the nearby towns and villages of Kaltenkirchen, Lentföhrden and Barmstedt.

A lot of the men go to Hamburg; they get the money by selling soap, cocoa, tea, etc.

Diary of Sergeant A.E. Mead. Extract of entry for 6 December 1918

On 8 December Andy would have learned of a planned move out in the next ten days. After all the rumours and false starts would this really be his last week in Springhirsch camp?

Sources

NAA: B2455, DUNCAN, A.S. National Archives of Australia.

1918 157 Company Sergeant Major Andrew Steward Duncan 10th Battalion. Australian Red Cross Society Wounded and Missing, Enquiry Bureau files, 1914-18 War 1DRL/0428.

1918 ‘Back from Germany: Prisoners’ Stories of Life in Captivity’. The Scotsman 27 December, p.2. [ONLINE] Available at: http://archive.scotsman.com

Hansen, F. 1921. An open letter to an English officer and incidentally to the English people. 4th ed. Hamburg, Germany: Overseas Publishing Co.

Mead, A.E. Private Papers of A E Mead Imperial War Museum collection 17232.

Milner, L. 1993. Leeds Pals. South Yorkshire, England: Pen & Sword Military.

Featured image: END OF THE WAR. GERMANY SIGNS ARMISTICE. (1918, 12 November) Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW), p. 2. Newspaper article found in Trove and reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Australia.

“Rumours of the war are good”

While prisoners held deep inside Germany may not have had any indication that the war was coming to an end, the Springhirsch men heard rumours regularly. Prisoner arrivals, visiting priests, newspapers stolen while on fatigues to the train station, and a friendly German guard all provided the men with scuttlebutt about the progress of the war.

When Andy Duncan arrived at Springhirsch in August 1918 new rumours were being whispered almost weekly.

By the start of October war news was coming in with increasing speed and accuracy. The men were trying not to get their hopes up.

We heard very good news today, if it’s all true. The Allies have captured the whole of the Belgian coast […] Germany has asked for an armistice as they are beaten.

Diary of Sergeant A.E. Mead. Extract of entry for 22 October 1918

On 1 November a German guard told the prisoners that the war would be over “for sure” within the month. It was not long before the prison guards formed a revolutionary Soldiers Council and assumed joint control of the camp with the commandant.

The Soldiers’ Council […] decreed that Warrant Officer Matz be given his walking papers, because, as we are informed, he had long been obnoxious to the men

Ferdinand Hansen An open letter to an English officer and incidentally to the English people

It is tempting to think that Warrant Officer Matz is the camp interpreter who was a key antagonist of the prisoners.

The signs were that the war would be over any day, but when would the news come, and how would the men get home?

Sources

NAA: B2455, DUNCAN, A.S. National Archives of Australia.

1918 157 Company Sergeant Major Andrew Steward Duncan 10th Battalion. Australian Red Cross Society Wounded and Missing, Enquiry Bureau files, 1914-18 War 1DRL/0428.

Hansen, F. 1921. An open letter to an English officer and incidentally to the English people. 4th ed. Hamburg, Germany: Overseas Publishing Co.

Mead, A.E. Private Papers of A E Mead Imperial War Museum collection 17232.

Van Emden, R. 2009. Prisoners of the Kaiser: The last POWs of the Great War. South Yorkshire, England: Pen & Sword Military.