Andy was not a movie-goer. His routine was to walk to the Beaufort Mechanics Institute library and borrow a good book, perhaps an Agatha Christie mystery, and bring it home to read in his favourite armchair. This quiet escape into a book had become a habit when he served in India, and had helped sustain him as a Prisoner of War in Germany.
So it was quite unusual when Andy decided to go to the pictures. It was 1959 and he wanted to see ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’.
The movie was showing at the Regent Theatre in Ballarat.
Travelling from Beaufort to see the movie took a bit of organising. Andy telephoned his grandson Robert in Ballarat and asked him to make the arrangements. As well as the seat reservations at the Regent, Robert needed to book tickets for the Beaufort-Ballarat train.
Robert took the train to Beaufort, stayed overnight at the Duncan home, then travelled back to Ballarat with his grandfather.
Their seats were in the dress circle, near the front and on the aisle, so that Andy could get up and move about, if need be. The film was over two and a half hours long, and Andy had not been in a cinema for at least twenty years.
It is a gripping war story of outstanding personal courage, and undoubtedly one of the outstanding films of the past year.
It is however, emotionally exhausting, reviving after more than a decade of peace the stark realities of jungle warfare.
Extract from The Canberra Times, 5 February 1958
Andy seemed a little shaken when he left the theatre. Perhaps it was partly because his first Technicolor cinema experience was overwhelming, but the film must have brought his own Prisoner of War memories to the surface.
He did not say much, except to admire Alec Guiness’ portrayal of the British colonel. This character, an officer who refuses to allow his officers to work even though it means solitary confinement and punishment, must have resonated with Andy, who had refused to work for the Germans in 1918.
Sources
1958 ‘Gripping Realism In Fine Columbia Film’, The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 – 1995), 5 February, p. 3. [ONLINE] Available at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91257015 [Accessed 5 Jun 2016].
1958 ‘New Film Releases’, The Australian Women’s Weekly (1933 – 1982), 26 March, p. 82.[ONLINE] Available at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51597723 [Accessed 5 Jun 2016].
Featured image: 1959 ‘Advertising’, Western Herald (Bourke, NSW : 1887 – 1970), 3 April, p. 9. Newspaper article found in Trove and reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Australia. [ONLINE] Available at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article103994632 [Accessed 5 Jun 2016].
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. 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.
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. 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 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].
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
At Springhirsch POW camp punishments were wide-ranging and often capriciously decided –
Men were sent on fatigues to fetch the guards’ food supplies from the railway station. Without horses they had to push the van for miles to Lentföhrden. Along the way they took any opportunity to scrounge vegetables from roadside farms and pocket food from the German supplies. Men caught stealing guards’ bread had their own bread ration withheld for four days.
The Commandant stopped the issue of Red Cross packets because no prisoners would volunteer to fetch bread from the station. The men were made to parade, seemingly until volunteers stepped forward. Finally 50 men volunteered, but the men did not move until the Commandant agreed to start issuing packets again.
“Strafe parades” were called with short notice, sometimes twice a day. The men had to parade and display their towels, blankets or mattresses. If it rained during the parade the men returned to their bunks with sodden bedding.
Even the relatively inconsequential penalties were part of a constant effort to break the prisoners down –
The Sergeant Majors were shut out of their bunkhouse for a day for not removing a stove as ordered.
In late August 1918 all cricket and football was stopped because too many windows had been broken. The Germans demanded that the prisoners pay for the damage – not just for the broken windows adjacent to the sports area, but for all broken windows throughout the camp.
The games soon resumed. Two weeks later a football game was stopped and the ball confiscated, seemingly because the prisoners were enjoying themselves too much. The guards claimed that the shouting and laughing were upsetting the camp’s neighbours. Sergeant A.E. Mead noted drily that there were only two houses within a mile of the camp.
The prisoners had formed a band and purchased instruments. The Commandant asked the band to play in the camp square, but the band refused. The Commandant cancelled the evening concert as a consequence.
It seems that as numbers in the camp grew, arrest and confinement in the punishment cells became more common. Perhaps this was a way of managing the shortage of beds in the crowded bunkhouses.
Men were given 14 or 21 days ‘in the jug’ for standing or sitting during morning exercise, or for making a fire for cooking or warmth.
The German camp interpreter was singled out as a key antagonist, someone who would find any excuse to put a man in the cells on bread and water.
Sources
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: Football game at a Prisoner of War (POW) camp at Springhirsch, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Australian War Memorial collection PO3236.279
After three months in Limburg I went to Parchim and from there was sent to Springhesch [Springhirsch]. The latter is a “strafe” camp for N.C.O.s. Living conditions here, unspeakably disgusting.
“Strafe” was army slang for “punish” and strafe camps were designed to punish NCOs who would not volunteer for work. After the war the Aberdeen Daily Journal reported that Springhirsch NCOs
… were specially interesting because of the fact that theirs was a strafe camp for “non-com.’s” who persisted in the right to be exempt from work. Some of the “non-com.’s” stated that they had been originally in different camps but were concentrated at Springhurst because of their refusal. The camp was insanitary, and, as a matter of fact had been condemned before they were sent to it.
The previous Russian internees had been relocated and the camp closed because of the appalling conditions, but it was reopened “for the benefit of the British NCO’s”.
Springhirsch camp was in the Province of Schleswig-Holstein, north of Hamburg near Kaltenkirchen. Prisoners’ recollections of the camp in the second half of 1918 were that it was cold, wet and windy. Fellow prisoner Sergeant A.E. Mead noted that there was scarcely a day without rain. Thunderstorms and heavy downpours were common. As winter neared icy winds would blow across the plain from the North Sea or the Baltic Sea, leaving each prisoner shivering beneath his two threadbare blankets. On 15 August Andy wrote from Springhirsch
Was taken prisoner in a raid on 1/3/18. I was sent to Dulmen where I met most of the men captured on the Somme offensive. From Dulmen was sent along with other N.C.O’s to Limburg, from there to Parchim and then on to this place which is an N.C.O’s Camp called Springhirsch. I was not wounded badly enough to go into hospital, only a few scats from bursting shells – they soon healed up and at the present time I am quite well, only a bit below my normal weight but I will soon pick that up now that the food packets have started to come along. Have also received my uniform and underclothing.
Red Cross parcels were finally reaching him. He probably had his German-issue blue POW uniform by this time.
Cottbus, Germany. c. 1918. Formal group portrait of Australian prisoners of war (POW). The men are wearing a mixture of Australian Army uniform and a darker uniform and peaked hats issued by the Germans. They have been permitted to continue wearing their rank stripes, rising sun badges and awards. Australian War Memorial collection P02318.001
Sources
NAA: B2455, DUNCAN, AS. National Archives of Australia.
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.
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: Repatriated Prisoners Reach Leith’. Aberdeen Daily Journal 9 April, p.4. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.findmypast.co.uk
1918 ‘Back from Germany: Prisoners’ Stories of Life in Captivity’. The Scotsman 27 December, p.2. [ONLINE] Available at: http://archive.scotsman.com
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.
‘Slang used in the trenches’. Digger History:an unofficial history of the Australian & New Zealand Armed Services.
Featured image: Detail from historical map of Provinz Schleswig-Holstein 1905. Source: Bibliothek allgemeinen und praktischen Wissens für Militäranwärter Band I, 1905 / Deutsches Verlaghaus Bong & Co Berlin * Leipzig * Wien * Stuttgart. [ONLINE] Available at: http://commons.wikimedia.org. This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1923.
Four months after being captured Andy was still surviving on starvation rations in Limburg POW camp.
July l.- Just a few more lines now that I have the opportunity again. I am hoping that this will find you in the very best of health, as this leaves me as well as can be expected under my present circumstances. I hope you are not worrying over me being here. I know it is bad enough being here, but it is ever so much better than having about six feet of earth to myself somewhere in Flanders or France. Don’t you think so? There is a good chance of me returning when the war is over.
This last 10 days we have had nothing but rain here, but to-day it is much better, and the sun has come out again and we are likely to have some good weather. The amount of wet weather we have had lately is not likely to do the crops any good.
It is four months to-day since I was taken prisoner, and up to the present time have not received any of the bread and grocery parcels that the Red Cross send out to every prisoner of war. I hope it won’t be very long before my parcels start to arrive, as I am just about as low as it is possible to be without breaking down altogether, and I don’t want that to happen, as I don’t think it would be possible to get up again if once I did break down.
I have written a card to Mrs. Stark in Broken Hill. Of course, I could not say much on a card, and I told her that she would be able to get the news, such as I can send you. I hope you have received all my other letters, as I am patiently waiting for a letter from you, as I have not had a letter since I was captured. I wonder what they have done with your letters which would arrive in the battalion after I was captured. As I have not received any of them, I was wondering if you have had them returned to you. Please let me know when you reply to this, and when writing letters to me always put my address on the top of the letter as well as on the envelope, as it greatly assists the censor.
In any parcel you are sending to me, please enclose plenty of chocolate, and in your next parcel please enclose some needles and plenty of cotton, also a few packets of cigarettes, or I will make my own if you would send some cigarette paper and packets or tins of light tobacco. I could do with a cake or two of soap in each parcel. I think I have said all this time, so I will now close, hoping to hear from you soon. I remain your ever-loving husband – Andy. Kind regards to all at home.
The cigarettes and soap that Andy requested were highly prized in the camps by prisoners and guards alike. Tobacco could distract a prisoner from his hunger, and soap could be used to purchase food or favours from the guards.
Of all scarce articles in Deutsch land, soap was the scarcest. The lice made our days and nights miserable in the extreme and though we stripped every time a chance occurred, it seemed impossible even to keep them down.
fromPrisoners of the Kaiser: The last POWs of the Great Warby Richard Van Emden
While a Prisoner of War Andy set himself the daily routine of marching in uniform around the camp. He marched to keep himself from breaking down, but also to encourage other POWs who might be wavering in their resolve.
Sources
NAA: B2455, DUNCAN, AS. National Archives of Australia.
Featured image: Distributing Red Cross parcels to allied POWs at Kriegsgefstammlager (camp) at Limburg, Germany.
Australian War Memorial collection P03236.004
‘Australians and the War.’ (6 April 1918), The Age, p. 14. Newspaper article found in Trove reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Australia.
Andy was at Dülmen POW camp for only three weeks, not long enough to start receiving Red Cross parcels of food and clothing. Around the anniversary of the Gallipoli landing he was transferred to Limburg camp.
June 1.- Once more I have the pleasure of writing a few lines, and I hope this will find you all in the very best of health, as this leaves me as well as can be expected under my present conditions. I hope you have received my other letters, and that you have sent the money through the Red Cross which I asked you to send, as at present I have no money and nothing else, and I have to depend on the other prisoners. I have also to do the same as regards soap and anything else I want, but I hope to be able to repay them when I get some money from you, which I hope wont be long in coming along now. I am just about tired of waiting for word, as I have not had a word of any kind from any one since I was captured, which is just three months ago today; I am also waiting patiently for some of the Red Cross parcels to come along to me. I hope you have written to Mrs. Stark and all the others, and told them where I am; also not being able to write to everyone. I am longing for a letter very much, and I don’t care how soon one comes or who it is from, but I would rather have one from you.
I hope when you do write that you will give me all the news possible, but of course I cannot expect to get any word from you for another two or three months yet. Hoping this will find you in the very best of health. I remain your ever-loving husband. – Andy.
‘FOR THE EMPIRE.’ (29 June 1918), Riponshire Advocate, p. 2. Newspaper article found in Trove reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Australia.
Sources
NAA: B2455, DUNCAN, AS. 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.
Featured image: Detail from historical map of Provinz Westfalen 1905. Source: Bibliothek allgemeinen und praktischen Wissens für Militäranwärter Band I, 1905 / Deutsches Verlaghaus Bong & Co Berlin * Leipzig * Wien * Stuttgart. [ONLINE] Available at: http://commons.wikimedia.org. This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1923.
Towards the end of March 1918 Andy was moved from Courtrai to Dendermonde.
Here there were 280 of us in a room that could not properly accommodate 50. It was a frightful experience and we suffered it for 13 days.
He may have had a threadbare blanket, but no bedding and no place to sleep.
In early April the captured men were marched to the station to entrain for Germany.
Perhaps Andy’s trip into Germany followed a common transport route for POWs: to Brussels, through Liege, Aachen and Dusseldorf, before arriving at Dülmen camp. The journey took several days, the men crammed into cattle cars that bumped and shunted along. Every few hours the train would lurch into a station. At some stations they were able to leave the train and stretch their legs. At others they could only catch a glimpse of the town by pressing their faces to the ventilation grates.
During the journey the men might have received meagre rations of bread or barley water, or they might have attempted to barter parts of their uniform for food. Trading boots and braces could get a man half a loaf of bread.
Arriving at the Dülmen camp, Andy was finally processed as a prisoner of war. He lined up with the men to be counted. Some were asked if they were willing to work on farms or in factories. Andy seems to have refused. Under the Hague Convention officers and non-commissioned officers were not required to work, but with Germany suffering quite severely under the Allies’ naval blockade, and a shortage of working men at home, the country relied on POW labour. NCO prisoners were often ‘encouraged’ to volunteer through beatings and other ill treatment.
Following the head-count Andy was assigned to a NCO bunkhouse. After the suffocating confines at Dendermonde and the crowded train journey, a bunk with a blanket and a straw mattress must have been very welcome. Then Andy would have proceeded to the camp baths, had his hair clipped short and his clothes fumigated. Returning to his bunkhouse he probably took the first opportunity to write to Jane and let her know he was still alive.
The confirmation that Andy was a prisoner of war seems to have come a few weeks later in a postcard from another soldier to Jane. On 28 April his Statement of Service was noted “Now reported prisoner of war in German hands”, but his prison camp was not known. Until Andy’s whereabouts were established he would not receive Red Cross parcels. He would have to survive on camp rations and live in the clothes in which he was captured, probably lice-ridden despite the camp fumigation. He must have been desperately hungry.
No matter where men were, food meant little more than starvation rations. Typically, each man would receive a mug of ersatz coffee made from burnt barley or acorns, and a thin slice of black bread, adulterated with sawdust. At lunch he might have soup of varying quality, but generally it was little more than the water in which guards had boiled their own meals, with odd pieces of vegetable floating around.
fromPrisoners of the Kaiser: The last POWs of the Great Warby Richard Van Emden
Prisoners’ meals, Dülmen POW camp. The top photograph shows the large containers of food being carried from the kitchens and the lower photograph shows the serving of food to the POWs. Australian War Memorial Collection P03236.274
Sources
Mead, A.E. Private Papers of A E Mead Imperial War Museum collection 17232.
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.
Featured image: POWs at Dülmen camp, Germany. Australian War Memorial collection P01981.059
Andrew's Archives 
