13 Days: The Chronicle of an Escape from a German PrisonCaunter, John Alan Lyde
History
13 Days: The Chronicle of an Escape from a German Prison
Caunter, John Alan Lyde
Prisoner-of-war escapes; World War, 1914-1918 -- Prisoners and prisons, German
These German soldiers were far from being on the best of terms with
our old Landsturm men, who continued to carry out the usual guard
duties as they had done previously.
Nothing else happened beyond the arrest of five civilian Germans who
were hanging about the entrance to the prison. Why they were suddenly
seized and flung into cells no one rightly knew, but we concluded
that it had to do with these same May 1st demonstrations.
The preparations for the great exodus from the camp were full of comic
and sometimes almost tragic incidents.
Some prisoners, who had taken the trouble to try to make their rooms
comfortable when the camp became all English, were particularly savage
over the move, and took care that nothing which they were unable to
take away should be left to be sold again to another batch of
prisoners at a later date. There was a considerable quantity of live
stock of various kinds in the camp, and measures for the
transportation of these furred and feathered belongings had to be
undertaken. The rabbits had to have special boxes made for them so
that they could be carried by hand.
These rabbits had been in existence some six months at Crefeld and
were very prolific breeders. They provided many an excellent meal for
their owners and were objects of great interest, being watched by a
small crowd of the prison inhabitants every day.
Quite a number of canaries, a dog or two and a cat, were also in the
camp, and would have to be taken away by their owners.
We were told that our heavy baggage might in due course follow us to
the new prison camps and that we could take one box each, which was to
accompany us. Of course we all had accumulated much more stuff than
would go into one box, and much grousing and desperate thinking was
the result of this order.
The commandant promised to have our special boxes of tinned food sent
on to us as soon as possible after our departure. Although many of us
never expected to see the things again, he kept his promise, greatly
to the delight of everyone. These food boxes arrived some three weeks
after we had got to the new camp.
On the last evening at Crefeld, definite "move" orders were issued and
our names were called by parties. I was detailed for No. 2 camp, which
was to have over half the 750 officers at that time at Crefeld.
Another party consisted approximately of three hundred officers, and
the remaining fifty or so were distributed among two or three other
new camps.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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