Outwitting the Hun: My Escape from a German Prison CampO'Brien, Pat
History
Outwitting the Hun: My Escape from a German Prison Camp
O'Brien, Pat
Prisoner-of-war escapes; World War, 1914-1918 -- Prisoners and prisons, German
Whenever a new prisoner came in and his German hosts had satisfied
themselves as to his life history and taken down all the details--that
is, all he would give them--he was immediately surrounded by his
fellow-prisoners, who were eager for any bit of news or information he
could possibly give them, and as a rule he was glad to tell us because,
if he had been in the hands of the Huns for any length of time, he had
seen very few English officers.
The conditions of this prison were bad enough when a man was in normally
good health, but it was barbarous to subject a wounded soldier to the
hardships and discomforts of the place. However, this was the fate of
a poor private we discovered there one day in terrific pain, suffering
from shrapnel in his stomach and back. All of us officers asked to have
him sent to a hospital, but the doctors curtly refused, saying it was
against orders. So the poor creature went on suffering from day to day
and was still there when I left, another victim of German cruelty.
At one time in this prison-camp there were a French marine, a French
flying officer, and two Belgian soldiers, and of the United Kingdom
one from Canada, two from England, three from Ireland, a couple from
Scotland, one from Wales, a man from South Africa, one from Algeria,
and a New-Zealander, the last being from my own squadron, a man whom
I thought had been killed, and he was equally surprised, when brought
into the prison, to find me there. In addition there were a Chinaman and
myself from the U. S. A.
It was quite a cosmopolitan group, and as one typical Irishman said,
"Sure, and we have every nation that's worth mentioning, including the
darn Germans, with us whites." Of course, this was not translated to
the Germans, nor was it even spoken in their hearing, or we probably
would not have had quite so cosmopolitan a bunch. Each man in the prison
was ready to uphold his native country in any argument that could
possibly be started, and it goes without saying that I never took a back
seat in any of them with my praise for America, with the Canadian and
Chinaman chiming in on my side. But they were friendly arguments; we
were all in the same boat and that was no place for quarreling.
Every other morning, the weather allowing, we were taken to a large
swimming-pool and were allowed to have a bath. There were two pools, one
for the German officers and one for the men. Although we were officers,
we had to use the pool occupied by the men. While we were in swimming a
German guard with a rifle across his knees sat at each comer of the pool
and watched us closely as we dressed and undressed. English interpreters
accompanied us on all of these trips, so at no time could we talk
without their knowing what was going on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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