This instalment covers the time until Jock is moved to Holzminden...
Strohen
Our sentence being finished we said goodbye to Clausthal and took train for Strohen, a camp in the middle of a large bleak moor and some seventy odd miles from the Dutch Frontier. This camp consisted of a number of wooden barracks with a dozen or so rooms in each, and was one of the most uncomfortable camps in Germany. It had been built to Straffe Russian Officers and I believe the poor wretches had a terrible time here for over a year. At each corner of the camp towers were erected in which sentries with machine guns were always on guard.
My first night there, looking back now, was really amusing although it did not seem so at the time. Like an ass I had come away from Clausthal carrying only sufficient food for the journey and no clothes, thinking my luggage would come on by the same train . It did not turn up for several days and all my store of tinned food was stolen on the journey. I was given a room with two of our Merchant skippers and after hearing their latest news I lay down to sleep, but was up again the next minute feeling for some very hard object in my bed and presently unearthed same in the shape of an old rat-trap. I should mention that the mattresses were stuffed with none too clean straw so that all sorts of weird objects found their way into one’s bed when it was being filled. Before I could sleep that night I had unearthed a goodly pile of broken bottles, old books, bread cards and goodness knows what else.
The life at Strohen was much the same as at any other camp so I will not dwell on it, but before passing on I should like to say a few words of what happened when this camp first became British. The first Britishers here were some fifty of sixty newly captured Merchant skippers, engineers and officers, mostly well on in life and with, of course, no knowledge of the ways of the Hun who did pretty well as he liked with them, so judge the surprise of the Hun when one fine day a party of fifty officers from Clausthal were seen marching up the road singing all the comic songs at the top of their voices and showing plainly enough that they did not care a rap for all the Huns
in Christendom. This lively party were met at the camp by the Merchant skippers crowding round the wire to exchange greetings, but this the Hun did not like and the Kommandt, Neimeyer the second, ordered his sentries to fix bayonets and drive them back to their rooms where they were locked in. This small show of swinishness showed our party the sort of Huns they were up against. On the first roll call things began to hum. To begin with we were always very careful to note that when a German called out our name he should give us our rank as well.
On this occasion, the Huns did not do so, and when the first name was called out, a Captain, he, of course, did not move. The
Hun interpreter could not understand this performance and after bawling out the officer's name half a dozen times he turned and shouted "Some of you fellows don't seem to know your names" upon which the first named officer quietly replied "There is a Captain KENNARD here.” After this the Huns were always very particular to give us all our ranks.
Tin Hats
Some few days after this party' s arrival, the Huns gave
out an order that all British Officers possessing Tin Hats (steel helmets) must give them up at once, but rather than do this our fellows threw them into a number of small but fairly deep ponds that were in the camp. The Huns replied by sending in sentries armed with long poles attached to which was a long piece of string having a bent nail tied on to the end.
One old Hun had quite a successful half hour's fishing and had brought up some six or seven hats which he piled up one on top of the other at his side. He was just in the act of landing his eighth when a couple of our fellows took a running kick at the pile and sent them all back again. The guard were turned out to drive our fellows into their rooms and I 'm sorry to say one officer was bayoneted through the leg while this was going on. This same officer, after he came back from Hospital , made a very clever escape from the bath shed, covering the 70 odd kilometres to the Frontier within a week and getting safely across the Frontier. This officer was mainly responsible for the splended supply of verboten articles such as maps, compasses, German money etc. that soon began to come in. It was in this camp that I received five Ordanance survey maps, a compass and an electric torch, all of which were sent out in a blue coloured Oval Tin sealed up and labelled on the outside, "Parson’s Farmyard Pork Sausages" with a small label on the top instructing the user not to open this tin unless for immediate use. Now although I knew this tin was coming, the name and method of labelling would have been sufficient to arouse our suspicions. We received so many tins that very soon we knew the names of all the well-known packers and their methods of packing, so that a strange name was quite sufficient to make us suspicious of the contents. This was the only tin in the parcel, the other articles being stuff that would be very valuable on an escape, dates, raisins, almonds, ships biscuits etc. These were the maps we ultimately used and they proved invaluable, and accurate beyond belief as the actual experience was to confirm.
Shortly after the episode of the tin hats, Neimeyer was removed from Strohen much to the relief of everyone, Germans included, his place being taken by a German Captain who was undoubtedly wrong in the mind. His pet hobby was to come on the roll-calls and try to get the crowd of British officers to give him a real military salute. His methods were many and varied but none met with much success. On one roll-call he came on and made a special effort to obtain his much desired recognition. On roll—calls we were formed up four deep in a long line and when your name was called you were supposed to walk a few yards to your left and get into the same formation. This was to enable the Huns to keep count of us all as previously it was an easy matter when a couple escaped to answer their names for them and by so doing give them a few days clear start. Our friend the Kommandt went up to the first officer, pulled down his coat, clicked his heels, straightened his shoulders and saluted, to which the British Officer paid not the slightest attention but only stared at him. The Kommandt tried again with a like result and then passed on to the next officer a giant of a Scotchman who, after the Kommandt had gone through his palaver, literally sprang to attention and saluted with a great wave of the arm. This so staggered our old boy that it took him some minutes to recover.
When he did so he gave the Scot a genial salute and passed on in a dazed fashion to the next officer , who taking his cue from the other two, waited until the Kommandt had got his part over, then swept off his hat at the same time making a magnificent low bow. Amidst audible titters from the crowd, the Kommandt returned his bow and again passed on to the next officer, who, as I have explained, had three other officers standing behind him. Having seen how the previous three had behaved, they probably arranged their stunt, but be that as it may, after the old boy had again got his part off his chest, the four officers like one man put their hands to their foreheads and made a deep salaam, with which the Kommandt was delighted, but his joy was short-lived for this sort of thing was too much for our fellows who burst into a roar of laughter and the rest of the Huns, seeing plainly enough that we were making fool of their Kommandt, marched him off the parade and a few days later he was removed from the camp altogether.
Several escapes were tried from this camp, the cleverest of which was done by a party of officers dressed as British Tommies and one of their number who spoke-German dressed as a German Under Officer. ESCAPES . This party marched out one of the side gates of the camp, the sentry on guard being completely taken in and their absence was not discovered until the evening roll—call. However, none of them got through.
Another attempt that failed was done by a party of officers who got hold of a stout pole and after hanging about for days at a favourable moment, when the gentry was off his guard, they rushed at the main gate, a wooden frame filled in with Rabbit wire, their intention being to ram the lock and make a bolt for it. Unfortunately, the man who was steering the pole missed the lock altogether, all that happened being that the pole went through the wire instead, and one of the number received a bullet in the leg from the now frightened sentry.
Kinnard’s
One other escape is worth mentioning, that of a Lt. Kinnard who made a key for the second main gate which he hoped would open it alright. All locks on these were of the double turn type and, of course, one could not march up to a gate and try the fit of a key. Only one attempt dared be made and the gate had either to open successfully or not.
However, every night for a week or so this officer strolled up and down in front of the camp, awaiting an opportunity to make the attempt. One night he seized a few minutes’ opportunity, marched up to the gate and inserted the key and to his surprise and delight the lock turned easily. Out walked Kinnard and actually passed several German soldiers before he was clear of the outbuildings. Only out a week, however, when he was caught in a village through losing his way. One night, having lost his way, he struck a signal box on which he could faintly see a name, so he hunted around and unearthed a ladder up which he proceeded to climb to make out the name. At the top of the ladder, instead of looking at the name he found himself looking at the face of a frightened Hun signalman who, after a bit, proceeded to give chase but Kinnard got safely away. We also ran two tunnels from Strohen.
The first was discovered and the second was given away by the roof falling in, leaving a gaping hole in the ground level, which of course was easily noticed by the Huns in their nightly inspection of the camp. Rumours began to circulate that the camp was to be broken up and sure enough in January or February 1918, a notice was posted up to this effect.
All officers who behaved themselves in the eyes of the Huns, that is, never tried to escape etc., were to be sent to the best camp in Germany, at least so rumour had it. I was not one of these fortunate people, our destination being Holzminden, where we knew one of the hated Neimeyers was Kommandt.