Part 3: Lecture by 2nd Lt Jock Tullis MC RFC on 23rd March 1921

This is more from Jock's lecture describing his experiences in his first POW camp in 1916.  As before, this is copied verbatim so please excuse any typos and 'of the time' language as this is being copied from a poor quality PDF.

This is about all I had the opportunity of seeing in Gutersloh, for a few days later 44 of we Flying Corps Officers were lined up and told we had to leave the camp for another destination, so off we went one fine morning, arriving late that afternoon at Osnabruck some 70 miles from the Dutch frontier and a good deal further north than Gutersloh.

OSNABRUCK

On arrival we were all put into a lot of small rooms in a wing of the camp and kept shut in for 16 days, only being allowed out for half an hour each evening. The food was awful, and if it hadn’t been that we were able to buy some Swiss chocolate and Dutch cheese at the canteen for the first 10 days, I think some of us would have pegged out. The daily fare was something like this:-

A cup of coffee for breakfast and a small bit of dry bread.

Dinner - A plate of soup made from vegetables and absolutely devoid of any fat, with here and there a potato floating about.

Sometimes the menu was varied with pickled herring or eels, but never with meat of any description.

A cup of coffee at night completed the days supply of food to us. I may say that this camp was, during the first two months, one of the worst I was in, for until those at home could send out food and clothes we were half starved and one and all very ill for about a week, the result of eating the stuff the Huns called food. During the 16 days' confinement we were always asking the Huns why we were shut up and when we were to be allowed out to join the other prisoners, but were always given the same answer “I don’t know, Tomorrow perhaps", or some such answer. It was some months later that we learned from the Agent of the American Ambassador the real reason.   It seems that the British  had captured a Zeppelin in which they had found poisonous tracer bullets and had taken the crew of 22, court-martialled them, and sentenced them to be shot, but I thank Heaven that sentence was never carried out otherwise the 44 of us would have had short shrift.

After our food and clothes arrived from home things improved a bit and we were given small rooms with three or four in a room , allowed to do our own cooking and were generally left pretty much to ourselves. Later we were allowed to go out for walks on parole, and to visit the Dentist in the town. I think nearly everyone in that camp amongst the British officers had something or other wrong with their teeth. Our first German Kommandnt was a gentlemanly old fellow treated us to the best of his limited ability, 'out of course always had to carry out any reprisal orders that were sent from the 10th Corps Hqrs. at Hanover. Unfortunately, although I was in five different camps I never got away this Corp whose General Von Hunish later became famous for his ill treatment of British prisoners of war. We soon learnt that he at one time had command of a Regiment on the British front but had made a mess of things and had to retire in disgrace. He also had a son killed on this front, so it is easy to understand he did not love the British.

Later on our old Kommandt had to leave through ill health dying shortly before we left this camp. The man that took his place was a swine of the very worst type starting off by telling us he would do everything in his power to make our yoke as light as possible, but on the contrary doing everything possible to annoy us in a hundred and one small ways. Searches were one of his chief delights but as we were all new prisoners with not much thought of escape I don 't quite know what he hoped to get. We always knew to a day when these searches were coming off, having made a friend of one of his under Corporals who in exchange of a few tins of food always told us all he knew about what new piece of frightfulness the Kommandt was planning.

It was through this source of information that we were able to stop what would unquestionably have been the undoing of three of our fellows.

Leggatts Attempt at Osnabruck

We had been keeping so quiet that the Kommandt evidently got it into his head that none of the British were thinking of escape and to save coal he had for some time been putting out all the bright lights that surrounded the camp and were of course usually kept burning all night. Three of our fellows had got together enough food to last them about a week, which would be ample time to walk the 70 odd kilometers that were between us and Freedom. Everything ready, they had determined to try one night at a quiet corner of the camp by being lowered out of a nearby window. The day before the escape was planned to take place, however, our friend the Corporal informed us he had a great secret to learn which would cost the Herrn as they called us, a few more tins than usual. These being forthcoming, he told us in a very guarded voice that the Kommandt had been told that three British Officers were going to try and escape that night and had got 6 crack shots up from the town to be in wait near the spot from which the attempt was to be made. This news was speedily conveyed to our friend who decided to postpone the attempt and to try and spot if the report was true. Such proved to be the case, for that night the lights were left off as usual and some Huns were seen crawling on all fours to a spot near which our three friends were coming out.

The Huns must have wondered why no escape was attempted and after this the lights were always left on, also a few days later the room in which our friends stayed was swooped down upon and thoroughly searched, most of their gear being seized and they themselves being marched off to the cells where they spent a week for being in possession of verboten articles, compasses, maps, etc. I never learned where they got these articles but expect it was through bribery, all our later experiences going to prove that so long as one attempted to bribe a single Hun it usually came off, but we found it fatal to try it on two or more, one or the other of them always giving the secret away to gain favour and promotion.

Frenchman Straffed

What worried us about the foregoing was who had told the Huns about this attempt and we were not long in finding out that it was one of the foreigners of pretty high rank who stayed in a room to himself on our flat, the rest of which were all British. We heard doubtful stories of this officer's past in the early days of the War and so a meeting was held by whom it was decided that his removal was a necessity for our safety in any future attempts to escape. How to do it was a question, as we could not very well stick a knife into his ugly carcass. The way it was ultimately carried out was rather amusing. Five or six bright youths collected all the jam and treacle that could be spared, and one night about midnight they went to his room, pulled him out of bed, and covered him from head to foot with this filthy mess. They then retired to bed, leaving the foreign officer running downstairs to the Hun Guards, screaming at the top of his voice that the British had tried to murder him and that he was covered with blood, the blood of course being the jam with which he had been liberally anointed. Next day was an exciting one and we were all locked up being allowed no food until the fellows who had carried out the reprisal had owned up. They were court-marshalled and fined 500 marks, which by the way, as far as I know, was never paid.

French Escape at Osnabruck

The only other escape that took place was a piece of pretty cool cheek on the part of two Frenchmen. They cut the wire in broad daylight within a few yards of a sentry whose vision was obscured by a wall. When safely outside, one of them discovered he had forgotten part of his provisions so calmly came back through the hole, collected his stuff and went out again in the same way, their escape not being discovered for several although the hole they had cut was right under the sentry's nose, practically all the time. They were out six days they were caught walking through a village. The punishment was three weeks' cells and moved off to another camp at the end of it. We spent our first Christmas in captivity here. It wasn't a very bright celebration I am afraid, but made the best of things such as they were, and looking back on this now, apart from the hundred and one petty strafes which the Huns always took a delight in inflicting we really had not much to grumble about and a good deal to be thankful for as bitter experiences in the future were to show.

[To be continued...]