Officers and Prisoners

In Elusive Dawn I have a Canadian officer pilot – let’s call him Z - who becomes a Prisoner of War (POW) in Germany, so I wrote his experiences to reflect what was typical -  based on real WW1 POW camps - as well as to illustrate some of the seeming absurdities of war.

Z began his incarceration in Vohrenbach, an idyllic new camp for officers in the Black Forest.  The commandant was an easygoing fellow with an English wife, so he was particularly decent to British POWs. (Canadians were British subjects in those days.)  Food was adequate and sometimes included potato salad and sausages. Giving their parole – a promise not to escape – officers were permitted to go for unguarded walks outside the camp.  With his officer’s salary that Germany had to pay him, as well as money from home, Z could buy good booze and other treats at the canteen.  It was an officer’s duty to try to escape, but most were quickly apprehended.

 

Holzminden officers' POW camp, Germany, WW1

When Vohrenbach was turned into a reprisal camp for French POWs, Z ended up at the notorious Holzminden prison in Prussia – the fiefdom of the brutal commandant, Hauptman Karl Niemeyer. Pilots and Canadians had a reputation for being troublemakers, which is why over 100 of the 500 POWs at Holzminden were Canadian.

Karl Niemeyer

 Niemeyer had lived in the United States for 17 years before the war. The prisoners mocked “Milwaukee Bill’s” often-laughable English, landing some, like Z, in deep trouble.

Niemeyer singled out a few well-known prisoners for harsh treatment, like Leefe Robinson, who had earned a Victoria Cross for being the first pilot to shoot down a German Zeppelin over Britain.  Z also became Niemeyer’s whipping boy, enduring long stretches of solitary confinement.

Rations at Holzminden consisted mostly of odious black bread and dishwater soup, so care packages from home and the Red Cross were essential to the POWs survival. In the latter stages of the war, they ate better than their guards and the starving German population – unless they were in solitary confinement.

Unlike the ranks, officer POWs could not be forced to work, so they relieved boredom with sports, plays, concerts, lectures, debates, reading. And planning escapes.

POWs in Germany were sent to neutral Switzerland or Holland during the latter years of the war if they were ill or had problems with their nerves after prolonged imprisonment. By the end of the war, 40,000 British and Commonwealth troops were interned in Holland alone. Once there, they could live in hotels if they could afford it, and officers could have their wives join them.

Canadian officers had a clubhouse on the seafront in Scheveningen in Holland where booze was cheap. The Canadians had a baseball team and often played against the American Legation in the nearby Hague. Some men got paying jobs and fell in love with local girls. But they weren't allowed to leave the country, and Britain would have been obliged to send them back had they tried. However, if a prisoner managed to escape from Germany to a neutral country, he could go home – and back to war.

On July 23, 1918, after nine months of secret digging, 29 prisoners managed to escape from Holzminden through a tunnel. Ten of them succeeded in reaching Holland.

You’ll have to read Elusive Dawn to discover how Z ends his war.

The Deadly Skies

"He was hit by shrapnel in his hotel room while standing at the window watching the bombing," wrote my grandfather-in-law in his memoirs. This happened to his colleague who was on leave in London during a Zeppelin raid, and had just mentioned to his friends how ironic it would be to die in an air raid on London after surviving so well at the Front.

Zeppelins over London

My characters have a few encounters with London raids. The following scene is from Elusive Dawn, and describes the first successful downing of an airship in Britain, in Sept. 1916, for which pilot Leefe Robinson received a Victoria Cross.

The thunder of distant explosions seemed to punctuate her statement.

“An air raid!” Sid cried with glee. She turned out the lights and went to the window, drawing back the blackout curtains, which were now mandatory. “Oh look, there’s a Zepp to the north, heading our way.”

The graceful, silvery behemoth was pinned in the beams of dozens of searchlights. Anti-aircraft fire burst around it like holiday fireworks. As if in celebratory greeting. Even though it appeared to be on the outskirts of London, they could hear the whine of shells and the cacophony of explosions.

“Oooh, there are a few more in the distance. They’ve just been spotted by the lights.” And began dropping their bombs.

“We should go to a shelter, or at least your cellar,” Jack suggested half-heartedly.

“Don’t be absurd, darling. The basement is the servants’ domain. This is the only excitement I get. I really can understand why you men want to go to the Front. There’s something deliciously stimulating, almost erotic, about danger. It makes you realize that you’re alive.”

“Aren’t you worried about your reputation – if we should be killed and they find our naked bodies?” Jack teased as he draped her silk peignoir around her shoulders.

“I don’t give a damn! Let the sanctimonious prudes realize that I lived and loved and had more fun than they did.”  . . .   “Oh, look! It’s been hit!”

The Zeppelin had been twisting in different directions, as if it were impaled on the beams of light and writhing to free itself. Suddenly it burst into flames, its nose drooping down, fire scrambling up the sides until it was completely ablaze and plummeting toward the ground.

“Poor bloody buggers,” Jack couldn’t help saying. Fire was the aviators’ worst fear . . .  He and Chas always took along their revolvers when flying. Just in case.

The Zepp was exploding as well, from the ammunition on board. The city was like a stage suddenly illuminated, and they could see people out in the streets. Cheering.

The other Zeppelins must have turned back or headed elsewhere, since they were no longer in view.

“They didn’t get very close,” Sid said, as if disappointed the Zeppelins hadn’t dropped bombs around her house.

Jack found himself perturbed and annoyed by that blasé civilian attitude that some espoused – that war was a fun diversion for a while.

He couldn’t help thinking about the aircrew who had just been doing their duty for their country, as he did, and who perhaps had wives and mothers and children awaiting them back home.

His ardour dampened, he knew it was time to leave.

During air raids, London policemen rode about on bicycles or in cars with placards announcing that people should take cover. Boy scouts bugled the "All Clear" when the raids were over.

Zeppelin bombing raids during the four years of the war killed 557 people, injured 1358, and caused £3 million damage. During the last two years if the war, the new German Gotha bombers killed an additional 836 people, injured 2,000, and caused a further £1.5 million damage. This first “Battle of Britain” served to terrorize the population, disrupt factory production, and draw pilots and resources away from the front lines for Home Defence.

The Art of War

My characters enjoy spending time with real people, so it’s understandable that ambitious Jack Wyndham is thrilled to meet powerful ex-pat Canadian millionaire, British MP, and newspaper baron, Sir Max Aitken, who becomes Lord Beaverbrook in 1916. A self-made man, Aitken admires Jack’s cleverness and business savvy, but also recognizes his artistic talents, and hires him to be one his war artists.

"A Copse, Evening" by A.Y. Jackson. Beaverbrook Collection of War Art, Canadian War Museum

Farsighted and always a staunch Canadian, Aitken established and financed the Canadian War Records Office in 1916 in order to document Canada’s war efforts in film and photographs, despite initial opposition from the War Office. Troops and other personnel, like nurses, were not allowed to have cameras overseas, so these official photographers produced vital historical records.

"War in the Air" by C.R.W. Nevinson, Beaverbrook Collection of War Art, Canadian War Museum

Beaverbrook also established the Canadian War Memorials Fund, hiring artists to capture Canadians on the home front – in the fields and factories – as well as in the trenches. Nearly 1000 paintings were created by artists such as A.Y. Jackson, Frederick Varley, and Arthur Lismer, who would later become members of the Group of Seven. The “War in the Air” painting above depicts Canada’s and Britain’s top Ace, Billy Bishop, in combat.

After decades of lying sadly neglected and unseen in the vaults of the National Art Gallery, these treasures are now housed at the Canadian War Museum, where some are on permanent display.

In Elusive Dawn you can join Jack Wyndham for a country house weekend at Max Aitken’s estate, Cherkely Court.

Hell's Bells, Slang is Fun!

One of the challenges of writing historical fiction is not only understanding the mindset of people from a different era, but also having them speak the lingo of their time. Many slang words and colloquialisms survive decades, but others are fleeting, and colourfully help to define the age.

Something good is surely more fun when it’s “crackerjack”. If you “talked wet” in 1914, someone might have responded with “Applesauce!” or “Flapdoodle!”, as my characters do to what they consider nonsense.

A fly boy and his bus

In WW1 military slang, a “fly boy” often got the “wind up” when he flew missions over the front lines in his “bus”, because the “Huns’” “archie” would be out to get him. Pilots had to contend with these “ack-ack” guns from the ground as well as machine-gun fire from enemy aircraft, including the Red Baron’s “flying circus”. Being a bit “windy” or scared might actually have helped a pilot make better choices to survive.

Traumatized by the horrors of trench warfare, many men hoped for a “Blighty” that would get them shipped back to England without being too badly wounded. But those who “copped a packet” often ended up “going west”, sometimes into an unmarked grave. The men in the trenches feared the usual morning and evening “hate” when they were bombarded by “blind or flying pigs”, “moaning minnies”, “whizz-bangs”, or other artillery. For soldiers, “chatting” meant de-lousing, while “swinging the lead” could land them in serious trouble with “brass hats” for shirking their duty.

“Tommies” and American “Doughboys” appreciated a good bottle of French “plonk”, but too much could result in becoming “squiffy”, “pie-eyed”, or “spifflicated”.

Words are such fun, aren’t they? I use several sources in my research, but the Oxford Dictionary of Slang is “the cat’s pajamas”!