Prisoners Of War

[Prudie]

I've watched one of my favourite WW2 movies today 'The Enemy Below'. I know it's over-romanticised but I have a question - when German survivors were picked up in the Atlantic by either US or British ships (and vice versa) where did they then put them? In prisoner of war camps in UK or what?

[tonyav]

Didn't know that they had training camps for the James Bond type, stuey.

[stuey]

I think we cross-posted Tony: see my last post on the first page.

[Prudie]

Is it wrong that envy those stuck in Aruba?

[tonyav]

Yep, just seen it. Thanks stuey.

[tonyav]

No it's not, Prudie ;-)

[stuey]

Prudie, I guess being held there was much preferable to being bombed, strafed, and/or torpedoed...A very nice little island, sort of flat and not too scenic, but safe and warm.

[Prudie]

Exactly stuey, I have satellite-viewed it a lot as a colleague goes there regularly and has encouraged me to visit.

[stuey]

Go for it! You can also nip across to Curacao and Bonaire. They call them the ABC islands.

[EDDIE51]

There was an Italian Prisoner of war camp in my home town near Cambridge . The prisoners were not locked up they could walk out if they so wanted. They used to work on local farms, as all the men had been called up they were needed. Many stayed on after the war and were the nucleus of the large Italian community in Cambridge today.
Clanad I often wondered which state you were from, a close mate of mine when I was working in Saudi Arabia was from Cheyenne Wyoming . He often spoke about the 'wide open spaces' in his home state, gets a bit chilly in winter as well so he told me.

[Barks]

Although naval personnel were held in other PoW camps there were a number of Marlag (marinelager) mainly in Poland but a couple in Germany that were built specifically to hold navy servicemen.
There was also a Milag (marineinternientenlager) near Bremen for captured merchant seamen.

[tamborine]

They shared prefabs in Hants & worked on the farms. All men who rarely spoke; very secretive. We kids were scared off with threats of kidnapping.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Prefab_20060625.jpg

[Peter Pedant]

. Sveik - yeah that apparently was the one successful escape from Canada.

In the UK a very few escaped - three got somewhere by saying:
Ah yes our accents... vell fee are Danish - Dansk - you see.....

They were picked up and carted around. I think the trade to Canada dried up after the Germans torpedoed a few of the transports ( happens in war - ho hum ). When one enigma machine was captured - ( so seldom I should be able to tell you which one it was ) . The captured men were segregated on the opposite side of the ship and then were secluded in special holding areas pending interrogation. None of them had noticed. I think that was Lemke's.

and they generated reports like this:
http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-454INT.htm

sorry if you feel this answer is off point

[Peter Pedant]

milags are here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlag_und_Milag_Nord

otherwise the RN ( er yeah I realise that means non-German) were mixed in camps. And called the other services 'pongos'. When the navy men took over a hut it was stripped and scrubbed. And then with broken glass, the men wold shave off the top sliver of wood of the floor - leaving a pristine service.

Scrupuously clean presumably from years of living cheek by jowl on board.

Clearly men to mess with if you could manage it.

[Khandro]

Most of the people interned in the UK were not prisoners of war but 'Enemy aliens'; foreigners whose countries we were at war with. Some were shipped to Canada, one of the transporting ships was tragically sunk by a German u-boat killing everyone one on board.

[Peter Pedant]

I thought they cleared the whole of the Isle of Man and madeit into a POW camp. But it wasnt quite like that
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutchinson_Internment_Camp

The German Jews who were first into the camps as alien internees reported being robbed ( watches, moolah etc ) by their British guards - dear dear we dont often hear about that !

[Khandro]

Interesting link, Peter, I knew about Schwitters and his porridge sculptures - just think, if one had survived it would have been worth thousands today.
Also on the theme of 'Enemy Aliens' and artists, Eduardo Paolozzi's Italian family were innocent ice cream merchants in Edinburgh, and both his father and his grandfather were put onto the Canada-bound ship I mentioned above where they both perished, fortunately for him and the world at large he was too young to be sent with them.
I knew him very well, we used to practice judo together at the Budokwai in Chelsea (along with Benny Hill!).