Was POW real or propaganda?
We have run plenty of stories in this paper about the devastation caused by German doodlebugs during the Second World War.
Less well known is the fact that sometimes these V1 rockets also carried propaganda leaflets in the form of facsimiles of letters supposedly from British prisoners of war.
The V1 POW Post leaflets, as they were proudly emblazoned, contained copies of letters from real Allied POWs which were also helpfully translated into print in case the finder of the leaflets found the POW’s handwriting hard to decipher.
The Germans urged the finder “to cut out or copy these letters and send them to the address so that they receive them as soon as possible.” They also promised the originals would be sent on via the Red Cross in the normal way.
The British authorities were not happy about this and ordered that any such leaflets found should be handed into the police immediately.
The reason given was the suspicion that the Germans were hoping the letters would be passed to the POWs’ families, who might then respond which the Nazis could intercept and use to judge how accurate the V1 missiles were.
This seems a rather convoluted story. By the time the leaflet made its way to the family and then their response reached the POW camp, the information would have been somewhat out of date. A simpler explanation might just be that the leaflets were intended as part of the propaganda war to convince the British that the enemy were not the demons they may have been led to believe. All the letters reproduced spoke well of the treatment the POWs were receiving.
Some of the letters are thought to have been genuine, and there is a report that at least one mother found out that her son, who had been reported as missing in action, was still alive as a result of getting a V1 POW Post leaflet. One person who kept a V1 POW Post leaflet was 18-yearold Shirley Harwood. On Christmas Eve 1944, she was in her mother’s corner shop in the small village of Grange Moor, midway between Wakefield and Huddersfield, when a series of V1s went overhead.
“We knew what they were, but we had never experienced them before,” recalled Mrs
Harwood, now aged 93, and living in Huddersfield.
“Most passed some distance away, but the engine on one cut out and it came down in a field nearby. There was a terrific explosion and all the windows rattled and the soot fell down the chimney.”
The rocket landed in the early morning, exploding in a field. According to contemporary reports it left a crater 33ft across and 5ft deep. About 130 houses, the village church, school, Methodist chapel, working men’s club and the only pub, the New Inn, were damaged, but no-one was hurt.
Doodlebugs could not reach the north of England from the regular launch sites in France, which in any case had by this time been over-run by the advancing Allied armies.
Mrs Harwood didn’t know it at the time, but her doodlebug was one of around 1,000 V1s launched during November and December 1944 off the Yorkshire coast from underneath German Heinkel He111 bombers flying over the North Sea, most of which were targeted for Manchester.
Many of the doodlebugs contained cannisters of propaganda leaflets that were released as the engine cut out and the bomb began its descent to the ground.
Some also held copies of the German Signal magazine.
Mrs Harwood recalled: “One of the village boys came into the shop with half a dozen of the leaflets, saying ‘look what I found!’
“He gave me one and for some reason I hung onto it. “It’s travelled with me through several house moves and it was only recently when
I was reminiscing about the war with a friend that I thought about it again.”
One of the letters was addressed to L.W.M. Swift, 100 Upper Fant Road, Maidstone (which the Germans had wrongly translated as Upper Front Road).
Mrs Harwood does not believe the supposed letter was genuine - “It doesn’t sound like proper English to me” but wonders whether the addressee was genuine and if so, did the Swift family ever get their letter and did their son, Leslie Walter, ever return home?
This is where we must ask readers for help. Are you a member of the Swift family? Did you know the family at Upper Fant Road? Please call Alan Smith on 0622 695666 or email ajsmith@thekmgroup. co.uk
Seventy-five years on, the V1 POW Post leaflet is a little the worse for wear.
A large chunk of the “original”is missing, so we will have to rely on the Germans’ printed interpretation. We leave it to you to decide if the stilted English is due to the German’s misreading the writing or because it was invented.
Dated Nov 11, 1944, it reads: “My dearest darling Mother and Father,
My thoughts are forever of you and this day of memorance. I write to you these cheering words, knowing you will both have the respects for me and enjoy yourselves and be level headed. I am a soldier and must expect these hardships that are bestowed upon us, but we must not be downhearted, or it’s not playing the trump card. I am making the best of a good hiding, so to speak, and am now getting along very nicely and hope to get a nice be parcel from you some time or other. On my return to England after the war we will have an excellent drink and laughter and joy. Also let me say the Germans are very much like us regards to ways, and have become friendly with quite a few, they are not what the paper reads, it’s difficult to tell the difference in ways and manner. Also I say again you must not worry, I am well and have good health and warm clothing, good bed with sheets and your photographs at my side. What more can one wish for!
We work and are paid. We, my dearest ones, Happy Christmas, and Dad don’t drink all that glorious beer and Mother don’t forget the plum cake. So dearest ones, cheerio for now, lots of love, Leslie Walter xxxx