Released Guardsman back in the family home

Brutal treatment in the camps

A Stirling prisoner of war was back in the family home in the town after three years as a prisoner of the Germans.

Sgt James Young, a 5ft 11in Scots Guardsman, whose mother lived at 24 Bruce Street, was 16 stone when he was captured and lost three stone during his time in the camps. He was, however, said to be ‘looking very well’.

He was called up as a Reservist at the start of the war and wounded and taken prisoner at Givenchy on January 25, 1915.

He was held in eight camps and spent the last nine months of his incarceration in Holland.

Sgt Young said the treatment of prisoners was at first ‘very bad’ but became much better later on.

He believed his sergeant’s stripes saved him from the harsh treatment meted out to those of lesser rank.

Sgt Young said the worst camp was Cassebruch where the Germans ‘chased the unfortunate prisoners and belaboured them with the buttend of their rifles’.

He told how on one occasion a sergeant in the East Surreys, while clearing snow, had his head split when he was hit with a rifle by one of the guards. The injured man recovered from the ‘unprovoked attack’.

At the same camp, the French and British prisoners had their bread allowance stopped and had to survive on coffee and soup.

Prisoners suffering from dysentery received no help and the camp conditions were said to be ‘dirty and verminous’.

At another camp to which the sergeant was sent, prisoners were often ‘charged at the point of a sword’.

Sgt Young said he was well treated in Holland but faced high prices for all commodities.

The sergeant was well known in Stirling as a former employee with Robertson and Macfarlane, grocers. His wife lived in London. In Dunblane, another two prisoners of war were back in the town.

Sgt Charles McLeod and Pte James Wilson, both Black Watch, each had family living in Kirk Street. They were among six Dunblane POWs released up to that point.

Sgt McLeod and Pte Wilson were captured during the spring of 1918.

Sgt McLeod, who had 10 years’ service in the Perthshire Territorials, came through the war unscathed.

He was, said the Observer, last of the famous 6th Black Watch, a gallant band of 85, who had been forced to surrender after fierce fighting and ‘taking a fearful toll on the Germans’.

While a prisoner, the sergeant was first employed loading shells for the artillery, then at a sawmill and later at a horse depot.

He described how the food was so bad and in short supply that they stole barley meant for the horses and made porridge out of it.

Pte Wilson, known as ‘Sprinter’, went to France with 8th Black Watch in May, 1915 and took part in many fierce engagements before his capture.

He was sent to work in coal mines 10 miles from the plant of armaments manufacturer Krupp at Essen.

They worked eight hour shifts in the colliery for which they were paid 10 pence a day, the price of four cigarettes.

Pte Wilson said they had not been badly treated but were poorly fed and would have died had it not been for food parcels.

Him and fellow prisoners learned of the Armistice a day after it was signed and immediately went on strike. They finally returned home via Holland and Hull.

Germans ‘chased the unfortunate prisoners and belaboured them with the butt-end of their rifles’