Captured Scottish soldier was cleared of any blame
A remarkable set of papers from the First World War has come to light on Arran. Retired businessman Bob Haddow discovered the documents while going though the possessions of his late father, Robert, who was captured fighting in France during the war. They include his capture report, together with the findings of a War Office inquiry clearing him of any blame. Here Bob Haddow tells the fascinating tale.
‘My father, Robert, joined the army, it seems, as one of the many Glasgow Boys and was directed to the 17th HLI where basic training was given at Troon, probably Dundonald Camp, and where he formed a longstanding friendship with a certain Sandy McArthur, who then introduced him to his sister Helen, who many years later became my mother.
Both Robert and Sandy appear to have progressed together until in 1917/18 they were commissioned officers in an English regiment, the Hampshire Regiment ‘attached to the Royal Berkshire Regiment’. It seems that they were to fight at Reims where Sandy received injuries and was repatriated to Britain and the history of Robert becomes quite horrid.
I wonder if anyone on Arran is familiar with a war office ‘capture report’ or, to give it its full title, ‘Statement regarding circumstances which led to capture’. This document, a single page, describes in graphic detail the real horror of war right up to the front lines and my father clearly was extremely lucky twice, firstly in not being killed by a stick bomb, but which left him seriously injured, and secondly escaping being clubbed by a German rifles when he was caught.
One wonders at the state of mind of a severely injured young man being passed to the enemy dressing station. Did this German clubbing the British soldiers know that my father had shot several of their colleagues? The ‘capture report’ is submitted to the War Office where it is clearly scrutinised and corroborated by no fewer than three generals, one of whom who has a VC, and I have to assume that the purpose of these reports is to ensure that there is no suggestion of desertion by the officer – proven deserters were, of course, executed at that time.
With his papers is a German printed notebook which records that in September 1918 he had arrived at a POW camp on the Baltic called Kaserne V, Stralsund, Island of Danholm, which is approximately 500 miles from Reims. In this notebook, his handwriting seems to be normal and he records the correspondence he sent beginning on August 27, 1918, with a PC to the Red Cross Society in Copenhagen asking them to ‘wire address home and forward parcels’.
On September 30, 1918, he sends a PC to Red Cross Comm, London SW ‘receipt for first capture parcel’. In all, he wrote 22 letters and PCs concluding his correspondence on November 15, 1918, with a PC to his brother described as ‘general’.
From this notebook it would seem that from capture on May 27, 1918, until
that first PC of August 27, 1918, he would be recuperating and travelling to the prison camp, and from August 27 until he left Germany on December 13, 1918, he would be able to take exercise.
Thanks to the internet, there is now an accurate report on this POW camp filed by a Mr Jackson on behalf of the American Ambassador in Berlin and published in The Times of July 3, 1915 (three years before my father arrived). At that time it held 700 officer prisoners and presumably this number would increase as the war progressed; 17 of them were British. Letters and parcels were received promptly and no material complaints were made; a request was being considered by the camp commandant that in addition to a park with tennis courts, a cricket field be provided.
Following my father’s capture, it would seem that he made good recovery and the last letter he wrote was on November 15, 1918, thereafter he left Germany on December 13, 1918, arriving in England on December 30.
I often wonder at his state of mind on returning to Scotland as he firstly worked for his old firm, then it seems he joined the Inland Revenue and the next that is known is that he was in Nigeria in the 1930s.
He did not marry Helen McArthur for 17 years after the capture; was he suffering from shell shock (PTSD) or was it just the depression? I was born in 1938, an only child. As with all those affected by the First World War, throughout his lifetime, neither my father nor Sandy, my uncle, would ever discuss or refer to their wartime service so I do not know much of the detail.
I am sure we will all hope that wars will only be a memory in the next 100 years.’