Page 131 - WW1 - 1918

Redditch Local History Society Remembering Redditch Residents & WW1

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The Bromsgrove, Droitwich and Redditch Messenger – Saturday 14
December 1918

A Webheath Prisoner of War Returns – Sergeant Smith, who was some months
ago reported as dead, has now returned to his home from Belgium, having been a prisoner
of war in France and Belgium, very near to the German lines. He says the brutality of the
Germans is fully known, and he speaks of the methods adopted by the English prisoners in
obtaining food. For the first six months of his captivity he was working behind the lines in
France and Belgium at one of the enemy’s Army Corps ration dumps. Food was plentiful,
and Tommy war more than equal to making the necessities of life disappear. About 125
prisoners worked at the dump. He relates how one of the men would be carrying a bucket
full of eatables of some kind. The man would purposely collide, with a corner of a wall and
drop the bucket, giving the men a chance of obtaining extra food. A fine opportunity was
given to the prisoners when an English aeroplane came over. Sentries would quickly
disappear, and Tommy would be free to assist himself; and which he did in a manner quite
satisfactory. The men were sorry to leave this place and go back to slices of black bread and
a kind of soup. The latter was made a different colour each day, so that in about a week the
colours of the rainbow were exhausted. Notwithstanding all they had to pass through,
Private smith says Jerry failed completely to damp their spirits, and on every occasion English
grit carried them through their many hardships and difficulties. They kept smiling faces,
much to the annoyance of the Huns.

© RLHS 2014 Page: 131