Daily Life During World War I by Neil M. Heyman

Author:Neil M. Heyman [Heyman, Neil M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

GETTING CAPTURED

Military men fell into the hands of the enemy in a variety of ways. Airmen shot down over hostile territory became captives if they survived a crash or a parachute jump. Survivors of actions at sea, if not lucky enough to be picked up by their comrades, might find themselves rescued by a hostile vessel. In these instances only small numbers of men were taken at one time.

But sometimes huge numbers became prisoners of war. Unlike Japanese soldiers in World War II, the fighting men of the 1914–18 conflict did not have rigid, permanent instructions to fight to the last man. When surrounded or out of ammunition, they often passed into enemy hands. During the German offensive in the first months of the war, 125,000 Frenchmen and approximately 9,000 Britons became German captives. While the British and French stood on the defensive during the first stage of the war, they captured 65,000 Germans by the start of 1915. In the spring 1918 offensive, the Germans overran and captured numerous British units. Half the British troops who became prisoners during the entire war fell into captivity during March and April 1918.

One eighteen-year-old British infantryman, captured the day after he entered the trenches in April 1918, described the emotion many felt in their new circumstances: “It was the most horrible thing I’d ever imagined could happen to me. It made me feel as if I was a coward. I was letting my country down, I was letting my unit down, I was letting my family down . . . I felt utterly bewildered. . . . Being taken prisoner, oh what a disgrace!”

Falling into enemy hands as an individual or a member of a small group often brought humane treatment. Captured fliers and naval officers in particular recorded a cordial reception. A German U-boat crew captured Captain Norman Lewis of the Royal Navy in April 1917 and took him aboard their vessel. Lewis had commanded a heavily armed vessel disguised as a civilian ship with a mission of attracting and sinking submarines. Nonetheless, Lewis got a cordial greeting from the crew of his erstwhile target. “The treatment I received aboard U-62 during my involuntary three week’s undersea trip was irreproachable,” he later wrote. “Nothing but kindness was meted out to me by men and officers alike.”

A prisoner captured at moments like the German offensive of March and April 1918 had a different experience. The heat of battle combined with the urgent need to remove large numbers of prisoners from the vicinity of combat. Some British prisoners marched to the rear unguarded. The Germans just seized their weapons and pointed out the direction in which they were to march. This left the newly captured British to find their way to holding stations in the rear. But most prisoners were hustled out of the way with varying degrees of brutality.

One British soldier recorded the harrowing days that followed his capture in April 1918. “Captured this morning at 5.0 a.m. at Le Cornet Malo. Had no chance.

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