On 19th March 2022 our friends at the Polish blog site Swidnicki Portal
Historyczny http://historia-swidnica.pl/swidnicki-tunel/ published
a story written by one of our researchers, John Copeland, grandchild of Arthur
Copeland, one of the escapees. The aim of the story is to raise awareness of the historical escape
among local Polish people who might have known someone with a connection with
the Schweidnitz WWI POW camp or might have historical knowledge of the camp
itself. It is also an attempt to try to
elicit any newspaper cuttings or memorabilia from people in the Polish town
which may still be accessible but temporarily
forgotten.
The publication date of John’s story marks 104 years
since the escape. John’s story was translated into Polish by Andrzej Dobkiewicz, editor of the Świdnica
Historical Portal for the purposes of this blog it has
been modified slightly to reflect the audience of this blog. Please contact us via the blog if you have
anything to share.
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View of the Evangelical church and camp barracks in 1918.
Today, none of the visible objects at Sprzymierzeńców Street exists
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The Schweidnitz Tunnellers
Looking
for answers about one of the least known,but
largest, Prisoner of War escapes of World War I
One by one 24 men crawled slowly through a
narrow tunnel and emerged into the crisp night air on the other side of the fence. Two by two they melted into the darkness as
they began their quest for freedom.
These were the tunnellers of Schweidnitz - a German prisoner-of-war camp
during World War I. The town of
Schweidnitz, now known as Swidnica, lies within present day Poland.
The Schweidnitz camp held mostly British
officers and their allies. Over half of
those passing through the tunnel on the night of March 19/20, 1918 were from
England. The British Empire was also
represented by a handful of Australians, a few Canadians, and one each from New
Zealand and South Africa. To the Germans
they were all Engländers. During the past two years
they had been plucked from the sea, fallen from the sky, and dragged from the
field of battle on their way to becoming reluctant guests of the Kaiser.
All of the escapees had experienced several
camps prior to arrival at Schweidnitz, to which most of them were transferred a
few weeks before Christmas in 1917. The
majority transferred from either Augustabad, Neubrandenberg or the infamous
camp at Holzminden, Lower Saxony.
Schweidnitz was not considered a bad camp. Prisoners transferring there from Augustabad
had been living in a converted tourist lodge on the shores of a large lake, the
Tollensesee, where they could sometimes swim in the summer and play ice hockey
in the winter. By comparison, those
arriving from Holzminden left behind a camp known as one of the worst in
Germany, run by a sadistic commandant, who encouraged his guards to abuse the
prisoners in their care and even shoot at them on occasion.
Regardless how they felt about Schweidnitz, the
24 tunnelers shared a common goal - to escape from Germany, get back to
England, and get back into the war or reunite with their loved ones. As they left the tunnel and crept into the
night, they were one step closer to realizing their dreams. They put their faith in themselves, their
God, and not least of all, their luck, to get them back home.
Twelve pairs of men spread out and dispersed in
all directions of the compass, hoping their particular plans would help them
avoid recapture by “the Hun” on their way to the German border - the first leg
of their trip home.
My grandfather, Arthur H.M. Copeland, was an
Observer in a two-seater aircraft in the Royal Flying Corps. He was shot down by German aircraft in
October 1916 during the Somme offensive.
He was lucky. He was
captured. His pilot was killed.
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Arthur Copeland
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When I think of my grandfather I picture a small
man sitting in his favourite chair in the living room of his house wearing a navy
blue blazer with an air force crest on the chest. He is wearing a straight tie, and often, a
vest.
Sometime during my childhood I heard the story
of my grandfather and a group of other men digging a tunnel from a basement
with kitchen utensils and exiting the tunnel into a pig sty. I don’t remember much beyond that. I knew he was recaptured very close to the
Dutch border, and I remembered that he had jumped from a train at some point
during his captivity. Like many others
who experienced the horrors of war first hand, Gramps had no particular
interest in reliving bad memories, so he rarely spoke of those years. He was a nice man and had a great sense of
humour. With a twinkle in his eye, he
enjoyed teasing his grandchildren. The
fact that he and I were both introverts probably didn’t promote any in depth
discussions of his wartime experiences, despite my growing fascination with the
subject.
I started reading stories about prisoners of war
escapes as a young teenager. Among the
earliest were The Wooden Horse and The Tunnel, by Eric
Williams. Most of the available escape
stories seemed to take place during World War II. However, when I read the prologue to The
Colditz Story, by P.R.Reid, I noted that Reid’s desire to escape from Nazi
Germany was in part motivated by books of World War I escapes he had read
during his childhood. He was inspired by
The Road to En-Dor, by E.H. James, The Escaping Club, by A.J.
Evans and Within Four Walls, by H.A Cartwright and M.C.C. Harrison.
Until the advent of the internet I had no
success finding any of these titles. Now
each of them has a place of honour in my collection. Over the years I became aware of a book
called The Tunnellers of Holzminden, by H.G. Durnford. Knowing my grandfather had spent time at Holzminden
I thought this could possibly be the story of his escape. Alas, this was not the case. Twenty nine officers escaped from Holzminden
through a tunnel in July 1918, but he was not one of them. I have now read at least 4 different books
telling the story of the Holzminden escape, and quite clearly this was not his
tunnel.
About fifteen years ago I started seriously
searching the internet for anything related to escapes from the Schweidnitz
camp, which I then knew was the camp from which he had escaped. I could find no mention of any books, but I
did find references to the escape in a couple of online forums. One of the forum contributors was Ruve Baker
from New Zealand, whose grandfather, Tarn Harker, had escaped from the
Schweidnitz tunnel. After further
digging I found an email address for a Ruve Baker in New Zealand, but my
attempt to contact her was unsuccessful.
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Photo of four
prisoners of war in the Świdnica camp. From the left: Alan (Brolga) Hill -
Australian in RFC, George Augustus (Gus) Avey - from New Zealand Rifle Brigade,
William Henry Howes - British in RFC and Charles Nobbs - Australian in RFC. The
first three escaped in March 1918 through a tunnel
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A couple of years ago I again renewed my search
for information about the Schweidnitz escape.
An online article about the death of Aubrey Rickards in an air accident
in the 1930’s provided a lead. James
Offer, an information source for the article, was identified as Rickards’s
nephew. After a bit of detective work,
with the help of social media, I was able to establish contact with both Ruve
Baker and Britisher James Offer.
Needless to say, we all share a keen interest in learning more about the
lives of our ancestors/relatives, particularly their wartime experiences.
Photo taken in Świdnica. From left to right: T.
Gilford (Gil) Holley, Frank Bronskill and Arthur H. M. Copeland (John's
grandfather). All three were Canadian in the Royal Air Force Corps (RFC).
Bronskill was not one of the escapees.
Since discovering each other we have shared much
information and collaborated freely.
Along the way a couple of others joined our ranks - my sister, Gail, a
Canadian with a keen interest in genealogy, and Robyn Ford, an Australian with
a genealogy blog called Robyn and the Genies (http://robynandthegenies.blogspot.com), which records family history and stories, WWI tributes, etc. Robyn is a third cousin of escapee Mark
Fryar. She has now created this new blog
specifically related to Schweidnitz (https://schweidnitzpowcampwwi.blogspot.com). In it she gives details of
the tunnelers, other officers who spent time as prisoners at Schweidnitz, and
life and conditions at the camp. She
also talks about some of our research materials and methods.
How does one go about researching events which
took place over one hundred years ago.
That was our dilemma and our challenge.
We had access to publicly available records through sources such as the
International Committee of the Red Cross, The National Archives in London, and
genealogy websites. We were not aware of
any German archival records, since most of them had apparently been destroyed
during World War II. We were also not
aware of any books or articles about the Schweidnitz tunnel escape.
Our key piece of background information was a
list of the names of the 24 escapees.
This list was obtained in 1929 by one of the Canadian escapees. Cecil Ernest French, a pilot with the Royal
Flying Corps during the war, obtained the list of names and a brief description
of how the officers escaped the camp, from the German Consulate General in
Montreal.
Armed with the list of names it was fairly easy
to search online records of the International Committee of the Red Cross to
discover which prisoner-of-war camps they had been in and background
information such as their rank, unit, date and place of capture, birth date and
place, and name and address of next-of-kin.
Over the course of time we gathered much background
data, but we still lacked many details of these men and their actual
experiences. It seemed obvious that the
best way to find out more about the men as individuals, and about their wartime
experiences, was to look beyond the data and see if we could trace their
descendants/relatives in search of memoirs, diaries, journals, photos,
letters, anecdotes, etc. The background
data from the Red Cross records gave us a starting point and allowed us to
actually track down living relatives of many of the escapees.
It can be a very rewarding experience to finally
speak to the grandchild of one of our escapees over the phone and explain our
project. The reactions vary. Some people are very excited to learn more
and offer to share information. Others
are excited but readily admit they know nothing about their grandfather’s
wartime experiences and have nothing to share.
Some never knew their grandfather.
Some have no interest in their grandfather or in helping with our
research efforts. Sadly, some talk about
the difficulty their grandfather had adjusting to life after the war. Some families, like some veterans, find it
too painful to share memories.
Original drawing made in the Świdnica camp,
showing the escape of prisoners through a dug tunnel
One of the more exciting contacts we made about
a year ago was not related to an escapee.
Rather, our contact was another researcher with an avid interest in our
project. We were very excited to connect
with Andrzej Dobkiewicz, Editor of the Swidnicki Portal Historyczny and to read
an article about the escape which he had published in his monthly newsletter. Andrzej offered to help us with our
research. This could be a significant
step for us, because none of our team speaks Polish, and it would be very
difficult for us to make enquiries locally.
Understanding that many German records were
destroyed during WW II and that many Polish records have also been destroyed, I
firmly believe there is still relevant information out there somewhere, whether
in a repository for official records or in somebody’s scrapbook in their attic. After the escape the Germans notified the
public and authorities of the escape. It
may be that there were posters in public places to warn people to watch for the
escapees. When an escapee was captured
there would have been a report prepared by whomever apprehended the escapee. This could have been a railway
official, a border guard, a soldier, a policeman, or even a civilian. Perhaps records were kept at a local jail,
where an escapee may have been held for several days before returning to Schweidnitz.
We know that there were stories in several local
newspapers describing the recapture of some of the prisoners, and it is also
likely that the authorities placed notices or stories in local or regional
newspapers warning of the escape and asking citizens to be on the lookout for the
escapees. After being recaptured all of
the escapees were court-martialed and sentenced to 2 weeks punishment. Where did the court-martial take place? Are there court records? Was the outcome
reported?
It seems to me that any of this material could have
ended up in a local library, archive, museum, or in somebody’s personal
collection.
In addition to information specific to the
escape, I would also like to learn about any other attempted escapes from
Schweidnitz and about life and conditions at Schweidnitz and any interactions
between local townspeople and the prisoners.
We know some of the prisoners left the camp to attend church. They likely also saw local doctors and dentists. We know a local photographer came into the
camp to take photos of the prisoners. We
know that the prisoners sometimes went for walks under guard. There may have been various other
opportunities for them to interact with people from outside the camp. Perhaps some of the people who interacted
with the prisoners kept diaries or passed on stories to their children or
grandchildren.
So, why are we doing all of this work and
collecting all of this information? It
may seem like a strange hobby to some, but I’m sure many genealogists and
history buffs will understand the gratification we get from gathering up the
morsels of information which collectively fit together to tell the stories of
24 lives. At first I think our
investigations were driven solely out of curiosity, but eventually, as our
collection accumulated and began to form a story, the idea of gathering it into
a book grew to a point where the book became an end goal. The desire to write an account of their
lives, with a focus on their World War I experiences, seems like a fitting
tribute to two dozen men who put their lives on the line for what they
considered a very noble cause. A book seems like a very gratifying conclusion
to all the hard work and dedication of the Schweidnitz research team.
We are under no illusion that we can complete
this project without the help of others.
If anyone has any information which may fill our knowledge gaps, or can
point us towards other helpful sources, we would be very happy to hear from
them. We can be contacted either
through Andrzej Dobkiewicz or Robyn
Oh, and what happened to our 24 heroes after
they crawled out of that tunnel into the cold March air and set off in search
of their freedom? Despite their hopes,
prayers, plans and ingenuity, luck was not with them. Within a few days most were back at Schweidnitz
awaiting the inevitable punishment for their little adventure. They had been apprehended at whatever
distance they had managed to travel from camp.
Most walked, but some had planned to travel by train to distance
themselves from their pursuers, Even those who managed to ride a train for part
of their journey were eventually recaptured.
The last pair, returned to Schweidnitz less than a month after their
escape, was picked up in Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic.
Written in English by John Copeland, Orillia,
Canada
