Memorials to World War Two PoWs
During one of
my recent walks around Loughborough, I found myself returning from a very muddy
walk around Charnwood Water, via the newer part of the Loughborough cemetery.
As has happened on many occasions whilst I’ve been out walking, I’ve accidentally
socially-distancly bumped into a wide variety of friends who during this
pandemic I wouldn’t otherwise have seen.
And so it was
that on this walk through the cemetery a chance meeting with one friend piqued my
interest in some specific graves in the newer part of the cemetery, namely the
headstones associated with some German men who died around the time of the
Second World War. Several of these men were well-known about and new headstones
had been placed in their memory, but there were half a dozen headstones
relating to German men who had died, if not towards the end of the war in 1945,
then a little afterwards, up until May 1947.
As it is not
long since we’ve had a major anniversary of the beginning and ending of the
First World War, I know a little bit about that conflict and Loughborough’s,
and its people’s part in it, but not so for the Second World War. When I was
first asked about these graves, I remembered that I’d seen somewhere
information about a prisoner of war (PoW) who escaped from Donington Hall: it
came back to me that this had been at the museum in Ashby, and on checking I
realised that this event was from the First World War, so had nothing to do
with Loughborough (apart from the fact that Donington Hall was once home of members
of the Hastings family, who were at one time lords of the manor Loughborough),
nor with the headstones in question.
I also
remembered seeing something at the Shepshed watermill about a bridge being
constructed by prisoners of war, but I wasn’t sure if I’d remembered this, or
imagined it, nor whether this was WW1 or WW2. Looking back at my photographs of
my day out at the watermill revealed that the bridge-building really had taken
place, and it was during WW2, so I knew that prisoners of war must have been
held nearby, in WW2.
Sure enough,
a little research pulled up some very interesting information on PoW camps in
the area.
Firstly, a
camp a little over the border, in Nottinghamshire …
A site at Sutton
Bonington, now home to the agricultural science college of Nottingham
University, had been used to imprison PoWs during WW1. But was this also the
case in WW2? According to this newspaper
article, the Sutton Bonington site was also used as a camp in World War
Two, and the article goes on to describe an escape that allegedly took place on
the night of 17 September 1941, when a group of 22 prisoners dug an escape
tunnel and used it to leave the camp. Most of the escapees were later found
fairly close to Sutton Bonington, but a few made it as far as Chesterfield
before they were re-captured. However, an article, with no attribution but with
a Nottingham
University URL, suggested that Sutton
Bonington was only used as a PoW camp during WW1, and that the escape was made
on 17 September 1917, through a tunnel which had been dug by the prisoners.
My search through contemporary
newspaper reports confirmed that this escape actually took place in 1917.
And a camp
just down the road towards Leicester, at Quorn …
Quorn Camp, was situated
on Wood Lane, in the village of Quorn, and was numbered No.9/183, being a Base
Camp, standard type. Many folk will remember the 505th Parachute Infantry
Regiment of the US 82nd Airborne Division who arrived in Quorn on February
14th, 1944 and who were based at the Quorn
Camp on Wood Lane. This camp later became a PoW camp, which firstly held
Italian prisoners, and later German ones, the site being vacated by 1948.
And a camp
just down the road in Shepshed …
This was
housed in the former Liberal Club on Charnwood Road, which is now a nursing
home. At the time of its use to hold PoWs, it was a relatively new building, its
foundation stone being laid in 1901 and the building opened in 1902.
Another
nearby camp was at Hathern …
Hathern Camp, based off Pear Tree
Lane, close to Dishley Cottage was No. 590, and probably a sub-camp of Garendon
Camp which was in Loughborough. The Hathern Camp housed Italian PoWs, from
about 1942-1948, after which it became the basis of what was known as the
Hathern Bungalow Estate, used as housing for families, when housing was in
short supply directly after the war.
Leaving the
environs of Loughborough for a moment, and looking further afield, in Stoughton
on the outskirts of Leicester, there was a camp at Shady
Lane, now known as an arboretum. Interesting
memories from children who grew up near the camp have been shared, but
there is one story that brings us quickly back from Shady Lane to Loughborough.
On 22 May
1947, the Leicester Evening Mail carried
the following report:
“P.o.W. FOUND HANGED IN SPINNEY
A 25-year-old
German prisoner of war at the Stoughton camp has been found dead. He was Ernest
Hilbert, and he was discovered hanging in the spinney adjoining the camp
yesterday.”
I do not know
why, but Ernst Hilbert has a memorial in Loughborough cemetery, one of the half
a dozen that were brought to my attention on my recent walk.
You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:
Take down policy:
I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.
You can leave comments below, but do check back as my reply will appear here, below your comment.
Thank you for reading this blog.
Lynne
