Yesterday's History Club meeting was one of the best ever. In spite of a few tangles with the Zoom technology, Rhuthun/Ruthin-based Arnold Hughes gave an excellent talk on the World War Two Pool Park Prisoner of War camp, something about which most of us will have heard but know very little. This, it turns out, was an interesting and complex slice of 20th century life that is far from black (people fighting for the Axis powers were the enemy, no matter what) and white (prisoners helped us feed ourselves). This is what Prof Hughes had to say...
Bathafarn
Hughes began by explaining that there was also a Great War prisoner camp in Rhuthun, at a modified Bathafarn Hall, a satellite of North Wales’ main POW camp at Fron Goch, Bala (a former whisky distillery which had closed in 1910). It was interesting that such camps as Fron Goch were referred to as 'concentration camps' but they were obviously without the connotations of the WW2 German edifices of the same name. Bathafarn wasn't strictly speaking a 'camp' as such. Hughes referred to it as a work group or depot. Therein were some 94 prisoners, which rather suggests there were hutments alongside the house itself, though there is no evidence of these. From 1916, when guards could rely on some prisoners, trusted interns were allowed to work on local farms.
Fron Goch and its ilk were the first POW camps in about 100 years. Up till then, Britain had fought overseas and campus weren't necessary. Numbers in the First World War were slow to start and when took off. They mainly housed sailors and zeppelin crews.
The entrance to Pool Park POW camp as it is today, off the B5105 Cerrig road, near the Pool Park estate lodge currently inhabited by former MP Gareth Thomas
Pool Park
When it came to WW2, Britain had learnt from the way in which it had operated its WW1 camps. As in WW1, the nature of the early war meant that camps were initially slow to fill. The construction of WW2 camps, wherever possible, were away from the coast, to prevent onshore access from potential invasion.
There was also a library with 3,000 books, said to be more than other camps. There were even German newspapers available after the war's conclusion. In addition to reading (power permitting) there was a theatre group, film shows and football seemed to play an important part in keeping POWs busy.
A year after its construction, Italy left the war and many Italians were repatriated. In 1943, therefore, the camp held Germ POWs. The Germans were expected to pay for their keep by working the land and Hughes believed that across Britain these POWs made as big a contribution to feeding the nation as the Women's Land Army.
I think Hughes suggested that the left hand building was the generator house. That on the right is likely to be part of the guard house
This was a reason why, after the war, Britain was reluctant to allow the German POWs to return home. There had been no formal peace treaty, only an armistice, and, as such, it was technically possible to hold on to the soldiers, again for agricultural labour. The need was still great.
Another reason why POWs stayed on was because Britain was trying to re-educated them. Local people such as Ysgol Brynhyfryd's then head teacher and Denbighshire's director of education, nurses, even the Women's Institute visited Pool Park camp to give talks, lectures and so on, to re-indoctrinate the Germans and to suggest that the democratic British way of life was far better than under the Nazis in Germany. At this time, POWs were even allowed down North Wales' coal mines and could attend local pantomimes.
In 1945, the guards were no longer armed, POWs were generally given passes and were gradually allowed to mix with local residents. Football continued to play a part in reintegration. Local chapels opened their doors to the POWs. Families welcomed them in at Christmas. Farmers, for whom the POWs worked before and after the end of the war, were decent to the POWs. It was fair to say that such measures assisted greatly in the reconciliation process. Upon leaving, the German Lagerführer (the German camp commander) even write a letter to the Free Press thanking local people for their help and support. Hughes was unclear whether a survey was local or national in nature but it appears that some 80 per cent of POWs spoke well of the British. In 1946, only about 15 per cent returned home as Nazi sympathisers.
Post-war numbers at Pool Park camp, from a screen grab of Hughes's presentation. It includes Pool Park's satellite camps, including Bwcle, Cerrigydrudion and Glasdir (*the* Glasdir?)
It had become difficult to find sufficient priests to minister to the inmates' spiritual needs and by the time the Germans left a significant number had become agnostic. Italians, however, did not generally lose their faith.
Bolero Camp
What is now Valley Arms was built during in 1942/43, according to Hughes, to house American service personal entering the European arena but who never actually came (to Rhuthun). Some suggest that it later housed Pool Park guards but there were too many Bolero buildings for that (there were in fact believed to be no more than 20 guards after the war, for example).
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History