March - Island Farm Prisoner of War Camp

This month we had a great session with Richard Williams and some members of the Glamorgan Home Guard leading our session on the Island Farm Prisoner of War Camp (Camp 198) in Bridgend. Richard brought along a fellow re-enactor playing the part of a German Soldier imprisoned in Island Farm, who proved to be real trouble!

Richard talked us through the history of the Island Farm POW camp form its origins in 1938 when it was opened, as accommodation for workers at the nearby Royal Ordnance Factory, however as it turned out this accommodation was not popular with the majority of the women working in the ordnance factory preferring to make the journey home! The Home Guard told us that the camp lay empty and unused until 1943 when the Americans used the camp during the preparations for the D-Day landings.

Richard told us that the large number of POWs taken in Europe meant that the authorities had to find suitable accommodation for them, and Island Farm was an obvious choice. The prefabricated concrete huts surrounded by open fields were ideal, although the barracks had to be converted and barbed wire fences erected. This work had not been completed by the time the first batch of prisoners arrived, so the prisoners were put to work completing the conversion. They told us that Island Farm was designated as Camp 198 and was to hold almost 2,000 prisoners. The first POWs were a mixed bag of Italian and German troops, but the War Office soon decided that the camp was too comfortable for enlisted men and that German officers should be held there. The first officer prisoners arrived in November 1944.

We then found out that the POWs soon turned their efforts to escape. Two tunnels were dug in the camp, but the first was discovered in January 1945. The second tunnel escaped detection and on the night of 11 March 1945, 67 prisoners escaped. Eventually all the prisoners were recaptured, some being found within a few miles of the camp by a local policeman on his beat and some others by a group of girl guides! Others managed to travel considerable distances to Birmingham and Southampton, over 150 miles away.

We then learned that only a few weeks after the escape, in March 1945, the authorities transferred all 1,600 officers out of Island Farm Camp. It was then designated Special Camp Eleven and prepared to receive senior German officers, many of whom had been captured in France and were awaiting trial at Nuremberg. In all there were 160 officers holding the rank of general, admiral, or field marshal, including a number of Hitler’s closest advisers:

Ricahrd told us that Island Farm finally closed in 1948, when the last prisoners were returned to Germany.

We asked Richard lots of different questions about Island Farm, but one that kept cropping up was why there isn’t a visitor/interpretation centre at the camp and what could we do about getting one opened. The suggestion was made that maybe as a group we should each write a letter to the local council asking about Island Farm and maybe petitioning for a visitor centre to be opened! So, have a think, ask your mates and get writing guys…..we’ll see what Bridgend YAC can do!