Friday, 15 June 2012

POW Camp 116 - Mill Lane - Hatfield Heath


POW CAMP 116 - MILL LANE - HATFIELD HEATH

<Click on the photos to view full screen, then press the right arrow or scroll the mouse wheel to move along>

Prisoner of War Camp 116 was set up in 1941 to house Italian prisoners of war, and from 1943-1944 it mainly held German and Austrian prisoners.




The POW's were allowed out to work on the nearby farms and one local has this memory of it......

"The Austrian and German prisoners of war were kept in a camp at Hatfield Heath and sent out daily to 'help on the land'. 
Our first batch were Austrian and they were hard workers and Mum was so sorry for them she looked at their ration for the day and promptly invited them to share our food - they even ate with us. 
The next lot were German and all but one of those were also polite, hard workers and they too shared our food and ate in the kitchen with us. 
My biggest impression was the way they stood whenever Mum got up and would never sit until she too sat down. 
Dad corresponded for some time with one of them, a Walter Scheile from Beilefeld in Germany."



The English Heritage Document entitled "PRISONER OF WAR CAMPS (1939 – 1948)" has this to say about it

Camp 116 
(Mill Lane Camp, Hatfield Heath) conforms to the so-called ‘Standard’ layout, with the guards’ 
compound consisting of MoWP huts, while the living huts are all timber Laing huts.





























The Camp Farm








And a few classics dotted about :)














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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous31 August 2013 at 18:35

    I had no idea this was anywhere near where i live! Really undocumented and looks awesome. Going to go and check it out now - csurbexguy

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous9 February 2014 at 19:53

    Brilliant!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous26 May 2014 at 19:54

    My wife has memories of going with her dad to make arrangements for POWs'' from the camp to work on Little Hallingbury Park Farm.My wifes father was Bernard Willey.He was the farm manager working for Captain and Mrs Griffiths.The prisoners did all types of farm work.The POWs' made a variety of toys for my wife and her sisters.One of them made a ring from a section of aluminium pipe for my mother in law,it has her initials on it,on the inside of the ring the POW has marked his initials.During one particularly bad winter one of the POWs' went missing.When the thaw set in the unfortunate man's body was discovered in a ditch.The POWs'always appeared happy and would sing as they marched to and from the camp.
    Many thanks for the memories.Valerie and Peter Logan.

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  4. Proxy 2326 December 2018 at 19:37

    I had gone to visit the place today and now I have found the blog, any info on the one hut with bars on the windows? no others was that. The place is still in decent orders despite in june it was decided that it will be demolished ! https://www.military-history.org/articles/wwii-prisoner-of-war-camp-in-danger-of-demolition.htm

    I have lots of pictures I will post them on my Flickr account https://www.flickr.com/photos/threadsoftheinvisible/

    thank you for this, its history that needs to be remembered !

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