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Prisoners of War

In the Bag: New Zealanders in captivity during the Second World War

During the Second World War New Zealanders in large numbers became prisoners of war, or went 'into the bag' as they popularly called it. One in 200 of New Zealand's population of the time were held in captivity—over 8000 people. This compares with around 500 POWs in the First World War.

While most Second World War POWs were servicemen taken on the field of battle, several hundred civilians and merchant seamen were also interned.

Most of these prisoners probably knew when captured that their status was covered by international agreements, without being aware of the details. The 97 articles of the 1929 Geneva Convention included provision for the adequate sustenance and humane treatment of POWs, and for relief by the International Red Cross Committee. The holding power had the right to put to work POWs other than those of officer or NCO status, though not on tasks of a direct military nature. The Convention, in short, offered a substantial degree of protection to POWs—provided it was recognised and applied by the holding power. The Russian government, for example, had not signed the Convention and so Russian POWs, millions of whom died, were not given its protection. Many New Zealanders were appalled by the callous German treatment of these men.

At the outset of the war, both British and German governments agreed to treat each other's POWs on the basis of the 1929 Convention; they subsequently agreed to do the same for internees. New Zealand followed suit. Italy also agreed to abide by the Convention when it entered the war in June 1940.

Japan had not ratified the Geneva Convention, but following its entry into the war in December 1941 it conveyed to the Western governments its willingness to observe the Convention 'mutatis mutandis', which was interpreted to mean that it would follow the spirit, if not the exact letter, of the Convention. In practice the Japanese authorities were largely blind to the Convention's provisions, official indifference being exacerbated by the contempt felt by Japanese soldiers for men who had dishonoured themselves by surrendering.

Capture

Army

Most of New Zealand's Second World War POWs were captured in the European theatre in the early stages of the war. Only about 100 New Zealand servicemen fell into Japanese hands, mainly airmen or seamen attached to the Royal Navy or Royal Air Force. A mere 26 soldiers (mostly coastwatchers) became POWs in the Pacific theatre; only seven of these men survived their captivity.

Four campaigns fought by 2NZEF during the first half of the war accounted for 94 per cent of the 8369 men of the force who fell into enemy hands between 1939 and 1945. The first was the ill-fated deployment of a Commonwealth force, which included 2 New Zealand Division, in Greece in early 1941. In all, 1856 New Zealanders went into the bag. Soon after, 2180 New Zealand POWs were taken in Crete—the most ever lost in one battle.

On a number of occasions in November–December 1941 during Operation Crusader, New Zealand battalions or field regiments were left exposed to the enemy when armoured support failed to materialise; disasters at Sidi Rezegh and Belhamed were the most notorious examples. Confronted by enemy tanks, units had no option but to throw up their hands and surrender. Altogether 2042 men of 2 New Zealand Division became POWs in this battle. In the desperate struggle to hold the Axis forces thrusting towards Cairo between 20 June and 31 August 1942, further disasters occurred as unsupported infantry were overrun at El Mreir and Ruweisat Ridge. Another 1819 New Zealanders went into the bag.

The Eighth Army's victory at El Alamein in October–November 1942, during which a further 131 men were captured by the enemy, changed the picture in North Africa. Now firmly holding the initiative, the Commonwealth forces pushed steadily westward until, with American help, they forced the capitulation of the Axis army in Tunisia in May 1943. In this fighting a mere 47 New Zealanders became POWs, mostly in Tunisia. Most of the 225 New Zealanders who became POWs in Italy were cut off during attacks or strayed into enemy positions accidentally.

Air Force

With more than 600 New Zealanders serving in the RAF when the war began in 1939, it was inevitable that some would soon fall into enemy hands. During the war more than 500 New Zealand airmen were captured, the worst month being March 1942 when 46 became POWs. While most of New Zealand's airmen POWs were in German hands, the Italians held about 40, mainly taken in North Africa. A small number serving with RAF squadrons in the Far East were captured by the Japanese during their onslaught on south-east Asia between December 1941 and March 1942. The RNZAF, which mounted a substantial campaign in the South-west Pacific in 1944–45, had only seven POWs among its casualties. In contrast to their army counterparts, a high proportion (45 per cent) of New Zealand airmen POWs were officers.

Navy

The nature of their service ensured that few New Zealanders serving in the New Zealand naval forces or the Royal Navy were taken prisoner—a mere 21 officers and 42 ratings. Most New Zealand naval POWs were captured while serving with the Royal Navy in the Far East. The Japanese also interned 51 merchant seamen, and the Germans 49 New Zealand merchant seamen during the course of the war.

Incarceration

The incarceration of most New Zealand army POWs began in transit camps where facilities were rudimentary in the extreme. Generally little more than holding pens, they were invariably overcrowded, lacked shelter, and had insufficient ablutions for large numbers of men. In these insanitary conditions, dysentery was rife. Lice and, in places, bedbugs added to the prisoners' torment. The supply of food and water was also inadequate.

The process of capture ended with the POW's arrival at a permanent camp, the relative organisation and comfort of which usually came as a pleasant surprise to men whose expectations had been lowered by their treatment in the transit camps. Where this camp was located depended upon the theatre in which the POW was taken. For those who surrendered to German forces in Greece and Crete, the destination was Germany or German-occupied territory in central or eastern Europe. Men taken in the North African fighting, however, were incarcerated in Italy (with the exception of a few airmen flown directly to camps in Germany).

When Italy capitulated in September 1943, there were more than 70,000 Commonwealth POWs in the country. After the camps were rapidly taken over by German forces, about 3200 New Zealand POWs were transported north to Germany.

In the Far East a few of the New Zealand POWs were held in Japan itself, but most remained in camps throughout South-east Asia.

In Germany and Italy a POW's arm of service and rank determined the type of camp in which he was held. Officers were usually segregated in special camps. New Zealand airmen captured in Western Europe went first to an interrogation centre at Oberursel, near Frankfurt, and then to a nearby transit camp, Dulag Luft. The handful of non-Fleet Air Arm naval POWs were held initially in the Marlag-Milag Nord, a section of the very large camp at Sandbostel, near Bremen. In mid-1942 these men were moved to a newly built camp at Westertimke.

Commonwealth POWs were conspicuous by their high morale. Although the enemy attempted to influence POWs' attitudes through propaganda conveyed by radio broadcasts and publications, such efforts were generally futile. They were undermined in particular by the clandestine means by which POWs kept track of events. Hidden radios provided vital boosts to morale, and those who operated them often took big risks, especially in the Far East.

Liberation

The prospect of liberation was a key to POWs' morale. But a great many had no intention of passively awaiting the arrival of Allied forces, an attitude that was reinforced by the recognition that it was a POW's duty to attempt to escape. Such efforts varied from opportunistic attempts by one or two men to carefully prepared mass break-outs.

Numerous men managed to get away from trains taking them north from Greece and Crete; some escaped from transit camps or hospitals before beginning the journey; yet others broke out of permanent camps.

Some POWs later took advantage of their looser confinement in work camps in Germany or Austria to get away; some of these men managed to reach partisan groups in Yugoslavia, and eventually rejoined Allied forces. Others made it to neutral Sweden after stowing away on Swedish vessels in German ports. In the Far East, escape was made almost impossible by the fact that Caucasians had no hope of passing for local inhabitants, as they could in Europe. Even so, two New Zealanders made daring escapes from Japanese captivity in Hong Kong, in 1942 and 1944.

Italy's capitulation in September 1943 allowed a large number of New Zealanders to escape. Despite misconceived orders to stay put until Allied forces arrived, many got away before German units took over their camps, while others jumped from trains taking them north. Altogether 447 New Zealand POWs managed to escape as a result of Italy's defection from the Axis, a high proportion of all those who successfully escaped during the war.

Other New Zealand POWs took part in carefully planned escapes from camps. Tunnels were the most prevalent means, and much time was spent planning and digging them. The preparation of materials, papers, clothes and maps to facilitate the movement of escapers through enemy territory preoccupied the escape committees that co-ordinated such activities. There were several big escapes from camps in Germany, including one―later the subject of a popular film, The Great Escape―in which 76 air force POWs crawled out through a tunnel before it was discovered. Although only a small proportion got clean away, the German authorities had to expend much effort to recapture the rest.

The treatment of escapers who were retaken was covered in the Geneva Convention. Their 'disciplinary punishment' was supposed to be limited to 30 days' imprisonment, but as some POWs found to their cost the enemy authorities did not always observe such provisions. The Germans got around the Convention by charging escapers under the German civil code and giving them heavy sentences for such 'crimes' as 'sabotage of the Reich'. As a consequence a number of New Zealand POWs did time in the grim military prisons at Torgau and Graudenz, where brutal treatment and a poor diet were the norm. Habitual escapers were gathered at Colditz (Oflag IVC), near Leipzig, where conditions were also bad; among the handful of New Zealanders who endured captivity in this forbidding old fortress was one of New Zealand's most renowned soldiers, double VC winner Captain Charles Upham.

For some, however, the consequences of escaping were more tragic. Following the Great Escape, the Gestapo murdered 50 of the men they recaptured, in a brutal attempt to deter escapers. Among the victims of this atrocity were three New Zealand airmen. In the Far East, POWs were under no illusions as to the treatment they could expect if recaptured: a number of Allied POWs were publicly beheaded for escaping.

The long march

POWs who did not succeed in escaping could only await the end of the war for their liberation and repatriation. With Soviet victories during 1944 putting camps in eastern Germany and Poland under threat of being overrun, the German authorities determined to evacuate the POWs to the west. Later Allied successes in the west would force similar action in western Germany.

For the POWs these steps initiated a period of great trial. Some of the POWs moved by train but most were forced to evacuate their camps on foot. For POWs whose diet had long been inadequate such exertion was an ordeal. It was made worse by atrocious weather during the winter of 1944–45. In the confusion of the march, food supply arrangements became haphazard. To add to the dangers, some of the POWs' guards, resentful of the obvious decline in their country's fortunes, took out their frustration on the men in their charge. A New Zealander was shot dead when he bent down to pick up bread thrown to him by compassionate civilians.

Some of these POW movements ended when the groups arrived at large camps in central Germany, which were eventually overrun by Allied forces. Others continued to move until the end, when their guards generally disappeared and Allied units soon arrived. Those still in eastern Europe were liberated by Soviet forces.

Liberation from the Japanese

In the Far East, British forces advancing rapidly south in Burma in the final months of the war liberated several New Zealand POWs. But those held elsewhere in South-east Asia, Japan or Korea regained their liberty only when Japan capitulated in mid-August 1945, following the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. POWs knew that the war was going badly for the Japanese, but the sudden end of hostilities was all the more gratifying to them because of rumours that their captors intended to slaughter them if the war were lost. The appearance of Allied aircraft above their camps, dropping food, clothing and medical supplies, came as a great relief.

Repatriation

Attention was given to the problem of repatriating POWs long before 1945. A New Zealand repatriation unit was established in the United Kingdom under the command of Major-General Howard Kippenberger late in 1944. With its headquarters at Westgate in Kent, this unit had wings at Folkestone, Cliftonville and Broadstairs, and a hospital at Haine, to receive 2NZEF POWs, who were expected to arrive in orderly sequence from the continent. Separate arrangements were made for air force and naval POWs, with the former going to a camp at Brighton.

The first draft of about 500 POWs left for New Zealand at the end of May 1945, and by the end of August more than 4000 were home.

In the Far East, the repatriation of New Zealand POWs was assisted by the despatch to Singapore of a flight of RNZAF transport aircraft, specially fitted with bunks, as soon as the war ended. Most of New Zealand's surviving POWs of the Japanese were home within two months of Japan's capitulation.

After the war

Following their return home in 1945, New Zealand's POWs sought to resume their civilian lives. Many found the adjustment difficult. After living cheek by jowl with other men for many years, most sought peace and quiet as they put the period of deprivation behind them (though the cumulative effects of imprisonment would endanger their health in later years).

Undaunted by their captivity, most had set out to make the best of their situation. A sense of humour, self-discipline and courage had allowed them to get through periods of crisis, and to demonstrate their moral superiority over their captors as the war progressed. Friendships made in camp would endure for the rest of their lives. Although their experience of combat had ended in an unexpected way, they had been conscious that they were engaged in a new form of confrontation with the enemy.

Ian McGibbon

Based on 'In the Bag', introduction to Inside Stories: New Zealand Prisoners of War Remember, Megan Hutching (ed.), Auckland, HarperCollins, 2002, pp. 18-45.

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