The One Who got Away

[Bruce Lander]

Hi
on the subject of POW camps for German - I live about half a mile from the Glen Mill in Oldham which was used for this purpose in WW2.
My late mother in law worked at a Munitions factory near to it and often recalled looking out of the window when she was working to see the German prisoners lounging in the sun.
The father of a work colleague was also a guard there and recalled that
many of the prisoners were allowed out of the camp wearing a uniform with the letter P on the back and many had liaisons with locals!
The only time it got nasty was late in the war when some hard line Nazi prisoners arrived and were so appalled by the free and easy regime that they set up Kangaroo courts and executed several fellow prisoners by drowning them in rain barrels - this was not discovered for some time because the security was so lax. Prisoners were often stopping with their girlfriends or local families who had befriended them.

Cheers
Bruce Lander