Great War>Prisoners of War
|
|
- Zerbst POW Camp during the Great War -
Great War>Prisoners of War
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.
Site Home
Help & FAQs
Features
Submissions
Information
Advertisements
World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great 1914 1918 first battalion regiment
Zerbst POW Camp
If you can provide any additional information, please add it here.
Want to know more about Zerbst POW Camp?
There are:-1 items tagged Zerbst POW Camp available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Great War.
Those known to have been held in
Zerbst POW Camp
during the Great War 1914-1918.
- Coxhead Edward Stuart. Pte. Bedfordshire Regiment
- Davies Robert. Pte. Loyal North Lancashire Regiment
- Holleran Robert. L/Cpl. Cheshire Regiment
- Westwood Edward James. Rflmn. London Regiment
All names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed, please. Add a Name to this List
Records from Zerbst POW Camp other sources.
The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website.
- 1st of September 2024 marks 25 years since the launch of the Wartime Memories Project. Thanks to everyone who has supported us over this time.
Want to find out more about your relative's service? Want to know what life was like during the Great War? Our Library contains many many diary entries, personal letters and other documents, most transcribed into plain text.
Please see Family History FAQ's
Please note: We are unable to provide individual research.
Can you help?
The free to access section of The Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers and funded by donations from our visitors.If the information here has been helpful or you have enjoyed reaching the stories please conside making a donation, no matter how small, would be much appreciated, annually we need to raise enough funds to pay for our web hosting or this site will vanish from the web.
If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.
Announcements
- 19th Nov 2024
Please note we currently have a massive backlog of submitted material, our volunteers are working through this as quickly as possible and all names, stories and photos will be added to the site. If you have already submitted a story to the site and your UID reference number is higher than 264989 your submission is still in the queue, please do not resubmit.
Wanted: Digital copies of Group photographs, Scrapbooks, Autograph books, photo albums, newspaper clippings, letters, postcards and ephemera relating to the Great War. If you have any unwanted photographs, documents or items from the First or Second World War, please do not destroy them. The Wartime Memories Project will give them a good home and ensure that they are used for educational purposes. Please get in touch for the postal address, do not sent them to our PO Box as packages are not accepted.
World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great battalion regiment artillery
Did you know? We also have a section on World War Two. and a Timecapsule to preserve stories from other conflicts for future generations.
Pte. Edward Stuart Coxhead 2nd Battalion, C Company Bedfordshire Regiment
Edward Coxhead enlisted on the 30th of October 1916 in Preston, Lancashire. He was assigned to the 2nd Bedfordshire Regiment. On the 22nd March 1918 he was wounded in combat (if my research is correct) there is a record of the engagement in the battalion war diary.According to my great granddad, Ted was rescued from being shot by a German soldier after they came across him on the battlefield. He had his left leg amputated at the thigh and walked using a prosthetic leg until his death in 1971. On 31th of August 1918 Edward sent a postcard to his wife in England from Zerbst POW camp. He was discharged on 28th of February 1919.
Rflmn. Edward James Westwood 1/17th Battalion London Regiment
Rifleman E.J. Westwood, my mother's father, was sent to France in October 1915, he joined his Battalion in the Loos sector. He served with the Battalion until 22nd of March 1918. The battalion was part of the 140th Infantry Brigade of the 47th (London) Division, Third Army.On the 21st of March 1918, the Battalion was serving in the front line near Villiers Plouich, a village in the Flesquieres salient first great 1918 Offensive, codenamed Operation Michael, against the British 3rd and 5th Armies. The battle began with an intense 5 hour artillery bombardment from 10,000 guns and mortars, which fired 1.2 million shells during that period using a mixture of High Explosive and Gas shells.
The weather over the sector was still and foggy, the smoke, fumes and gas from the shells combined with the fog to limit visibility to almost zero, this greatly favoured the attacking German Storm Troops, who succeeded in breaking the British lines in many areas.
The 1/17th Londons and neighbouring battalions were forced to retreat after stiff resistance, to a defensive position about 5 kilometres to the SW at Metz-en-Couture. Here they suffered a heavy gas bombardment and forced to retreat again.
The German P.O.W records show that they captured a wounded Rifleman Westwood in Metz, he was gassed and had a head wound and was taken to a German Field Hospital. He was later sent to the Zerbst P.O.W Camp in Saxony-Anhalt in NE Germany. This camp had 100000 registered prisoners but only held 15000 prisoners, those not in the camp worked in factories and on the land, my grandfather worked the rest of 1918 on a German farm. He was repatriated in early 1919 under the Danish Scheme. He lived until 1955 having experienced and survived 29 months on the western front only to lose two sons killed on active service in WW2
V. Hall
Pte. Robert Davies 1st Btn. Loyal North Lancashire Regiment
I don't know a lot about my great grandad Robert Davies's experience of war - he never spoke about it. He joined the army originally in 1896 and attested for the militia on 14th April 1896. He enlisted at Warrington Barracks and was assigned Service No. 4662 and posted to the South Lancashire Regiment. Then he signed up for the regular army and was posted to the 2nd Btn. Loyal North Lancashire Regiment with Service No. 5643.He spent the first two years on home duty in England, then in 1899 at the British Garrison in Malta. He attended an instruction course and was assigned to the 17th mounted infantry section. He was stationed around Malta, Gibraltar and Crete. In 1904 he went to South Africa. He was now married with children and living at 19 Hughes Street, Liverpool and working as a dock labourer.
He re-enlisted in 1914 at Seaforth Barracks and was given Service No. 3689 and posted to the 3rd Btn. Loyal North Lancashire Regiment (his old regiment). He was reposted to the 1st Btn. and embarked for Le Havre and went to Flanders. He then went to Ypres and Givenchy. He was reported missing in December 1914. But it was not until 1915 that his family learned that he was a prisoner of war at Wittenberg. He was transferred to Zerbst in July 1917, but I don't think it was much before 1920 that he saw home again.
He suffered from very bad shell shock and had really bad shakes. He came back very thin and the family said he wasn't the same man. He never spoke about his experiences. He never claimed his medals. I think it must have been very traumatic for him.
L/Cpl. Robert Holleran 15th Btn. Cheshire Regiment
My Grandfather Robert Holleran served in the 15th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment in World War 0ne. He was taken prisoner on 24th March 1918 at Mericourt and was imprisoned at Zerbst POW camp in Saxony Germany. He survived the war and died in 1954.Jeff Stevens
Recomended Reading.
Available at discounted prices.
