Hatfield Heath Prisoner of War Camp

Prisoner of War Camp 116 was located on Mill Lane Camp, Hatfield Heath and opened in 1941 holding Italian prisoners of war, from 1943 onwards it held mainly held German and Austrian prisoners. The men worked on farms in the surrounding area.
In 2018 the camp, which has many remaining buildings in poor condition, is under threat from housing development. Locals have established a campaign to save it. History not Houses.

Under Threat This is a piece my friend, Jamie Fowler wrote, he is a local historian and has a great passion for the camp.
I know, I know, not the Prisoner of war camp again! But to be honest we haven't really covered it's history or the prisoners accommodation, we've only really shown photos of the guards huts, so I thought it was about time I put this right. It must of been a little over 20 years since my friend Jay who's Nan lived just by it took me there. It was a very dense woodland and you couldn't see from one hut to the other. All the buildings contained items from magazines to tractors but what they all had in common was they were rotting away, we only knew where the entrance was because there was still a sign that said 'POW 116'.
Over the next few years we kept returning but it wasn't until my two cousins came over from Canada that we decided to climb the ladder on the outside wall of the water tower. My cousin Alex who I guess was just as mad as me joined me and it wasn't until you got to the last rung did the ladder start coming away from the wall! Up top was just flat concrete so I'd say without a doubt that the guards used this as some kind of watch tower, needless to say after we got down alive I never climbed that ladder again. Many years later I decided to take a trip over with my son only to find they had cut all the trees away and it was now a clean open camp which looked nothing like how you would imagine it would look when it was woodland, but much better from a photographers point of view. There were already a few POW camps in England but it wasn't until the success of the 8th Army North African Campaign against the Italians did they realise they needed to build more. Many Italian prisoners were taken and in 1941/42 the camp was built to accommodate the more passive prisoners.
Each POW camp was numbered in order and each camp would be named in order of it's time built, so camp 'POW 116' was the 116th camp to be built, this number went up to 1026! The official address was 'Camp 116, Mill Lane Camp, Hatfield Heath' The first prisoners to arrive were the Austrians and then the Italians, they lived a pretty good life here compared to other POW camps in other countries, they would make rings out of coins and wicker baskets and were able to sell them to the locals for pocket money and were also allowed out to work on the local farms, they even were allowed out to play a football match against the Hatfield Heath football team to which the Heath took a massive defeat of 11-0...
By 1943 German prisoners had started to arrive as well as 'Displaced persons' or what we would call 'refugees', these included Poles, Yugoslavs and Austrians. Later in 1943 Italy surrendered which allowed them more freedom to work the farms unguarded but of course this also meant that they were being held in a prison with their now enemies, for this reason the Italians were given the choice of leaving and joining a newly formed Italian regiment or stay and work on the fields as prisoners. I would imagine this was a very easy decision to make, pick potatoes in England or go and fight the Nazi Regime! All the prisoners wore green or brown uniforms with big yellow and orange circles stitched onto them in case of an escape attempt, apparently only one tried this and got as far as Harlow Station before being captured. The uniforms also had different colour markings on to tell of their danger levels but there were no 'Die hard Nazi's' kept at this camp. When the war ended the Italians were free to go and some never even went back to Italy, they just stayed in England and settled here getting married and building a new home.
The Germans on the other hand were kept as prisoners for a few years after the war and had the job of cleaning up the camp before the land was handed back. The land which the camp was built on was owned by two different farmers, one owned the guards huts which is what we see a lot of photos of and the other owned the huts which the prisoners were kept in, these huts are also still there but the 27 bunk huts are on the private land of Greenways eggs. Nether the less I have photos below showing both Guards huts and the prisoners quarters and also a few other interesting pieces. An application has gone in to build houses where the huts now stand so it is quite important that we have these photos, numerous groups are fighting the planning but only time will tell ...
I hope you have found this of interest and would like to thank the people of Hatfield Heath and it's history group for helping me with this, I would also like to add that it doesn't end here and we are still out looking for other things to do with the camp though time is not on our side ..

Under Threat

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Those known to have been held in or employed at
Hatfield Heath Prisoner of War Camp
during the Second World War 1939-1945.

Ziep Paul.

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Hatfield Heath Prisoner of War Camp

Those known to have been held in or employed at
Hatfield Heath Prisoner of War Camp
during the Second World War 1939-1945.

The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website.

Announcements

Want to know more about Hatfield Heath Prisoner of War Camp?

Recomended Reading.

Links

The Wartime Memories Project - Hatfield Heath Prisoner of War Camp during the Second World War -

Hatfield Heath Prisoner of War Camp

Those known to have been held in or employed at Hatfield Heath Prisoner of War Campduring the Second World War 1939-1945.

The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website.

Announcements

Want to know more about Hatfield Heath Prisoner of War Camp?

Recomended Reading.

Links

The Wartime Memories Project
- Hatfield Heath Prisoner of War Camp during the Second World War -

Those known to have been held in or employed at
Hatfield Heath Prisoner of War Camp
during the Second World War 1939-1945.