Bob Moore

British Planning and Policy for Prisoners of War, 1939–41

When war with Germany was declared on 3 September 1939, the few British government plans for dealing with enemy civilians involved Home Office programmes for screening and the incarceration only of those who were perceived as a threat to security. This was based on the lessons learned during the First World War when wholesale internment programmes fuelled by anti-alien press campaigns and the notorious ‘spy-fever’ had led to violence and much unnecessary distress. Likewise, the War Office had earmarked only a small number of sites to be used as POW camps, as there was no expectation of large numbers being brought to Britain, and it was assumed that any fighting would take place on continental European soil. The period of the ‘phoney war’ bore out this prediction, with little or no fighting between Allied and German forces in the West and hostilities largely limited to the air and high seas. Thus in March 1940, it was reported to the House of Commons that there were no more than 257 German POWs being held in the country.1 They were supplemented by a small number of captives from the Norwegian campaign and a contingent of some 1,200 Germans, mainly paratroopers, who had been captured by the Dutch and rapidly evacuated before that country’s surrender on 15 May 1940.2

The Watershed Year of 1943: From Enemies to Co-Belligerents

The worsening military position of the Italian Armed forces towards the end of 1942 and rumours that elements in Rome were attempting to negotiate with the Allied powers served to focus attention on what would happen if and when a surrender came. The Casablanca conference of 14–24 January 1943 highlighted the differences in the British and American positions with regard to their Italian enemy. While insisting on unconditional surrender for the Germans and Japanese, the Americans were prepared to countenance the possibility of negotiation with the Italians. Prime Minister Winston Churchill concurred with this view, seeing it as a means to encourage the collapse of the Mussolini regime, but the War Cabinet in London led by the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, and the deputy prime minister, Clement Attlee, were far more sensitive to British public opinion. They argued for the inclusion of Italy in the communique demanding unconditional surrender,1 not least because British forces had borne the brunt of the war against the Italians and because 74,000 of their servicemen were still held as prisoners in Italian camps.2

Italian POWs in Africa, 1940–3

The first few months of 1941 saw the British authorities establish the pattern for accommodating their Italian prisoners across the Empire. The immense numbers captured in Italian East Africa were eventually despatched by rail and by sea to camps in Kenya. As had been the case in Libya and Egypt, it was deemed urgent for strategic reasons to evacuate the prisoners from Abyssinia as soon as possible. However, the transfer of prisoners to Kenya was far from easy. Logistical problems combined with the now familiar delays due to a shortage of shipping prevented British military authorities from sending large numbers to Kenya after the completion in April 1941 of the first stage of operations in Italian East Africa. Nevertheless, the delay proved to be a small blessing for it allowed time for the Kenyan authorities to build twelve permanent camps that would house 50,000 European captives.1 In the Sudan a similar system of twelve semi-permanent camps was built to accommodate a population which had grown to 79,000 POWs by July 1941. The camps were divided into three administrative regions located along the Nile valley between Khartoum and Atbara, in the Red Sea hills near Port Sudan and in Eritrea outside the port of Massawa. Once at the Sudanese and Eritrean coasts, the POWs were transported to India, Kenya and South Africa when shipping could be found.2

Neither Enemies Nor Allies: Italian Prisoners in the United Kingdom After the Armistice

The Armistice with Italy had been greeted in the corridors of Whitehall, and in Britain as a whole, as the first practical indication that the war in Europe was being won. In its aftermath, as we have seen, the Churchill administration went to great lengths to protect the status of its Italian prisoners in order that they could continue to be used as a labour supply, both in the United Kingdom, and in its Empire and the dominions. Yet even as the diplomats were pulling out all the stops to protect this supposed asset, the first doubts were being cast on the utility of the Italian labour force, as a telling internal memorandum from the Ministry of Agriculture made clear: When these prisoners started work the general experience was that they were first class workers. I am sorry to report that they have steadily deteriorated ever since, particularly where the prisoners have been working in small gangs without a proper ganger…The prisoners have discovered that nothing happens if they don’t work very hard.1 Nevertheless, their numbers in the United Kingdom continued to increase as more were brought from camps in various parts of Africa, and their geographical and occupational distribution across the country continued to widen. Moreover, in spite of these disparaging comments from central government, the demand for labour showed no signs of abating.

Intelligence, Propaganda and Political Warfare

Sir Harry Hinsley stated that from the outset of the Second World War, POWs were considered important sources of political and military intelligence, although it was not until 1942 that the various British military intelligence branches classified POW interrogations as among their more reliable sources of information. Indeed, according to Lieutenant-Colonel G. L. Harrison, a former commander of the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC) in Egypt, at least 40 per cent of British intelligence had been obtained from POW interrogations, ‘while most essential confirmation of that obtained from other sources’ had also been acquired from this source.1 With the release over the last decade of voluminous amounts of intelligence material in British and overseas archives a more complete picture has emerged regarding the utilisation of material gleaned from POW interrogations. New research not only confirms Hinsley’s earlier contentions, but has also provided scholars with fresh and exciting avenues with which to demonstrate how useful POW intelligence was to the Allies in defeating the Axis powers.2

Freedom, Farming and Frustration: Italians in Africa and Australia, 1943–5

One of the key problems for the British and their Commonwealth partners throughout the war was the maintenance of good morale amongst the Italian POW population. Without it, their use as an all-important stopgap in the domestic labour market would have been negligible. However, as we have seen, the surrender of Italy in September 1943 actually threatened to unravel the entire policy at a time when the restrictions on the use of Italian POW labour were being eased and more captives were being earmarked for work outside the camps. Using censored extracts from outgoing POW mail, Middle Eastern intelligence summaries noted the confusion which existed within the POW ranks throughout Africa brought about by Italy’s collapse. A large but unspecified number of POWs conceived the idea that as soon as the Armistice had been signed that they would be released. One soldier declared that his chief cause of concern was that ‘he and his comrades [were] prisoners not of the Allies but of fellow Italians’. In East Africa there continued to be a ‘strange mixture of sentiments’ on the question of co-belligerency. Some were nonchalant about their future while others were adamant that they would never volunteer to co-operate with the Allies as long as they remained POWs. Others expressed utter contempt for the Germans, while yet more stated they would never fight for the Allies, especially Russia, whatever happened.1

‘Farming Down Under’: Italian POWs in Australia, 1941–3

For the most part, the experiences of the 18,432 Italian POWs held in Australia between 1941 and 1947 mirrored those of their comrades incarcerated in Britain, the Middle East, India, Kenya and South Africa.1 One specialist on Australian internment policy, Kay Saunders, argues that the story of the Italian POWs in Australia ‘is neither eventful nor horrific. There are no inspiring tales of self-sacrifice or heroism’; and that the entire process was ‘marked by an orderly adherence’ to the regulations as outlined by the 1929 Geneva Convention which were dutifully followed by the Australian Army and the Director-General of Manpower.2 This contention is supported by the unfootnoted work of the former journalist and amateur historian, Alan Fitzgerald. Although there were isolated incidents of racial bigotry and complaints from Australian trades unions that ‘cheap’ POW labour was undermining their members’ rights, in general the Italian POWs in Australia were well treated and respected by the local populace.3

The Essential Labour Supply: The Import of Italian POWs to the United Kingdom

As we have already seen, the Churchill government’s policy on Axis prisoners-of-war captured in or near the United Kingdom was to hold them on the mainland for as short a time as possible before shipping them overseas to Canada. While the policy had been developed primarily to deal with the threat of a Nazi civilian ‘fifth column’, Italian civilians had also been included in the transports of supposedly dangerous enemy aliens to North America. At this stage, the nature of the war against Italy made it unlikely that more than a handful of her servicemen would be captured anywhere near North West Europe. While the policy of exporting ‘dangerous’ German prisoners to the dominions continued until 1944, the British government view of captured Italians underwent a complete change, resulting in the importing of Italians as a labour supply for the increasingly hard-pressed British war economy.

The Long Road Home

Arrangements for the reciprocal repatriation of Italian and British-held prisoners of war within the terms of Article 68 of the 1929 Geneva Convention had been in place since the summer of 1941. As early as December 1940, the British government had requested such an arrangement through their protecting power to facilitate the exchange of sick, wounded and ‘protected’ personnel. A basic draft agreement was drawn up with little difficulty. However, the machinery needed to effect exchanges was cumbersome in the extreme. On the British side, it involved two inter-departmental repatriation committees that included representatives from the armed forces, civilian ministries, the dominions, and later even the United States. In addition, there was the need to negotiate through the protecting powers and to arrange guarantees through the neutral states where the exchanges were to take place, and to enlist the help of neutral observers such as the International Committee of the Red Cross to monitor the actions of all sides.1