BRITISH SOLDIERS TORTURED.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 268, 20 April 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

BRITISH SOLDIERS TORTURED.

FOR NOT SALUTING GERMAN PRIVATES.

After two years and three months' captivity three soldiers—an Englishman, a Scotsman, and a Welshman — have escaped and have safely reached their homes. One of them, Private Frederick ment, who lives at Steeple Ashton, Arthur Hawkins, Wiltshire Reginear Trowbridge, said to a Daily Chronicle representative:— "I was wounded and taken prisoner on October 24, 1914. There were about 50 of us altogether, and we were first of all taken to the big German base at Courtrai". We were taken on to Gottingen, where we arrived on the 28th. Here we were treated most brutally. "Some of us didn't like the idea of saluting German private soldiers. For not doing so the punishment was to be tied to a post, your hands behind your back, and the feet also tied, for four hours at a time. Another form of punishment was to stand for 12 hours, face to a wall, with hands clasped behind the back. I have had both punishments.

SAVED FROM STARVATION. "We went next to a working commando near Osnabruck, where our treatment was a little better, but the food was worse. We had one loaf of bread each to last five days. For breakfast we had black coffee substitute without milk or sugar—vile stuff! At mid-day we had a soupladleful of sourkraut soup and about four potatoes, sometimes a raw herring, and three or four raw sardines. But for the parcels from home we should have starved." On the morning of Januray Bth the party escaped. The men were almost exhausted from lack of food and exposure to rain and snow. They tramped the roads at night and in the daytime hid in the woods. "Once 'Good night' in German, and he we passed a German officer on the road with his wife. We wished him passed on."