TERRIBLE CONDITIONS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 May 1941, Page 6

TERRIBLE CONDITIONS

ABOARD GERMAN HELL SHIP. SUFFERING FROM THIRST. “I say the Altmark show was a picnic compared with ours.” a Scottish seaman remarked, referring to his experiences aboard a captured Yugoslav steamer on which a German raider placed a prize crew and later landed in Italian Somaliland British seamen held as prisoners. “In the Altmark the men lived in holds, the same as we did, but on board this ship we had to lie on damp, cold salt and the only protection was a tarpaulin. “The men on board the Altmark did not have to scramble out at 2 o’clock in the morning to try to collect rainwater in the tarpaulin over the holds because they were so "thirsty. We were each allowed only half a pint of water a day. “Breakfast generally was of thin gruel, or else a sort of cocoa flour: midday dinner only bean soup. Tea consisted of dry bread —one loaf to five men for 24 hours—with a teaspoonful of jam. Three times a week we received a cup of synthetic tea. The rest of the time we were given cocoa. We suffered so much from hunger that some of the crew sometimes took pity on us and shared their rations with us.” The conditions in the Italians’ prisoners of War camp were also dreadfully insanitary. No fewer than 97 were taken to hospital at Mogadishu from the camp suffering from dysentery and other diseases through the neglect and hardships in the raider, the prize ship and the camp. Three died in hospital. After some time in Mogadishu the seamen were transferred to a 'camp at Merca. Here they were freed by a mobile column of British forces.

The German raider appeared to be a merchantman. She used a Japanese name and flew the Japanese flag. She also passed as a Dutch and sometimes a British merchantman.