These are pics recently sent to me by Andrew, colleague and fellow PoW researcher.
Pingley Farm was built to house 750 prisoners, probably in 1943/4. The guards compound was originally tented, but later had 15 huts and a water tower. Standard hut in the camp was the 18' 6" Ministry of War Production hut.
The prisoner's compound comprised 10-bay MoWP huts, but there were also 8 Laing wooden huts, which incorporated bituminised corrugated iron.
The prisoners' compound comprised approx. 35 huts-cookhouse, grocery & produce store, 2 dining huts, drying room & showers, 2 ablutions/latrine blocks, a sick bay, a carpenter's hut and arond 23 accommodation huts.
Pingley seems not too far away from Eden Camp, which is now a museum, but the contrast in preservation couldn't be more obvious-

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Gordon
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This is the water tower-

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A letter pasted onto the wall of one of the huts; don't know if it's original or not.



And lastly some interior detail of the various types of roof construction-

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Gordon
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This is great stuff Gordon!!!
Thanks!!

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Members of the Dutch Resistance with 101st AB, Eindhoven. Operation Market Garden.

Scott

Nice photos, well done.

The large number of Axis POWS that came to Canada, has a quite different living experience.

As the numbers began to swell, after the defeats in North Africa, whole ship loads were sent to Canada. Initially, they were sent to tempoary camps, that had previously been boys schools or government warehouses. These were unsuitable, both from a security point of view, but more importantly, space was tight.

The solution ? Have them build their own camps, in the vast empty spaces of northern Canada, along the trans-Canada railway line. So a number of locations were picked, and a "advance party " of POWS was sent , along with a small number of Canadian staff to run the power equipment that would be used to cut trees and create board lumber to build the buildings.

Starting in the spring, after the melt, they cut and sawed lumber, and by August had built 14 camps, all located at least 100 miles from any town, deep in the boreal forests of Ontario and Quebec. No need for a large guard force, there was " no where to go ". Food and medical staff came in weekly on the trains. Discipline was not a problem, as there was not much too do, and no escape possibilities.

Some other camps were created, for those who were "hard cases " and the most senior officers. These were closer to the population centres, so that interogations of those officers could be continued by the Intelligence Branch .

During the entire period of WW2, only ONE POW ever escaped from Canada. He was a German pilot, who jumped from a train, near Montreal , swam across the St Lawrence river, to the then neutral USA, and eventually made his way to the German Embassy in Mexico City, He was returned by ship to Germany . On his first flight he was shot down and killed.

After the war, many of the Germans/Italians who had been POWS in Canada applied to come back as immigrants. Most made a good new life for themselves here.


Jim Bunting. Toronto.

Thanks Jim, interesting stuff. Do you have any pics of Canadian camps?
A lot of the pre-1943 Italian camps in Britain were built by the prisoners themselves, and the shortage of skilled labour needed to build them led to even more prisoners being shipped from North Africa, which led to more camps being needed......
The German you're referring to was Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, and a film called The One who got away (I think starring Hardy Kruger) was made of the book in the '50s.

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You are welcome:

Here is a link to an article about camps in Canada.

Prisoners of war in POW camps in Canada during WW1 and WW2, an indepth look by David J. Carter

The far northern camps, built in the bush, are all gone now.

The one mentioned at Gravenhurst, Ontario, is about a 3 hour drive north from Toronto, and it has been ( since the war ended ) the Ontario fire training school. The one in Bomanville, is 45 minutes east of Toronto, and after the war it was the St John school for delinquent boys. The Fort Henry site in Kingston, was originally built as a fortress in 1830, as a guardian fort against a possible American invasion. During both WW1 and WW2 it held POWS.

Jim B. Toronto.

Gentlemen!

Very interesting to read!!

Thank you.

Mats

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Mats R

yes very nice pictures Gordon. I'm surprised by the condition inside, I would have expected everyhting to collpase but the frame seems all right. Same thing for the water tower.

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Thanks gents! Thanks for the link Jim.

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Gordon :

Here is a link to a virtual tour of Fort Henry, in Kingston, Ontario, which was a POW camp in both WW1 and WW2.

It is a national Historic Site and is operated by Parks Canada, as a tourist attraction, each summer. The Fort Henry Guard is dressed as a British Army infantry unit cica 1867. They are made up of University students, and they start training each January, to get it right, for their first days in May. Each Wednesday night, they perform a " Retreat Ceremoney" on the parade square, with music and drill, and end the night with the firing of all the canon on the east wall.

Fort Henry guards the entrance to Lake Ontario, from the St Lawrence river, and the menace of the United States, only 4 miles away, on the south shore of the lake was the reason for it's construction. It was built after the War of 1812, and was never actually attacked.

Go here:

Virtual Tour of Fort Henry, Kingston Ontario Canada

Take a good look at the aerial views, it is a gigantic place.

The Canadian Forces Royal Military College, our officer training school is directly across the creek from Fort Henry , as is the main part of the city of Kingston, one of the oldest cities in Canada. RMC is a four year degree granting University, and all CF officers graduate with a degree in some form of engineering, or applied science.

Jim Bunting. Toronto/

Thanks Jim; another addition to a very long list of places I want to visit.
One thing; do visitors get loaned bikes to get around? It looks massive

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Gordon:

Yes the site for the fort is huge. For some idea of the scope of the construction project, think about this.....

The first thing done was to cut down ALL the trees for a four mile radius, for use in the building project, and to clear the gound so no enemy force could get close, without being seen from the walls. The parade square, inside the inner bastion, is about 400 feet wide by 1,000 feet long. The lower bastion, nearer the south end of the site, is even bigger.

The fort has it's own protected water access point, in case of a seige, and there are seven outlying Martello Towers, around the Kingston harbour that have all round gunports to give interlocking fields of fire support to the fort's approaches. Any infantry attackers would have to attack up a steep hill, and the profile of the fort is such that only about the top 5 feet of the walls are visible to artillery spotters. Once into the moat, the attackers would be faced with hidden canons and rifle ports, and dropping portcullis gates to keep them bottled up.

Jim Bunting. Toronto,

Sounds like it was built along the lines of Marshall Vauban's style of fortification, a bit like Berwick but larger-
Fort Siloso: Berwick Upon Tweed Fortifications

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Gordon"

Thanks for that interesting link.

It would seem that some of the design elements from Berwick also showed up at Fort Henry. The stone here is limestone, and most of the old buildings in the Kingston area are made of it, not just the Fort.

One of the longest military restoration projects in Canada is the French era fortress of Loiusbourg , in Nova Scotia. When I was a young cadet in 1962, at summer camp in NS, we toured the site , and at that time the restoration had just begun. It took untill 1996, to finish the massive project.

Here is a link to the site:

Parks Canada - Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site of Canada

Jim Bunting. Toronto.

Nice fortifications. Fort George in Inverness dates from the same era and is still used as a barracks-
Fort George Feature Page on Undiscovered Scotland

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Gordon
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