Ahoy - Mac's Web Log

April 21, 2010 6:27 AM

Hi,

I came across your website while trying to find information and photos of my great-grandfather, Corporal Harold Leplastrier Jackson. He was aboard the SS Matunga as a civil servant when it was sunk by the German raider
Wolf, and was taken back to Germany as a POW where he spent a few years in Gustrow. Apparently he was part of
the POW theatre group "Bing Boys" in the camp, but I can't find any photos of him in which he is identified.

Any ideas how I might be able to find things like this?

I'm living in Berlin, Germany and I speak German, so any resources you might know of in German are fine with me.
I would also be interested in going to Gustrow to see it for myself. Do you know if there's any memorial there on
the former location of the camp?

I really look forward to hearing from you, and thanks a lot in advance!

Jenni

Jenni,

In the new book: The Wolf by Richard Guilliatt and Peter Hohnen published by William Heinemann 2009, at page 320
your Great Grandfather is listed under Matunga.

The following publications also relate to the POW camp: GUSTROW.

Die Kriegsgefangenen in Deutschland; Prof D Backhaus;
1915; Hermann Montanus; Siegen, Leipzig and Berlin

Kriegsgefangene Volker; Band 1; Der Kriegsgefangenen
Haltung and Schicksal in Deutschland; William Doegen;
1921; Verlag fur Politik und Wirtschaft; Berlin

Prisoner reports are contained in FO 383 and WO 161.

POW's Gustrow camp.

Prisoners of the Germans
"One slice of bread in the morning"
  I am a Kriegsgefangener
  I wish that I were dead
  It's all through drinking sauerkraut
  And eating mouldy bread.
  Written by a Kriegsgefangener - a prisoner of war

Officer camp, Gustrow, Germany, 1918: The "Bing Boys", a
theatrical troupe. "The Germans were highly delighted with
our entertaining . and always insisted on us getting them
photographed."
P01981.038

Unnamed Bing Boys.

Best wishes,
Mac.


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