Virtual
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Australia

Son of Elizabeth RUNDLE of 89 Woolwich Street, West Leederville, WA

When Sydney Edwards was taken prisoner on the Western Front, he escaped to Switzerland using a bedsheet, a stolen pair of pincers and an Automobile Club map of southern Germany.

A stock and sheep breeder from Western Australia, Edwards travelled 160 kilometres on foot, becoming the first Australian to escape to Switzerland during the First World War.

Evidence of CQM Sergeant Edwards on the treatment received whilst a Prisoner of War.

I was wounded and captured on the 3rd September 1916, about midday, at Mouquet Farm on the Somme There were about 19 others of my unit captured with me, including 2nd Lieut. Halvorsen.

We were marched to Velu near Cambrai. We stayed at Velu until the evening of the 4th, and were then taken to Candry by train.

Caudry was a hospital near Cambrai. Stayed there one week. Here we received the best attention I knew of while a prisoner. We received the same attention and food as the Germans.

On 10th September, 120 of us, all wounded cases, were taken by train to Grafenwähr in Bavaria. The journey took 48 hours. It was a hospital train properly fitted up. We were treated properly, and the two German female nurses were exceedingly kind. We were treated just the same as the German wounded.

At Grafenwöhr we were placed in a big barrack which had been turned into a hospital.

About the end of December 1916 I was discharged from hospital and sent to Nürnberg Lager with about 25 others. I was seven months here. This was a working camp, about 6,000 to 7,000 prisoners. I have heard it has since been moved to Bayreuth. Being an N.C.O. I did not have to work.

The accommodation here was good. All the N.C.O.'s were allowed to make bed frames for themselves. This sleeping accommodation was the best in the camps. I saw in Germany, but we had no fuel allowed and the cold was intense; the men suffered extremely.

We had washing facilities provided for us, the sanitary accommodation was only fair. There were no means of drying our clothes, and we had to put them on damp.

There were no officer prisoners but about 25 British N.C.O.'s. The N.C.O.'s did not have to work, the privates were employed on various work in the district near. No men ever worked in ammunition works. Some were sent to it and refused; they were punished, but this was stopped by the American Ambassador.

The men received pay for their work, but I do not know what - there were various rates. There was a canteen but very little little to buy. The food was very bad here, worse than the hospital at Grafenwöhr.

I first received a parcel at the end of January 1917. I received parcels here regularly except for two months. The reason for the stoppage, March and April, was because they found in the French parcels instructions how to destroy property in Germany. Without the parcels we might have managed to exist but not more. The postal arrangements were fairly good. The parcels were always opened in the presence of some- one representing the British prisoners.

Nothing was taken away from the parcels to begin with, but after the two months stoppage all tins were taken out.

There was a small football ground for recreation. We could only smoke outside the barracks. There were occasional religious services.

The American Ambassador visited this camp once while I was there. He came in the usual course of visiting camps. He asked anyone to come out who wished to speak to him; we were paraded. Complaints were made about being sent to work on ammunition. No more men were sent to ammunition works Things had been going quite smoothly prior to his visit, except for this ammunition business, and went on again after he left.

I never saw any ill-treatment of British prisoners here, or, as a matter of fact, at all.

I was sent with 21 other N.C.O.'s in June 1917 to Lechfeld. Lechfeld is a prisoner-of-war camp. Here N.C.O.'s who did not work were separated from the other prisoners, and the N C.O.'s who did work remained with the other prisoners.

There are British Help Committees in the camps, but little to help with. The parcels that come for prisoners who successfully escape are taken by the Germans. The postal arrangements here are extremely bad. Very few letters reached me.

From August 1917 to April 1918 I received one letter only from my mother in Australia. She wrote every mail. My letters did not go regularly either, although I wrote two letters and four postcards a month. Many did not arrive at all. Some friends of mine in Cardiff sent to me once a wook, from December to April, s., I received only four installments, and my letters acknowledging those amonnts were not received at all.

The Dutch Ambassador came to Lechfeld twice while I was there. I wrote to him twice. I complained about several things, not receiving parcels or the money, and the general treatment in in the camp. He promised to look into things there was a slight improvement afterwards; e.g., previously the parcels were censored by the Germans without any representative of the prisoners being present; afterwards this was allowed. I do not know whether this was due to the intervention of the Ambassador or our complaints.

At Lechfeld I noticed we were never allowed to assist the new prisoners in hospital, they had to exist on, the German food. I went to the General about it. I think he was the General of the 1st Bavarian Army Corps. He listened to me, but said we were not allowed to communicate with the prisoners of another company.

The punishments were severe. For escaping from Lechfeld the punishment is known as "bivouac"-that is, the prisoner is put into a barbed wire pen and kept there continuously for so many days and nights on bread and water. This had been used for French and Russians, and they were starting on the British just as I left. The time varied from three to seven days. The effect is very severe on some men. They are put into very thin German clothes for the purpose of increasing their suffering.

At Lechfeld I saw many instances of great cruelty to other nationalities, but the British are not so badly treated. I think it is because they are more afraid of us. We retaliate, the Italians and Russians do not. A German told me 35,000 Italians came to Lechfeld, while I was there, to be fumigated; they were in an adjoining camp at various times, but we had no contact with them.

Extracted from the records of CQM Sergeant Edwards war records at the National Australia Archives (NAA).