A boiled egg, a flask of tea and a job in the fields with the Lincolnshire Land Girls, not a bad way to spend the war…for a captured German.
Hans Pachernegg was 18 years old when he was captured by British paratroopers on 24th March 1945, 50 miles from his home town in Recklinghausen, Germany. He was taken first to Ostend, Belgium, then via Dover to Otley Camp and then to Pingley Farm Camp in Brigg.
“My mother got the information by the German military that I had been killed during a fight. It took a couple of months until she learned that I wasn’t dead but had been take prisoner of war,” said Hans (81).
Pingley Farm was one of 600 prisoner of war camps in Britain during World War II. Seventeen were in Lincolnshire at: Lincoln, Stamford, Retford, Ravensby, Grantham, Sleaford, Brigg, Bassingham, Spalding, Wellingore, Grimsby, Market Rasen, Caistor and North Somercotes. While fervent Nazis and SS members were interned into the Scottish wilderness, Lincolnshire’s camps contained ‘low risk prisoners’. Some, like Hans had been captured in Germany and brought over. Others were caught during the Allied victory in Africa. Many were also Austrians, Germans or Italians already residing in Britain whom the government suspected as spies.
Churchill made sure the prisoners were put to good use. At one point they made up nearly a quarter of the British work force.
Hans Pachernegg, POW 975426, says: “From the beginning we had the opportunity to work for farmers, in factories, or whatever, very often just for a couple of days or weeks, depending on where there was work to be done.”
In Lincolnshire the prisoners helped with hedging, harvesting and construction. They picked potatoes in Wrawby, cleared the barbed wire beach defences in Mablethorpe, and picked fruit in Branston. Often they worked alongside the Land Army and local schoolchildren.
The prisoners of war were afforded the same rations as the British servicemen. Often, they went to work with packed lunches of sandwiches, boiled eggs and tea.
Hans said he was always first in line to help out on the farms. He said this meant he got to meet many local people, escape the camp during the day, and have a few extra shillings tips and extra food.
On his way back to the camp from work Hans would always call by the shops in Brigg. He brought back supplies for those stuck at the camp all day. “Of course with a little profit for myself!” said Hans. Hans received ‘special camp money’ for his work on the land. “It made it possible to send parcels home to my mother and two young brothers to help them get along in a completely bombed-out town in Germany,” he said.
Low risk prisoners of war in Britain were allowed a relative amount of freedom, particularly after the war ended and they awaited their transport home. Josie Webb from Brigg says: “My mum was in the Land Army and she remembers some of the prisoners of war coming into Brigg in the evenings to go to the local pubs or the cinema.”
Local historian, John Benson grew up near the Wellingore camp. “I remember as a schoolchild seeing many prisoners of war; they used to come into Lincoln to shop or go to the cinema, still in their prisoner of war uniforms.”
Fraternisation between the locals and the prisoners was banned during the war. However, the ban was lifted in time for Christmas 1946. By then, there were still around 400,000 prisoners in Britain who awaited transport home. They continued to work on the land and helped to clear and rebuild the towns. Locals were encouraged to put the past behind them and to take a prisoner in for Christmas Day. Hans remembers being able to stay with a friend, the foreman from the brick factory at Morley, who had previously invited him round for Sunday dinner and given him old clothes. Georg, Hans’s son said: “The friendship lasted over the decades until just a few years ago when this man finally died aged 103. They [Hans and the foreman] met several times over the years.”
Occasionally at the weekend there were dances in the camps. Prisoners were allowed to invite people they worked with in the fields or in the factories. Hans remembers dancing with a girl to a song by June Haver, ‘I wonder who is kissing her now’.
After the war, 25,000 prisoners of war settled in Britain, including Bert Trautmann, who went on to become a first team goalkeeper for Manchester City. The father of Amy Murphy from Horncastle, Olaf Kobs, was held in a camp in Moorby. At the end of the war he married and moved to Hertfordshire. Mrs Murphy said: “He chose to stay here after he was released because he believed that he would have a better life here than if he returned to Germany, to what was a Russian-held country at the time.”
However, Hans was keen to get back to his family and in May 1948 he was able to take collected prisoner of war transport back to the continent.
Before he returned Hans worked in the Newark-upon-Trent camp’s post office. He also stayed in camps at Huddersfield and Farnley.
Hans still has fond memories of the Lincolnshire people and his time in Britain. “Since my early childhood I remember my father being absolutely positive about his prisoner of war time. Being a courier driver I've had some occasions of going there myself, and he was always keen on accompanying me,’ said Georg Pachernegg.
Pingley Farm Camp was flattened last month as it was unsafe. Josie Webb, who is also the chairman of the Brigg Amateur Social Historians Society, said: “As a committee we were saddened by the flattening of Pingley camp. We were allowed to have a look round. It was amazing to see the old things still there: suitcases, newspapers, Christmas cards and postcards.”
Pippa Bailey
