Prisoners of war anxious to let their families know they were still alive were probably not allowed to reveal the conditions under which they were being held captive in Germany and elsewhere. The intolerable conditions under which at least one Lutonian existed were to be revealed when Pte Thomas Samuels, 7572, Bedfordshire Regiment, came home as an exchange prisoner. He had spent over three years in prison camps in Germany and Russia before being transferred to Switzerland in December 1917 and finally getting home in June 1918 as Luton's first released PoW. This was his story, as told in The Luton News of Thursday, July 4th, 1918:
After enduring all the hardships of the ordinary course of war, being captured by the Germans and subjected to the most inhuman cruelties and foulest treatment, Pte Thomas Samuels [pictured right], a Luton man and of the Bedfordshire Regiment, has been one of a party of prisoners transferred from Switzerland in exchange for Germans in our hands. He is now back in Luton.
The story of his experiences, as he recounts them to use, can hardly be described as pleasant reading, for it is one of those narratives the substance of which is part of that Teutonic policy of frightfulness which, one can imagine, will be regarded by future generations with emotions similar to those in which we recall the infamies of the Indian Mutiny, the horrors of the religious disputes of medieval England, or even the practices of pre-Christian days.
An old soldier, Pte Samuels spent nine years in the Reserve and was called up at the outbreak of war while living with his mother in Gaitskill Row, Luton. He went over to France with the first batch of the Expeditionary Force, and fought in the retreat from Mons. On the 26th day of that memorable August he took part in the fighting at Le Cateau, and, in the following month, he fought in the Marne and Aisne battles.
The next month of the war – October – was a black one for Pte Samuels, for it was then, to be precise on the 25th and while fighting at La Bassee, he was captured. Struck on the head by the butt of a rifle and wounded also in the arm, he lost consciousness, regaining it only to find himself in the clutches of the enemy.
He was not alone, however, for there were large numbers of Englishmen taken at the same time. They were driven, with no more respect than one would extend to beasts, into railway trucks designed for the transport of cattle.
Packed in these, 60 men in a truck, the party made their way to Douai, where they were roughly handled. Their guards would kick them and call then 'swine' and, in short, do all in their power to torment and annoy. They were in this condition for two days and could not get water.
From Douai Pte Samuels was soon shifted to Munster Camp, where he was placed in hospital. The treatments here was no better, and after a stay of about six months he was again moved, and kept travelling for some time. Among other work, he had to help and work in coal mines.
With other prisoners he refused this work in consequence of the shocking food and the bad pay, and as punishment had to endure such tortures as standing to attention a whole day and being bound to trees in mosquito-infested forests.
In May 1916 he was sent to Russia, where he was still badgered about from place to place. Excepting the early part of his imprisonment this period, says Pte Samuels, was the worst time he had. He was very badly treated and received no parcels. As a result of the cruelties here he fell sick, and in September 1916 was sent back to Munster.
After a spell he was removed to Altdamm, where he had to work in a sugar factory, chopping up beet. The prisoners had to work 12 hours a day, at a farthing per hour, and, again refusing to submit to such treatment, they were punished. With their day's earnings of 3d, the captives were allowed to buy a box of matches, salt or greens, when they were procurable.
The average dietary in the camp was: Breakfast, seven ounces of black bread made from potatoes and maize, and chicory coffee. At dinner-time practically the only food was a soup made from the flesh of horses maimed in the war and brought to the camp to be slaughtered. At the evening meal they had to clear up what was left at dinner-time.
Much of this horse flesh, says Pte Samuels, was putrid, and but for the parcels from home there is not the slightest doubt that many of the prisoners would have died of starvation.
It was a happy day for Pte Samuels when word came that he was to be exchanged and sent to Switzerland. “It was fine in Switzerland,” he tells us. “We were under our own Government there, and could please ourselves about working and earning a little money. I was there five months, and was learning carpentering at Lucerne.
“I came home on June 14th, a free man I have been in King George's Hospital, London, and came to Luton on Tuesday [July 2nd, 1918].
Pte Samuels is the first Luton man who has been exchanged in this manner. During conversation with a Luton News representative he gave the following details of life in the various prison camps at which it has been his ill-fortune to stay during the time of his captivity:
“When your are set to work in Germany you are absolutely forced to do it. If you do not, you get terrible torment. They stop your parcels and punish you in all sorts of ways. The parcels are very much appreciated, and I think we should die if it were not for them.
“We could not do on that German stuff – it would poison us. When we got to Switzerland it was found that some of the prisoners were suffering from poisoned stomachs; they were mostly those who had been in Germany a long time.
“In December 1916 a fresh scheme for sending parcels was started, and every prisoner of war got six parcels a month from a Prisoners' Parcels Committee, and it was on those parcels that we kept ourselves going.”
Asked about sleeping accommodation, Pte Samuels said: “They simply shove you into a room with a board and a couple of blankets, and in the summertime the places are all swarming with vermin. It is a scandal. I reckon our Government who have German prisoners here ought not to give them such a good time as they do.”
At one time during the course of his journeyings Pte Samuels was in Berlin, and then, he says, the people were starving. In December 1917 the shops and bakeries were all empty, and the population was in a very bad way.
Luton will certainly extend a welcome to this brave, war-scarred hero, and congratulate him on having at last reached the safety and comfort of home after his awful experiences.
Thomas Samuels was born in Luton on April 5th, 1884. On June 28th, 1919, at Luton Parish Church he married widow Frances Ellen Scrivener, of Waldock Yard, Waller Street, Luton, and had a son, Walter Samuel, the following year. He had re-enlisted, this time in the King's Royal Rifles, but was discharged in January 1920. Before the outbreak of World War Two he was living at 33 Maidenhall Road, Luton. He died in 1963 at the age of 78.