After several months in German captivity, Pte William Stanley Ward [3296, 21st Battalion Middlesex Regiment], son of the New Bedford Road lodge-keeper at Wardown Park, was welcomed home on Monday evening, wrote the Tuesday Telegraph of December 3rd, 1918. The article went on:

Pte Ward formerly worked for Mr Dolbe, grocer, Cardigan Street, and he joined up two years last April. He was captured in April last with others in his unit, but instead of going to Germany he and his comrades were kept working behind the German lines in the Brussels region, by being told they were “reprisal prisoners”. He was also in captivity at Lille and Armentieres.

In a chat with our representative Pte Ward (pictured) said he was glad he did not go to Germany, despite the perilous position. “When the Germans began to retreat we were marched back with them,” he said, “and when we got to Belgium we were grateful for the generous manner in which the Belgians gave us part of their bread.

“The German guards used their rifle butts freely both on us and the civilians to prevent us getting the food, but we should have been in desperate straits if we had had to depend on what the Germans gave us. We also got some food from the relief commission.

“We had very heavy work on the ammunition dumps, but I was fortunate in being marked for light duty, and I got a job in the cookhouse. There was a lot of 'bashing about' when we retreated, but we saw that the Germans were absolutely beaten and had hardly any rations.

“Then the armistice was signed, and the Belgian population just went mad with joy. The Germans left us to ourselves, and bullets were flying about in Brussels when the German soldiers carried the Red Flag. Their officers took off their epaulettes and carried rifles to escape detection, and I did hear that the men murdered about 60 of their officers.

“A party of us waited to see what was best and then we set out for our lines. We had a great reception from our comrades. Eventually we got to the base, where we were re-fitted, and then we came to Dover, where we had a great reception.”

Pte Ward is on leave for eight weeks, and then he hopes his employer's application for his discharge will be successful.