# Return to POW Camp 116 - Hatfield Heath - Dec 2012



## nelly (Jan 2, 2013)

Christmas has been a bit quiet for me splore wise and I was clucking for a couple of hours out. So it was a quick visit to a couple of local splores

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POW CAMP 116 - MILL LANE - HATFIELD HEATH







Prisoner of War Camp 116 was set up in 1941 to house Italian prisoners of war, and from 1943-1944 it mainly held German and Austrian prisoners.






The POW's were allowed out to work on the nearby farms and one local has this memory of it......

"The Austrian and German prisoners of war were kept in a camp at Hatfield Heath and sent out daily to 'help on the land'. 
Our first batch were Austrian and they were hard workers and Mum was so sorry for them she looked at their ration for the day and promptly invited them to share our food - they even ate with us. 
The next lot were German and all but one of those were also polite, hard workers and they too shared our food and ate in the kitchen with us. 
My biggest impression was the way they stood whenever Mum got up and would never sit until she too sat down. 
Dad corresponded for some time with one of them, a Walter Scheile from Beilefeld in Germany."

The English Heritage Document entitled "PRISONER OF WAR CAMPS (1939 – 1948)" has this to say about it






Camp 116 
(Mill Lane Camp, Hatfield Heath) conforms to the so-called ‘Standard’ layout, with the guards’ 
compound consisting of MoWP huts, while the living huts are all timber Laing huts.





















































































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## flyboys90 (Jan 2, 2013)

Nice one Nelly.


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## ZerO81 (Jan 2, 2013)

Nice report mate, wish I had somewhere like this nice and local.

Also looks like you have lost some weight over the past year or so - good work!


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## nelly (Jan 2, 2013)

ZerO81 said:


> Nice report mate, wish I had somewhere like this nice and local.
> 
> Also looks like you have lost some weight over the past year or so - good work!



It must be that Sigma 10-20 mate


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## Ramsgatonian (Jan 2, 2013)

Very nice. Quite a few POW camps around, but I've yet to visit one.

Thanks for the post.


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## sweet pea (Jan 2, 2013)

cracking report nelly liked the layout and info and hearing or a locals recolection


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## perjury saint (Jan 2, 2013)

*Crackin report that...*


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## steve2109 (Jan 3, 2013)

Nice stuff mate, must of nearly bumped into each other !!


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## MrDan (Jan 3, 2013)

Great to hear a local's account, also really like your shot #17 and the envelope.
If only walls could talk eh?


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## nelly (Jan 3, 2013)

steve2109 said:


> Nice stuff mate, must of nearly bumped into each other !!



I never put up the date that I splored a place, so I can only say that I was here on the day that is between the 26th and the 28th December


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## steve2109 (Jan 3, 2013)

Lol, would have missed you then !!


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## Malcog (Jan 3, 2013)

Nice report. My father was a ploughboy in Northern Scotland during WW2, he had the help of German and Italian POWs who worked very hard. Strange really as they were working hard for their enenmy. 
On the subject of POWs my local working man's club had a German member that was a POW and married a local girl in 1946 as it meant he wouldn't be sent back to the Soviet zone (East Germany). Most Sunday evenings at the social club in the 70s and 80s the band would play the Horst Wessel song (Nazi anthem) for him and he and most of the club would sing along. Which I found odd as most of the older members of the club were ex-soldiers that fought the Nazis.


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## UrbanX (Jan 4, 2013)

Another cracking report, thanks for sharing sir!


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## mrscorp (Jan 4, 2013)

Nice one! Military history is always going to be of interest, shame that there is so little of it left


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