One of the less-reported sides of the First World War came to light in January 1916, when a local soldier told his strange tale about Knockaloe, a camp holding tens of thousands of German prisoners of war.
The internment camp was built on a 22-acre site on the east coast of the Isle of Man, some 140 miles away from Salford.
In the shadow of the ancient Peel castle some 23,000 captured German soldiers were held.
The camp itself had an ecosystem of its own. Over the course of the war Knockaloe grew to the size of a small town, complete with an internal railway to move prisoners between each of the 23 compounds, and to deliver food and clothing to guards.
There was a sewage farm, onsite hospital, laundry and even a Knockaloe Post Office which produced its own stamps.
One of the men guarding these thousands of prisoners of war was Cadishead soldier Private Alfred Ashton who served with the 2/4th Lancashire Regiment.
Before the war Private Ashton had lived with his wife and family at Warburton’s Buildings in Cadishead.
His posting to the Isle of Man was an unusual one – I would imagine many of his comrades fighting on the Western Front would have switched with him in an instant.
But as he told the Eccles and Patricroft Journal, it wasn’t all fun and games.
He writes: “We are having plenty of wind and rain in the Isle of Man, which may be all right in the summer but it is the worst place I have ever been in my life in winter.
“I have only been here for seven months but I wish I was at Egypt or somewhere else.”
When Alfred arrived there were just 6,000 prisoners, but this would quickly grow to around 30,000 over the course of the war.
He himself would write rather blackly that it was “a grand sight to see so many Germans behind bars”.
A gift of a wool cardigan from the local War Fund in Salford was gratefully received by Ashton, but he himself notes how lucky he is by writing: “I often think of the men in the trenches, they will appreciate this gift more than the soldiers on duty in this country.”
The fascinating history of Knockloe may have gone completely unrecorded, had it not been for one German artist who was sent there.
George Kenner (born Georg Kennerknecht) had moved to London in 1910, but at the outbreak of war in 1914 was registered as an “alien enemy” by the British government.
Along with internments at Frith Hill in Surrey, he was shipped over to Knockaloe in June 1916.
He would finally return home to Germany three years later in a 1919 prisoner exchange four months after the end of the war.
His most famous work is below, looking at the camp from the hills above Peel.
Back to Private Ashton, and according to the soldier himself, he appeared to be having a rather more comfortable life than many British soldiers.
He tells of joining the local tug of war team, winning a pouch of tobacco and five shillings in one contest against local men in the town of Peel; a second win scored him a pipe and a medal worth half a guinea, which was presented to the team by the artistocratic soldier Lord Raglan and his wife Lady Raglan.
Alfred was allowed to return to Cadishead for his mother’s funeral but once back at Knockaloe he was made a storeman, in charge of the camp’s provisions.
This life of drudgery would soon change for Alfred when he was put on guard duty to prevent any of the escalating numbers of German soldiers from escaping.
On the night of December 7 1915 he rose to the occasion when a German soldier attempted to pass through a wicker gate he was attempting to close.
He drew his trusty bayonet and in his own words: “He didn’t half tremble I can tell you,” ordering the enemy soldier back to his billet.
The next morning the Captain of the camp gave him a reward of five shillings and the offer of promotion to Corporal, but unusually Alfred turned down the offer in favour of remaining on on guard duty.
The official record of Private Ashton’s heroic deed reads as follows, “Private A. Ashton, 20424, 2/4 Lancashire Regiment is highly commended by the Commandant on his smartness in arresting an escaping prisoner of war attempting to escape and on his vigilance.”
Research shows that in the early days of Knockaloe Camp there were several escape attempts on the part of prisoners by tunnelling under the camp walls but given the position of the Isle of Man some 66 miles off the coast of mainland England most were swiftly abandoned.
Considering the size of the camp, fatal shootings by guards were remarkably few. However there was one serious disturbance nearby at Douglas camp in November 1914 when five prisoners of war were shot after a riot broke out.
At an inquest into their deaths the verdict was that the shootings were caused by “justifiable measures forced upon the military authorities by the riotous behaviour of a large section of the prisoners interned.”
The Knockaloe camp closed shortly after the end of the war in November 1918.
Its fascinating story has been somewhat excised from history, in favour of the more normal tales of First World War trench warfare.
But its notoriety is becoming more widely known, with archeologists from Liverpool University now excavating the area to better understand the role that the Isle of Man played in this global conflict.
Main image: George Kenner (2nd from right) with his younger brother Benno (far right) and fellow interns at the Knockaloe internment camp on the Isle of Man, February 1918
