Earlier this week we told you the story of Eccles soldier Sergeant Major Jack Bailey who was captured in France by the Germans in March 1916 and was presumed killed in action.
However we did some further research into this man and found out through the pages of SWARM, the Salford War Memorials site that Jack did survive the war and was indeed held as a prisoner of war for what looks like the whole duration of it.
Jack Bailey had several letters published in the Eccles and Patricroft Journal shortly after the war in which he gave details of the various camps he had been held in, the food and the treatment by the Germans, in fact one of the newspaper headlines reads, “In the Hands of the Huns”
We learn that Jack was held in seven prisoner of war camps in his two years and three months captivity, his first being at Giessen in Germany.
The conditions there sounded pretty grim he was in a room with 240 other men and they all slept on the floor with just straw on the floor as a mattress, he was held here for one year and five months.
From there he was transferred to Meschede in the north of Germany where he was involved in a remarkable incident when the Germans found an escape tunnel dug by British Officers.
When the tunnel was discovered all of the British prisoners were marched at bayonet point into the chapel and were told that they would be shot if they spoke to each other.
They were denied food for the whole day as the Germans searched through their kit and looked for evidence of who was responsible.
Upon returning to their barracks he found that the Germans had stolen their soap, tea, and any cash that they could find in their belongings.
Remarkably the British soldiers refused to do any work in protest and effectively went on strike, this resulted in them being sent to camps throughout Germany.
Jack ended up in a camp outside Hanover where he met 600 non commissioned officers who were being punished by being forced to stand to attention for eight hours a day for also refusing to work.
Lietentant Von Muller who was in charge of the camp asked Jack if he and his companions were prepared to work, Jack told him that it was against the Hague Convention for N.C.O.’s and warrant officers of the British Army to be forced to work.
Von Muller told the men that if they wouldn’t work they too would be forced to stand to attention for eight hours a day the same as the other men, also food parcels would be stopped for four weeks.
Jack was then forced to stand to attention for eight hours a day along with the othe men, which when you think about it, must be pretty soul destroying if not downright painful.
One one occasion on October 12. 1917, Von Muller refused to give the men any food at all, yet still had them stood to attention for eight hours, which sounds fairly barbaric treatment.
Eventually Jack finished the war in Holland in an internment camp were he wrote to the Eccles and Patricroft Journal of his joy at not being woke up early in the morning by a German prodding him with a bayonet and bullying you to turn out for work in all conditions of weather.
He finishes by thanking the people of Eccles for kindly sending him and fellow prisoners food parcels whilst he was in captivity which he describes as being a ‘God – send’ and that without them many English prisoners of war would have perished.
So what an eventful war Jack Bailey had despite being locked up for most of it, it almost sounds like a Ripping Yarn adventure story, being gassed, shot, captured, tortured, escape tunnels, going on strike and defying the beastly Hun.
I just hope that Jack settled down in Lane End with his wife and children in Eccles and had a quiet, normal life, heaven knows he deserved one after all that he had been through.
I would be interested in hearing from any of Jack Bailey’s relatives if any are still alive and living local and hearing more about this fascinating man.
If so please contact me at tonyflynn@salfordonline.com
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