Second World War historian captivates audience
by Gillian Brunette
Jul 25, 2007
Bowmanville, Ontario can lay claim to being the only place from where a prisoner of war (POW) made his way back to Germany during the Second World War.
Bowmanville was the site of Camp 30, a POW camp that opened in December of 1941. It housed over 880 senior officers of the German Armed Forces.
“About 30 prisoners escaped from that particular camp. All were captured but one, Von Werra, who made it back to Germany,” said Second World War historian and author Lynn Philip Hodgson.
Hodgson went on to explain that of the 40,000 POWs held in Canada during the Second World War, Von Werra was the only one to make it back home.
“The reason he did was because he escaped prior to Dec. 7, 1941. That was a critical date because that was Pearl Harbor, after which the US declared war on Japan and Germany.”
Until then, the US hadn’t been involved in the war and as such Von Werra walked across the frozen St. Lawrence River to the US. He declared himself to a policeman, claiming to be a German officer and asked to be taken to the German Consulate. The next day he was sailing back to Germany.
“After that, that avenue of escape was cut off,” said Hodgson.
The escape did Von Werra little good, however. A year later his aircraft was shot down over Stalingrad and he was killed.
This story and other anecdotes about Camp 30 (including a video of interviews with camp survivors) kept Hodgson’s audience – members of the Probus Club of Muskoka North – spellbound.
Hodgson was the club’s guest speaker at a general business meeting held at the Royal Canadian Legion earlier this month.
Hodgson, is the author of the best-seller Inside Camp X, a spy training school in Whitby, Ontario where more than 500 secret agents trained. Published in 1999, to date the book has sold 38,000 copies worldwide.
Hodgson said his interest in the Second World War stemsfrom childhood. “I was born a year after the war ended and grew up with veterans and heard their fascinating stories.”
After writing Inside Camp X, Hodgson teamed up with friend Alan Longfield. Together they have produced six more books, including Word of Honour: Camp 30.
“Camp 30 was opened because the British were taking a lot of prisoners and they couldn’t contain them all. They called on Canada and a number of camps were established here,” said Hodgson.
Camp 30 was a facility for officers, most of whom were young men. Conditions there made it more like a holiday camp. The prisoners were treated well, they had a farm, cattle for milking, chickens, and they grew their own vegetables. They also had a slaughterhouse.
“They did their own cooking and lived very well,” said Hodgson, adding that the POWs also had illegal stills from which they made the finest liqueurs and brandies.
The POWs kept themselves well entertained. The musicians among them formed an orchestra, while others staged plays, skated in winter and played tennis in summer. Local women even attended dances at the camp.
Hodgson screened a short video in which two former Camp 30 residents recalled their incarcerations.
“Camp 30 was like paradise. I was grateful to be treated so well,” said Volkmar Koenig.
“Volkmar was a famous U-boat commander who sank more tonnage before he was captured in 1941 than any other commander during the whole war. He received the highest level of medals in the German forces,” said Hodgson.
Bruno Petrenko (a German pilot who was shot down, survived, and ended up being sent to Canada) said he was unhappy about being a POW.
“But my thinking changed. I was protected. I was out of the busy war that had lots of casualties on both sides. I was waiting till it was over and I could do something with my life.”
In fact Petrenko moved back to Canada in 1952 and had an illustrious career, said Hodgson.
The POWs were allowed to leave the camp on occasion, providing they gave their word of honour not to escape.
“In German culture if you gave your word of honour you committed to it,” said Hodgson.
One reason the Germans were treated so well, is because Canada did not want any escapees. Word of honour, however, only applied while the prisoners were outside the camp. Inside was an entirely different matter.
“German servicemen were told when they were sent to war that, if captured, it was their duty to escape. They must also try to contact Berlin,” said Hodgson.
This was done through a coded system, whereby the prisoners would write letters home using the first letter of every word as part of a secret message. “It was called the Ireland Code.”
The prisoners through this system would order necessities such as radio parts. These would be placed in cookie tins with false bottoms and mailed through the Red Cross.
One prisoner at Camp 30 was important to the Germans. His name was Otto Kretchmer.
Kretchmer, at about 50 years of age, was older than most of the other prisoners. He was a First World War veteran and very valuable to the Germans. At Camp 30 an escape committee had orders from Berlin to get Kretchmer out of the camp. He was to liaise with a U-boat off the coast of New Brunswick on Dec. 26, 1943, said Hodgson.
“The POWs had to figure a way to get him out... They chose to tunnel.”
The prisoners broke up the concrete floor in a building called House 4. They dug down about 15 feet. “The idea was to tunnel across the road into a farmer’s field, which was about 300 feet past the guard tower,” said Hodgson.
The main problem facing the prisoners was disposing of the excavated earth, Hodgson continued. The method they used was portrayed in the movie The Great Escape.
“The prisoners were put on shift work around the clock. They put the earth in a bag that was placed in a trolley. They had a little rail line set up which was pulled along on a rope. The earth was handed up to a guy, who handed it up to a guy on the ceiling. He would take it and sprinkle it over the roof. It was a large building, so there was a lot of square footage.”
The POWs braced the tunnel by taking boards from other buildings. Using a 20-by-20- inch template, they inched their way forward. Other boards were used to shore up the tunnel. A primitive air conditioning system was set up using wire and empty food cans and the tunnel even sported lighting.
“Everything was going fine. They reached the end of the 300 feet and all they had to do was pop through the topsoil in the field,” said Hodgson.
However, one night the ceiling in House 4 collapsed from all the weight of the excavated earth. “They had a big problem, but had thought about it ahead of time,” Hodgson said.
“This was the navy tunnel and simultaneously they were digging an airforce tunnel going in the opposite direction. All they had to do was convince the Canadians that’s were the earth was coming from.”
Despite all the POWs’ efforts the plan was foiled and Kretchmer never made it to New Brunswick. Which was probably just as well, Hodgson concluded.
“In fact, Kretchmer hated Hitler and had he got back onto the German side he would’ve been executed. He actually wrote a book about it.”
Hodgson’s book about Bowmanville’s Camp 30 documents many more instances of escape. There was even one incident when the POWs took over the camp.
That was called the Battle of Bowmanville.
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