Iceland Farm

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Island Farm is a former British WWII prisoner of war camp near Bridgend . It was originally built for women employed in the arms industry.

history

The camp was run as Camp 198 and housed around 2,000 German and Italian prisoners of war. Since it was considered too comfortable for ordinary soldiers, officers began to be accommodated in it from November 1944 .

The prisoners of war dug two escape tunnels, one of which was discovered, the other remained undiscovered. On March 10, 1945, 84 prisoners managed to escape from the camp, as had happened the year before in Stalag Luft III . The tunnel is still preserved today.

After the end of the war, the camp was run as Special Camp XI , and the inmates included German generals , admirals and other defendants in the war crimes trials in Nuremberg .

It was closed in 1948.

literature

  • Herbert Williams: Come out, wherever you are. The great escape in Wales . Gomer Press, Llandysul 2004, ISBN 1-84323-199-9 .
  • Peter Phillips: The German Great Escape. The story of Island Farm . Seren, Bridgend 2005, ISBN 1-85411-383-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Greatest PoW escape from Wales. BBC, February 21, 2005, accessed August 23, 2015 .
  2. ^ Welsh POW Camp to Close: Germans Going Home . In: Western Mail , April 22, 1948.

Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 39 "  N , 3 ° 35 ′ 15"  W.