Percy Kirkham Horrors of Captivity

Percy Kirkham joined the VPD in 1909 after serving in the army. When WWI broke out, he was back in service. Fighting at the battle of Ypres, down to only 63 men left out of 700, he was taken prisoner and held in horrific conditions for four years.

Thrown into Typhus Camp Percy Kirkham Relates Horrors of Captivity in Germany
Point Grey Policeman Was Prisoner for Four Years

“Treatment accorded the prisoners of war in the German camps could not have been worse; we were handled absolutely like dogs,” is the way Percy Kirkham, formerly of the Point Grey police, sums up his experiences after over four years a captive in the Boche camps. No more gruesome story of inhumanity could be imagined than the tale this guardsman tells, depicting as it does the cruelty of the German camp commandants and the utter cheapness in which they held human life.

Kirkham first joined the army in 1903, when he signed with the 2nd Coldstream Guards. After a period of three years’ service he was transferred to the reserve and in 1909 came to Vancouver, where he joined the point Grey police force. At the outbreak of war he was immediately called to the colors and proceeded to England. He was drafted out to the 1st Coldstream Guards in France, and with them went into the line for the first time at Langemarck, where the battalion remained until the end of September, 1914. On the way out to rest, the regiment was reorganized and sent back into the line in front of Ypres. Here it was known that they would have to hold on against time, until reinforcements were brought up, as there were absolutely no troops behind them.

On the morning of October 29, the Coldstreams were completely surrounded at 5:30 am but continued to fight until 10:30am when, with only 63 men left out of 700, they were forced to give up to superior numbers. Kirkham, along with several others, was taken prisoner and from then on began an existence which seems almost incredible.

He was marched a short distance back of the line, being subjected to the most brutal assaults on the way, and on arriving at a headquarters was relieved of all his clothes except his slacks and boots. Along with the rest of the party, he was put aboard a train and sent into Germany to Schneidermuhl in the centre of the country. Here he was placed in a camp where there were already 38,000 Russians. The accommodation in this camp, he states, was nothing at all. The prisoners were forced to dig dugouts and holes in the ground to make shelters for themselves. On arriving at the camp Kirkham states that the commandant met them and said: “We will make an example of you Britishers, you will live, eat and died with the Russians,” and this he proceeded to do immediately. On the second day there one of his comrades was taken out, tripped and tied over a barrel. The remainder of the British prisoners were formed up in line and had to stand to attention under a guard with fixed bayonets while this guardsman, Boland was his name, was beaten to within an inch of his life. Two days after this demonstration he died, according to the German authorities, from an abscess on the brain.

Typhus Outbreak

During the 9 months that Kirkham was in this camp a violent epidemic of typhus raged amongst the prisoners there. Out of the 38000, 7000 died from this dire disease. The German authorities had in the camp 1 doctor to combat the spread of the epidemic, and he soon succumbed to the malady. Thirteen Russian volunteer doctors, prisoners in the camp, then took up the work, but with such poor facilities that they could do nothing and the disease had to simply die a natural death.

After almost a year in this inferno, he was moved to Michelwitz, Poland, where he was attached to a working party which was supposedly to work in a sugar refinery, but which eventually found itself in a coal mine. Here he had to work 8 hours a day, marching 2 hours to work and 2 back at the end of the day. The pay for this work was 10 cents a day, which amount was paid in the form of a cheque only good at the camp canteen, where nothing but German cigarettes and mineral water could be obtained. It was impossibly to use this money for the purchase of food. Although the treatment was not so severe as at Scheidmuhl, it was still extremely harsh. The prisoners had to work under two German miners who gave them always the most miserable work to do. Any time that they passed an officer and he asked them if they were English, if they replied in the affirmative it always meant a kick or a slap across the face.

Kept after Armistice

When the armistice was signed the men were kept working for a week until the order came through for them to be let out. The authorities of the camp immediately opened the gates and allowed the prisoners to go, without provisions or transportation. This led to many of the released captives dying on the roads from starvation and exhaustion. Kirkham, with his fellow British prisoners, refused to go when released, telling the authorities that as it was four days by rail to the frontier they would have to be supplied with transportation. This was finally granted and he was sent to Altdam, to a concentration camp for British troops. From here it was not long before he was sent to Danzig, where he boarded a British cruiser bound for Copenhagen, where a steamer picked him up and carried him to Leith, Scotland at which port he arrived on January 2 1919.

Gave Evidence

While at Ripon awaiting repatriation to Canada he was called upon by the British government to give documentary evidence as to the treatment afforded him in the German camps, as it was recognized by the authorities that he had passed through some of the camps where the worst treatment was given to British prisoners and that he could give evidence that would be most damning to the commandants of these prisons.

His comrades in Vancouver, especially the members of the Point Grey Police, are doing their utmost to make their old comrade feel that he is once more among his own, and from the time that he stepped off the train on Saturday until the present moment they have had him under their care and have succeeded in making him forget in part the inhuman treatment shown to him and his comrades during the four years of captivity.

Story entirely transcribed from The Province newspaper ““ August 25 1919, page 7

 

Percy Kirkham joined the Point Grey Police on February 20 1912 and was promoted through the ranks to Inspector. Upon amalgamation in 1929, he entered the service of the Vancouver Police with the rank of Detective. He again rose through the ranks from Sergeant to Detective Sergeant but in 1935 was dismissed (amongst many others) during the “McGeer Purge”. He was re-appointed in 1937 as a Constable and January 14, 1946, superannuated. Percy passed away on December 4, 1959 aged 73 years. He is buried at Mountain View Cemetery (Plot: HORNE 2 / * / 14 / 020R / 0002)