Phil Tomaselli explains how you can use newly digitised records to research prisoners of war
When the Second World War finally ended, a secret department of the War Office known as MI9 distributed questionnaires to surviving prisoners of war (POWs) from Britain and the Commonwealth. Based on a similar, highly secret organisation from the First World War, the work of MI9 (or Military Intelligence Section 9) consisted of sending escape equipment secretly into POW camps, supplying money and assistance to (mainly) French escape lines into neutral Spain, and collecting and distributing secret intelligence gathered by POWs. In 1945, with the collapse of Germany imminent, MI9 planned to survey everyone released using pre-printed forms, which could be followed up later if necessary. Men were given the form either in Germany itself or on arrival in the UK, and asked to complete it before release. The questionnaires are held in record series WO 344 at The National Archives (TNA) at Kew, and 83,560 of them are now available in Ancestry’s collection ‘UK and Allied Countries, World War II Liberated Prisoner of War Questionnaires, 1945–1946’ at ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/62114.
The first page of the form provided information about the released prisoner (see the annotated document on page 37). This part of the form is usually fully completed, and gives basic information that can be followed up. The other two pages contain questions on whether the POW had received lectures on how to behave when captured and interrogated, about attempted escapes, about sabotage committed, details of any POWs who collaborated with the enemy, plus a general question asking for anything else they want to report. These pages are filled in a lot less frequently. There doesn’t seem to have been any compulsion and, one suspects, men thought they might be held for further details if they did. Most just wanted to get home.
The annotated document was filled in by John ‘Jack’ Harrison (1912–2010), an officer in the Royal Air Force involved in the ‘Great Escape’ from Stalag Luft III in 1944, in which 76 POWs reached freedom although 73 were recaptured, of whom 50 were executed. He wrote of his two escape attempts, “1st attempt from N Camp, Sagan, Aug ’43. Twilight attempt over two lots of wire with Captain Murdo MacDonald (Airborne Div). Guards became suspicious and attempt was aborted. 2nd occasi
