WORLD WAR ONE NORTHAMPTON INDEPENDENT SOLDIER NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
PTE F. APPLETON of the 7th Suffolks, Jun 1918
One morning this week there called at the “Independent” Office, a tall, wounded soldier, radiant with joy at his
return home from the hands of Huns. He was captured badly wounded at Cambrai on November 30th, last year,
so that he has been in captivity only six months, but it was quite long enough for him to realise the horrors of being
a prisoner of war in Germany. When he was captured he was wounded in several places in both arms, and also in
the leg. So badly were his wounds neglected by the Germans that it will be some time before he recovers the use of
his arms.
“Did you get the parcels all right?” we asked.
“Yes,” said the soldier, “and that is the chief reason I have called on behalf of the comrades left in captivity, to
assure you that but for the parcels we could not have survived. When I was lying in bed at Dulmen an orderly came
along every morning and threw a lump of black bread on the bed and I could no use my arms I had to crawl around
to it and gnaw it. At mid-day we had a bowl of greasy water – you could not call it soup – and in the evening we had
half a bowl of swede water. Sometimes we had a little so called coffee made of burnt acorns, but no meat, cheese or
butter. I cannot describe the joy I felt when the splendid parcels began to arrive containing just what I needed. My
spirits and health began to improve at once.”
Did the Germans pilfer any of the contents?
“No. They were quite fair over them, and I should say that quite 90 per cent get through safely. There is always a
delay in the delivery, especially when an offensive is on, but even then the accumulated number are handed over to the
prisoners and opened in their presence by the guards who thoroughly search the boxes to see if there is anything forbidden.
The Germans would allow us to take out what we wanted and give us tickets with which we could draw upon what we required
of the remainder. They used to envy us getting so much good food in our parcels. When they tried to convince us that
England was starving we used to point to our parcels as a contradiction, and they could not answer that argument.
As a proof of the shortage of neccesities in Germany, I have known guards offer five or six marks (or shillings) for the small
tablets of soap in our parcels, and one German offered me 100 marks, or about the equivalent of £5 for my pair of boots,
but I did not take part. In some German towns civilians go about with bare feet, or in sabots. I saw practically no cattle in
the fields, and in one large town we passed through all the shops were shut.”
Private Appleton’s final message was,
“Keep on sending the parcels. If you don’t very few of the boys will return alive.”
