Pforzheim prisoner of war camp (3)

The photograph above is an ongoing puzzle - every now and again we stumble across another bit of information about it.

We now know that it shows a young man named R E Smith, a Second Lieutenant with the 9th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers, who was taken prisoner on 23 March 1918 and repatriated on 11 December 1918. We don't actually know who he is, though, since we've got his photograph as a result of a mix up by the German authorities.

At first I thought it was signed "Yours sincerely, R L Smith, 2/Lt R Welsh Fus.". I knew that Leslie (our R L Smith) wasn't a prisoner of war. Nor did he serve with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. However I did know that my grandfather, James (J R L Smith), was taken prisoner, and served the last year of the war as a POW. So I wondered if perhaps I was misreading the signature, and was it actually "J R L Smith"? But that still left the puzzle of it referring to the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, since, to the best of my knowledge, none of my family served in that regiment. Writing on the back of the card shows clearly that it was sent to my great-grandparents by the German authorities.

Then, late 2000, my mother came to visit, and I was able to show her these photographs on the website (at that time she didn't have access to the web, though she does now). To my surprise, she was quite certain that the man in this picture was not her father, but nor was it any of her uncles! After some puzzling over this, we reached the tentative conclusion that perhaps there was a R L Smith of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers at Pforzheim at the same time as my grandfather, and that the German authorities got the two of them mixed up when they were sending these postcards out.

Then, in December 2001, another bit of information was slotted into place, thanks to Phil Chinnery, the historian for the National Ex-Prisoner of War Association in the UK (their website is at http://prisonerofwar.freeservers.com). Phil wrote to ask about the Pforzheim photographs, and in the course of our email conversation, mentioned that he has a list of the British officers who were held as prisoners of war during the First World War. Before I wrote to ask if it gave any details of my grandfather, I took another long, hard look at the photograph above, and began to suspect it was actually signed "R E Smith", not "R L Smith". I wrote back to Phil, and asked him if he had any information about J R L Smith and R E Smith. And he did! The information on his list, compiled from his research at the Public Records Office in the UK, confirmed that J R L Smith, Second Lieutenant of the 15th Battalion Royal Scots, was captured on 22 March 1918 and repatriated on 11 December 1918. The list also confirmed that R E Smith, Second Lieutenant of the 9th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers, was captured the day after my grandfather, on 23 March 1918, and repatriated on the same day as him, 11 December 1918. So now at least we know who the young man is in the photograph.

If the German authorities confused the two 2/Lt Smiths, I wonder if there is another family out there who were sent a photograph of my grandfather instead of their own relative? It would be rather lovely if they found this website and got in touch!

Pforzheim prisoner of war camp: page 1 | page 2 | page 3 | page 4

Review the list of books about the First World War currently available on Amazon.co.uk.

Contents

• World War One home page
• The Leslie Smith Family
• In the Trenches
• Women in wartime
• Training camp - building pontoon bridges
• Miscellaneous
• Armentieres, 1914-1915
• Charleroi, Belgium, 1919
• German photographs (7 pages)
• Höffgen brothers
• Pforzheim prisoner of war camp, 1918-1919 (4 pages)

Acceptable use

The photographs shown on this page belong to my mother, Mrs J Smillie. You are welcome to copy and use them for educational and other non-commercial purposes (we'd love to know about it if you do, though). To discuss other uses, please email me at dms@zetnet.co.uk. Thank you.

Photographs used by kind permission of Mrs J Smillie. All rights reserved.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/dms/past/ww1/pforzheim3.html
© 2000-2005 Donna Smillie <dms@zetnet.co.uk>