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HISTORICAL NOTE
The writer was Commanding Royal Engineers,
Jersey, from 13th September 1914 to 20th December 1919.
The War Office in August 1914 sent instructions
that a temporary Prisoners of War Camp was to be prepared
at once in Jersey. There was only one place which contained
both the necessary buildings and the necessary open space
for such a camp to be quickly prepared, and accordingly
the Royal Jersey Horticultural and Agricultural Grounds
at Springfield were taken over. The cattle sheds were furnished
with continuous sloping wooden platforms to act as beds,
they were boarded in, sanitary buildings were erected, water
and gas laid on from the town mains, the enclosure was secured
by barbed wire along the existing walls and by a new barbed
wire fence 10 feet high, and eight sentry platforms were
erected.
This work was completed under the writer in
September 1914; but was never used for prisoners of war.
It was occupied by troops of the New Army (4th Battalion,
South Staffordshire Regiment), and later on by the Army
Service Corps as a Supply Depot.
At the same time, Brighton Road Schools was
taken from the States of Jersey and the necessary alterations
made for its use as a Prisoners of War Camp for Officers.
This was never used as such, and was occupied later as a
Military Hospital (after the necessary modifications had
been made), and made an admirable Hospital down to the time
that it was handed back to the States of Jersey in 1919.
In December 1914, the War Office enquired
if a site could be found for a prisoners of war camp of
1,000 men in Jersey. Owing to the intensive cultivation
of the soil in Jersey, there are very few large open sites
available, and on all such sites the principal difficulty
was the obtaining of a sufficiently large water-supply for
a large body. All houses in Jersey beyond the limits of
the St. Helier water mains are supplied by wells the yield
of which is very limited. All streams in this Island are
fouled by the proximity of houses, and unfit for drinking.
The War Department owns two large sites in
Jersey, one at Les Landes for rifle practice, and the other
at the Quennevais (or Blanches Banques) for manoeuvres.
The former site is in rock (a few inches in most places
below the surface) and the wells there sink very low in
the summer and have to be supplemented during the musketry
season by rain caught from the roofs of the buildings.
Accordingly the writer examined the latter site for its
water possibilities. The surface here is of a sand rising
in places to hills 170 or 180 feet above the sea but on
the flat portion having a height of something like 30 feet
above the rock. The underlying rock in the north west portion
is Archaean Shale, and in the south east portion is granite.
The period being the wettest time of the year
it was very difficult to estimate whether the amount of
water would be sufficient during the dry season. For example
on the site chosen for a well the water level rose that
year to 6 feet of the surface, causing the greatest difficulty
in sinking the well (the sand becoming like quick sand under
the pressure of water), whereas in the next dry season it
had sunk to nearly 30 feet from the surface and was only
1 or 2 feet above the rock level below the sand.
Further details of the water supply will be
given later.
Practically no details were available of what
a prisoners of war camp should be like; but the writer decided
to base it on the requirements of a permanent camp for a
battalion of infantry, of which some type plans were available.
The living huts were planned to be of wood,
made in sections in England; - as the War Office had made
large contracts for the supply of such huts. About forty
such huts were ordered in the first instance. It was decided
to line these huts with sheets of 3-ply wood, which proved
most suitable and practically damage proof
The size of the huts was 60 feet by 15 feet
internally, with a floor space of 900 square feet, and were
calculated to contain thirty men. The actual huts received
were supplied by a firm of Norwich.
They were heated by enclosed coal stoves (Canadian
pattern) and were lighted by electric light.
While the huts were being made in England,
the foundations were pushed on with locally, each hut being
supported on thirty-nine pillars 9" square of brick
or concrete.
The roofs were originally of tarred felt,
but the quality supplied by the contractor was poor and
did not stand the weather, so that a year later all the
huts were covered with corrugated iron nailed on top of
the felt.
All the remainder of the accessory buildings
were designed to be of corrugated iron (walls and roof)
on wood framing. The Cookhouse and Wash-ups were unlined,
the Bath House was lined with asbestos cement sheets, and
so was the Drying House.
The Ablution Rooms and Latrines were unlined.
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