HELD CAPTIVE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 16, 19 January 1940, Page 5

HELD CAPTIVE.

MEMORIES OF WAR.

* BLACK HOLE OF LILLE."

MR. F. F. NOTIXY'S ADVENTURE

Much has been crowded into a varied life by Mr. P. F. Notley, who is retiring from the positions of city valuer and returning officer, after toeing 36 years with the Auckland City Council. He nerved in the Boer War with a British regiment and in the Great War with the 15th North Auckland Eegiment. One of his vivid memories is of being held by the Germans a* a prisoner of war. So long was he reported missing, and believed dead, that in Auckland Mra. Notley received a widow's pension. When news came that her husband was alive, however, the money had to be repaid.

On February 21, 1917, Mr. Notley was wounded during a raid on the German lines in northern France, and he and several others were taken prisoner by the Germans. He received first aid and was then taken by an ambulance to a temporary hospital and put into a room with six wounded Russians. Later he was ptit in another room where there were wounded men from British regiments. There were 200 wounded Rus-I sians in the hospital. They had been tent over from Russia to make trenches and fortifications for the Allies, and most of them had been wounded by •helifire.

Mr. Not ley's next experience was a night in a barbed-wire enclosure with other prisoners. On the following morning a tin of eoup was put in, and inj the absence of spoons cigarette tins were bent and used as scoops. Contrast in Treatment. This treatment was a prelude to the "Black Hole of Lille." one of the woret incidents >f the last war as far as the treatm-- ->t British prisoners was concerned, nd in marked contrast to the good treatment that German prisoners received. The Germans were In a

retaliatory mood at that time, and alleged that German prisoners had been made to work behind the British lines under shellfire.

Mr. Notley described the "black hole" as a room tiOft in length, with a width of 20ft. Fifty British prisoners were crammed into the room for a month. The food was meagre, watery soup and dry bread. There were no lights after dark. There were no beds and the men slept on hard boards. For a month none of the prisoners even got a wash. Their only view was through a barred, window at a courtyard, with a moat beyond.

Following the ''black hole" incident, the prisoners were made to work at building light railways, loading trucks and mixing concrete behind the German lines. They were under Britfeh shellfire all the time. They had no gas masks.

The next stage wae transfer to a German internment camp well behind the German lines, and there Mr. Notley spent several weeks. He was examined by German, Swiss and French doctors, and, as a result, became one of a party of 200 British prisoners, whom it was decided by arrangement to intern in Switzerland. There he stayed, under much happier circumstances, until the end of the war in 1018. This internment camp wae at Murren, in the Oberland Alps, and the British prisoners had good quarters, and were provided for by the British Government. They were well treated, but could not leave the place until the war ended. "Prisoner in Fritzland." Although captured in February of 1917, it was not until December of that year that Mr. Notley was able to send a postcard to a relative in England,, and the news was sent to Auckland. But the cable was mutilated in transmission and read: "Prisoner in Fritzland." To-day it is one of Mr. Notley'a cherished souvenirs.

I Anzec Day of 1919 is stamped in Mr. iXotley's memory. It was on. that day he came back to Auckland and his occupation on the Auckland City Council's staff.

Mr. Notley said that the treatment the British prisoners received in the "Black Hole of Lille," and when working under fire behind the German lines, was against all the rules of warfare. Food was so scarce for British prisoners that Icrusts of bread were welcome. J!ie

Germane were short of food for their forces, and they were endeavouring to give the beet food they could to their men in the firing line.

British prisoners of 1918, in Germany, used to yearn for comforts they had known before, and Mr. Notley said that most of them hoped and longed for the day when they would be able to eat without limitation. He recalled that one of the most popular prisoners in the "black hole" was a man who had a pocket New Testament with him. Every leaf of it was prized, and used for cigarette papers.