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Wales / Re: The Radio Ham
« on: Sunday 29 March 15 09:24 BST (UK) »
The story of the escaped German prisoners of war
This information is based on a fascinating book on the town, 'Llandudno: Queen of Welsh Resorts' by Ivor Wynne Jones (Landmark Publishing).
On the night of 13 August 1915, two German submarines, U-27 and U-38, kept a rendezvous in the waters off the Great Orme. Their mission was to rescue three officers who had escaped from a prisoner of war camp at Dyffryn Aled, Llansannan. Following an initial contact in the camp via a repatriated civilian who had been interned as an enemy alien, the three officers had received instructions about their escape and rescue in coded letters.
After the first night of the rendezvous, the commander of the U-38, Korvettenkapitan Max Valentiner, released the U-27 which sailed away. U-38 kept a virgil for two more nights, as planned, then sailed away believing the officers had failed to get out of the camp. The escaped prisoners walked back into Llandudno at the end of three days, and discovered after the war that they had been waiting in the wrong cove.
Shortly before 9.00am on 16 August, Korvettenkapitan Hermann Tholens entered the barber and tobacconist shop of W.S Herbert at 26 Mostyn Street and asked for a packet of Abdullah cigarettes. By then there was a general alert throughout the area. Herbert, realising that his customer was a stranger to the town, spoke in Welsh to another customer and asked him to follow the stranger until he met up with a soldier or a policeman.
Strolling up the road, Tholens next called at the Cocoa House at 66 Mostyn Street, and ordered coffee and cake. Police Constable Morris Williams had been alerted and kept observation from across the road, then followed him into the Tudno Hotel (now The Townhouse pub) at number 64, where he challenged and arrested him. Tholens spent the night at the old Police Station in Court Street (at the rear of Osborne House).
Tholens' two fellow officers, Rittmeister Wolf-Dietrich Baron von Helldorf and Kapitanleutnant Bon Henning, remained at liberty until 11.00pm, when they were spotted near the Pier gates by cabman Alfred Davies. Davies' suspicions were aroused by the strangers. "Cab, Sir?" he asked. After the two officers took their seats and asked for the railway station, he drove them the short distance to Bryn Elli, in Gloddaeth Street, then serving as headquarters of the 15th (1st London Welsh) Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers. They were taken before the 113 Brigade Major, and from there to the Royal Hotel in Church Walks. Unlike Tholens, who was languishing in an old police cell, the other two officers had come under military jurisdiction, and were given a level of food and accomodation deemed appropriate for officers.
This information is based on a fascinating book on the town, 'Llandudno: Queen of Welsh Resorts' by Ivor Wynne Jones (Landmark Publishing).
On the night of 13 August 1915, two German submarines, U-27 and U-38, kept a rendezvous in the waters off the Great Orme. Their mission was to rescue three officers who had escaped from a prisoner of war camp at Dyffryn Aled, Llansannan. Following an initial contact in the camp via a repatriated civilian who had been interned as an enemy alien, the three officers had received instructions about their escape and rescue in coded letters.
After the first night of the rendezvous, the commander of the U-38, Korvettenkapitan Max Valentiner, released the U-27 which sailed away. U-38 kept a virgil for two more nights, as planned, then sailed away believing the officers had failed to get out of the camp. The escaped prisoners walked back into Llandudno at the end of three days, and discovered after the war that they had been waiting in the wrong cove.
Shortly before 9.00am on 16 August, Korvettenkapitan Hermann Tholens entered the barber and tobacconist shop of W.S Herbert at 26 Mostyn Street and asked for a packet of Abdullah cigarettes. By then there was a general alert throughout the area. Herbert, realising that his customer was a stranger to the town, spoke in Welsh to another customer and asked him to follow the stranger until he met up with a soldier or a policeman.
Strolling up the road, Tholens next called at the Cocoa House at 66 Mostyn Street, and ordered coffee and cake. Police Constable Morris Williams had been alerted and kept observation from across the road, then followed him into the Tudno Hotel (now The Townhouse pub) at number 64, where he challenged and arrested him. Tholens spent the night at the old Police Station in Court Street (at the rear of Osborne House).
Tholens' two fellow officers, Rittmeister Wolf-Dietrich Baron von Helldorf and Kapitanleutnant Bon Henning, remained at liberty until 11.00pm, when they were spotted near the Pier gates by cabman Alfred Davies. Davies' suspicions were aroused by the strangers. "Cab, Sir?" he asked. After the two officers took their seats and asked for the railway station, he drove them the short distance to Bryn Elli, in Gloddaeth Street, then serving as headquarters of the 15th (1st London Welsh) Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers. They were taken before the 113 Brigade Major, and from there to the Royal Hotel in Church Walks. Unlike Tholens, who was languishing in an old police cell, the other two officers had come under military jurisdiction, and were given a level of food and accomodation deemed appropriate for officers.