48 NAVY NEWS, APRIL 2008
Don’t fear the
● A contemporary – and not especially accurate – illustration
of Danish prisoners of war held in a prison hulk at Chatham
Reeperbahn
AS SAILORS go, if not unique booze (again) provided by
then David Franklin is in pretty the good folk of Carlsberg
rare company. and copious amounts of
A Jewish emigré who fled pornography; the Danes
Nazi persecution, his career seemed to be ahead of the
was eclectic to say the least: game when it came to pictures
clothing salesman, sailor, of naked men and women...
diver, photographer, importer, pictures which promptly did
businessman, journalist. the rounds in the mess decks.
A decade ago, the former All this will no doubt bring
sailor drew on his Service back fond memories (ones
experiences – and a brief probably best not repeatable
spell as a fashion to the ‘other half’) for many
photographer – to write National Servicemen and
a novel set in Malta. post-war matelots, as it’s a
Now he has put good romp.
pen to paper But there’s a
again to poignant, rather
encapsulate touching side to
his life in Dave’s Tales too:
Dave’s Tales his life before
(Book Guild, moving to
£14.99 ISBN 978- Britain.
1-84624-193-2), a David
mix of memoir and Fraenkel, as he
anecdotes... so the title’s was then, was born
quite apt. in Berlin in 1924 to a
The heart of the book is Jewish family. His father
devoted to the author’s naval served the Fatherland with
career, painting an image of distinction in the Great War – at
The incarceration game
an almost halcyon age of life dinner parties at the Fraenkel
for the lower decks in the early home he proudly displayed
post-war era. six Iron Crosses, earned for
prisoners, detailing the way in Aided by two Welsh women, both the peace preliminaries had been
Yes, there are hoary chiefs bravery in the line of fire.
which prisoner society evolved, in love with Frenchmen, they signed in 1814, with frustrated
and petty officers bellowing That did not stop the
some rich prisoners (‘Les Lords’), made away with Lord Cawdor’s prisoners still behind bars.
at the lads, but there are also Gestapo whisking him away
and some who lost all through yacht to France. During the brief As late as April 1815 the
kindly senior ratings too. one day in 1936 – an action
C
LIVE Lloyd’s
remarkable book
of over 380 large-
format pages, gambling (‘Les Romans’ or ‘Les Peace of Amiens one of the Somerset Militia lost control
And there are runs ashore. which spurred the Fraenkels
densely packed with
Miserables’), picking over offal couples returned to open a pub of angry American prisoners at
Lots of runs ashore. to emigrate to England the readable prose and fi ne
heaps for food. in Methyr Tydfi l, only to beat Dartmoor, resulting in a riot and
Shipmates may have been following year.
illustrations – A History
Although food and a retreat back to France the deaths of 63 prisoners, in what
a bit wary of Franklin initially Yet England did not always
monetary support when war was once became known as the Dartmoor
– “’e speaks foreign,” one look kindly upon the influx of
of Napoleonic and were provided declared again. Massacre. Over 5,000 Americans
bluntly put it – but ‘speaking asylum seekers and emigrés
American Prisoners of
by the British, It is, however, were eventually sent home. Of all
foreign’ proved rather useful in from the Third Reich. War, 1756-1816: Hulk,
clothes were the the war against nationalities, over 10,000 prisoners
Hamburg. With invasion threatening
Depot and Parole ( Antique
responsibility of Napoleon died between 1803 and 1814.
The Hanseatic port had a Britain in 1940, David Fraenkel
the home nation, when the If you are looking for tightly-
legendary – or infamous – was branded an ‘enemy alien’,
Collectors’ Club, £35 ISBN and the authorities story becomes argued historical logic, tables
reputation in the 50s and 60s. faced a curfew between the
978-1851495283) – is
allowed both internal fascinating, by of statistics, appendices of
The sailors guzzled the less- hours of midnight and 6am, the result of the author’s
markets and clothes to which time the government costs, lists of the great
than-tastefully named wine and almost faced losing his
passionate interest of
be sold to the British number of French, civilian works which were carried
Kraner Nacktarsch (Kraner’s bicycle.
public. Danish and American out by the prisoners, you will be
naked arse) then headed off to He kept it thanks to the
over 50 years. Relations between prisoners grew to over disappointed.
St Pauli’s, Hamburg’s red-light intervention of his kindly
After serving in the Navy in prisoners and British offi cials 122,000 at its peak. Overall judgements and
district to the Große Freiheit headmaster.
World War 2, Clive Lloyd returned varied widely between locations. By this time the hulks at conclusions are missing; nor, sadly,
(Great freedom) nightclub. “I cannot imagine that any
to civilian life as a designer, and There were many conventions Portsmouth, Plymouth and is the book anything more than
“The blurb said it was the harm to this country would
also opened a gallery of marine now not known to us, with offi cer’s Chatham were overcrowded and scantily referenced, but this lack of
‘heart of St Pauli’,” writes the be caused by Fraenkel having
paintings, writes Roger Knight, eligible for parole, free to roam often diseased, though conditions fi nish may have been the result of
author, “I would have thought a cycle while at school,” the
Professor of Naval History at the within agreed limits and socialise were better ashore at Portchester the author’s death in 2004.
it was a bit lower down.” teacher successfully pleaded.
University of Greenwich. in many English towns. Castle, Forton and Mill Bay. What you have is a book packed
Booze and sexual liberation He was right.
In the 1950s he found a bone Lloyd has scoured the literature There were other depots at with interest and anecdote, of
are a common theme in David Fraenkel became
prisoner-of-war model in the of France, Denmark and America Bristol and Liverpool. Norman tales of cruelty and early death,
Franklin’s memoirs – and David Franklin and served his
Portobello Road market and for published reminiscences, Cross, on the Great North Road, of bravery and loyalty, of the
the tour of northern Europe adopted country.
thereafter he was hooked. particularly of escapes. was built of wood in four months, proud traditions of families today
in the early 50s with three Perhaps he was destined to
He formed a remarkable Perhaps the most charming and eventually contained six descended from prisoners who
minehunters was liberally go to sea: his first memory is
collection of prints, paintings and concerns 30 French soldiers thousand prisoners. The depots stayed in England and Scotland
peppered with both. (This is wearing navy shorts, a navy
printed journals relating to those involved in the bungled landing spread up to Edinburgh Castle, and married.
definitely a book for the broad- jacket and navy cap in front of
prisoners in England and it was at Fishguard in 1797, when at Penicuik and Perth. Dartmoor, But above all, this book shows
minded.) a Berlin café aged three.
collecting that drove this history they surrendered to local fi nished in 1809, described by the the underside of a confl ict in
Copenhagen proved to The tally on the cap,
from the opening of the Seven forces commanded by the Lord Governor as “an overcrowded which nations were fi ghting for
be almost as debauched as however, read Kriegsmarine,
Years War in 1756 until Napoleon Lieutenant, Lord Cawdor. city without women,” was a lethal survival, and nobody, after reading
Hamburg. There was copious not HMS...
was fi nally defeated in 1815. They showed more initiative place, and 1,198 prisoners were to this book, will think that things are
Lloyd writes this very much in getting home than they had in die there. any worse today than they were
from the point of view of the achieving their military objective. The situation got worse after two hundred years ago.
‘Let this be a lesson to you...’
SHORTLY after daybreak on Tuesday July 4 1944, the As the unfortunate Americans struggled
minesweeping trawler HMS Hoxa spied a dinghy in the between the lines they were bitten by bars
Indian Ocean some 700 miles south of Ceylon. and butts, slashed at with knives or bruised
Seven men clung to it. Another 16 hung on to rafts and by pieces of chain.
wreckage of the liberty ship Jean Nicolet. Of the 100 men And at the very end of the gauntlet
who had sailed the merchant vessel, they were all who stood a large submariner with rifle and
survived her attack by the submarine I8. bayonet, ready to put the prisoner out
The horrors of escaping a sinking ship, of spending 36 of his misery and pitchfork him over
hours in the Indian Ocean with no food or water, with the side.
sharks picking off the dead and living, paled when RN Of 60 men forced to run the
intelligence officer Lt Cdr L A Steward questioned the gauntlet, only three survived. The
survivors. remaining 30 or so survivors
Seward knew of I8’s reputation – and especially that were spared only by the approach
of her captain, Cdr Tatsunosuka Ariizumi, a man already of an Allied aircraft which forced I8
dubbed ‘The Butcher’ by naval intelligence. to dive.
Even by his standards, however, The Butcher had excelled The prisoners were left on deck as the
himself on the night of July 2. submarine vanished beneath them. It would a good
HP BOOKFINDERS: Established
The crew of the Jean Nicolet abandoned ship and took to 30 hours before Hoxa found them.
professional service locating out their boats after two torpedoes crashed into the vessel. Books on the fate of Allied prisoners at the hands of their
of print titles on all As the lifeboats rolled and rocked in the ocean, I8 Japanese captors are legion.
subjects. No obligation or SAE
surfaced. Her crew lined her deck. A voice in English urged Cruelty, however, was not solely the preserve of the
required. Contact: Mosslaird,
the survivors to swim to the safety of the submarine. Japanese soldier, as Dr Mark Felton demonstrates in
Brig O’ Turk, Callander, FK17 8HT
A 17-year-old steward was the first to take up their offer. Slaughter at Sea: The Story of Japan’s Naval War
He was beaten with a pipe before a submariner emptied a Crimes (Pen & Sword, £19.99 ISBN 978-184415-6474)
Telephone/Fax: (01877) 376377
● Shame and dishonour... Japanese prisoners with
revolver into his head and kicked his body over the side. A and the Jean Nicolet was far from an isolated incident.
martin@hp-bookfinders.co.uk
bowed heads after hearing Hirohito announce his
second man was bayoneted before his skull was smashed in The author has plundered archives around the world as
nation’s unconditional surrender Picture: US National Archives
www.hp-bookfinders.co.uk
with a rifle butt. well as printed books and newspapers to remind us that
The atrocities did not end there. Ariizumi set about the Imperial Japanese Navy was every bit as complicit in the perpetrators at various war crimes trials – six decades
To advertise,
rounding up the liferafts and boats. The survivors were atrocities as the Army was. on, these crimes at sea are at best overlooked and forgotten,
contact us now on:
frogmarched on to I8’s hull, robbed of most worldly goods, It wasn’t merely crimes at sea with which they bloodied at worst denied.
beaten, slapped, their hands bound behind their backs. their hands. Like Nazi doctors, IJN surgeons carried out It would be nice to report that justice caught up with the
02392 725062 “Let this be a lesson to you that Americans are weak,” repeated medical ‘experiments’ – needless amputations, perpetrators. It did not in many cases: 137 naval officers
or 02392 756951
Ariizumi snarled. “You must realise that Japan will rule the needless dissections – before the poor victims were strangled were tried and 129 convicted of war crimes.
world.” with rope and their bodies buried in unmarked graves. Tatsunosuka Ariizumi was not among them. Rather than
or email us at
To demonstrate Japanese mastery, the submariners This is a very dark story – and one worth remembering. surrender, Ariizumi shot himself in his cabin. His comrades
advertising @navynews.co.uk then formed two lines on the aft deck of I8 and forced the For while in the aftermath of World War 2 stories of wrapped his body in the Imperial flag and tossed it into the
prisoners to ‘run the gauntlet’. atrocities abounded – and justice caught up with some of ocean, a death becoming a hero...
0048_NN_Apr.indd 148_NN_Apr.indd 1 117/3/08 12:05:557/3/08 12:05:55
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