All Tanked Up - part 10

Erie Camp.
There were four Canadian camps locally each named after one of the Canadian Great Lakes: Huron and Ontario Camps were on Bramshott Common near to the Portsmouth Road, Superior Camp was at the Grayshott end of Ludshott Common (the concrete road and footings are still very much in evidence there), and Erie Camp was at Headley Down, in the area now occupied by Heatherlands estate.
Of these four, Erie Camp was the ‘odd man out’, being used exclusively as a military detention centre for Canadian servicemen. “Here we gathered both the casual, happy-go-lucky offenders, and the really bad actors of the army”, as the official record of the Provost Corps puts it.
The villagers have many stories to tell of the ‘provos’ and the prisoners. Betty Parker says: “Whenever anyone escaped, the siren would go and the Provos would be down through the woods with their sticks and red armbands looking for them. This seemed to happen quite often.” Grace Barnes, who lived quite close to the Camp remembers: “They often used to get out over the wire – they threw their blankets over the top – and they’d go down into the woods. You used to find bundles of prison clothes down there, and I’ve always been wondering – someone outside must have been helping them, because what did they wear?” Mary Fawcett remembers seeing prisoners on the run as she picked potatoes in the Land of Nod with David, now her husband. “They would tear off their trouser legs and throw away their jackets”, she said, in order to get rid of the red rings marking them as convicts.
Tom Grisdale says: “I remember when I was on leave, a prisoner had escaped and he got on the bus at Beech Hill Garage. The ‘Red Caps’ jumped on to arrest him, but the conductor wouldn’t let them – he said ‘you can’t touch him on here – you can have him when he gets off’. So they followed the bus with a jeep and when he got off at the terminus in Haslemere they took him.” He adds: “I didn’t realise that they couldn’t touch him on a public bus.” He also recalls: “Some days you’d be on the bus going up towards Grayshott, and the Military Police would be out there seeing prisoners onto the bus when they’d finished their detention.”
Servicemen in the area were told to keep away from Erie Camp, “and we did”, according to Pat Lewis. However, since it was on the route between Ludshott Common and the village, they could hardly fail to notice it. “We passed the gate and saw the MPs and the guys who came out with them when they took them on a run – forced route marches and things like that.” Pete Friesen remembers seeing prisoners from the Detention Centre having to run at the double as soon as they came out of the gates. “The truth is”, said Pat Lewis, “we didn’t want to go in there not so much for being penned up, but you lost your money – that was the biggest worry – not only did you lose your money while you were in there, but it was also taken off your pension at the end of the war.”
One serviceman who did see the inside of Erie Camp for three months in late 1944 was Len Carter, mentioned earlier. On discharge from No.10 Canadian General Hospital at Bramshott, having just won £40 in a game of dice, he decided to turn east and visit London instead of turning west to rejoin his regiment at Bulford. On returning 37 days later he was court-martialled and sent to 1st Canadian Detention Barracks, as Erie Camp was officially called. Some memories of his time in there are included as Appendix V.
According to Len it had two compounds for prisoners, A and B (see p.31), where A was for second offenders and incorrigibles, and B for the first offenders. Compound A, towards the northern end of the camp, consisted of concrete cell blocks. Villagers remember the problems these caused after the war when the council tried to remove them. “They had an awful job – tried knocking them down and everything – even used explosives, but in the end they were covered up, not removed.”
Compound B consisted of wooden and brick buildings (see photo), as did the staff barracks at the south-eastern end of the camp. According to locals, the camp had “huge big gates and rolls of barbed wire” at the main entrance (where Larch Road goes in now) and an observation tower with a searchlight on it. There were offices just inside for admission of prisoners and kit storage. Villagers also remember a water tower, which remained for some time after the war standing opposite Wilson’s Road – having survived being burnt in a riot – and some recall a second being down at the Glayshers Hill end.
There was a parade ground at about the point where Maple Way now meets Larch Road, and a large natural depression nearby (where the playing field is now) which Len Carter says had been used as an assault course, though not in his time. Paula Wadhams remembers she called it the ‘bomb crater’ – it had trees growing in it, and they used to get their Christmas trees from there. After the war it was used by the Council as a Refuse Tip and filled to its present level.
Discipline in the camp was strict and living conditions spartan. As the records of the Provost Corps put it: “One field punishment camp commanding officer said it was his plan to make it so tough that his customers from the front line units would rather go back and stay there than return to his care.” He was not talking about Erie Camp, but Len Carter’s recollections make it clear that much the same principle applied there. Len says he has never remembered any of the Provost staff there with enmity – “they had a job to do” – but riots took place in the camp at other times when he was not there, during which it seems a few old scores were settled. According to Dot Myers, the prisoners once made the Colonel in charge march up and down with heavy packs on his back.
Jim Clark says: “I can remember going up there when they’d rioted and the whole camp was surrounded by Canadian troops, about four or five deep, like a big wall round it. My father worked for the army as an unofficial locksmith, sort of self-taught, and quite a lot of them had smashed the locks of the cells so they couldn’t get out or in – he had to go there and repair them. Quite a big thing, the riot – quite a serious thing.”
There was also a “massive break-out” around VE Day. Katie Warner says a lorry was used to charge the gates – “I don’t know how they got hold of the lorry, but I do know that some of those prisoners came down to the Village Green and spent the night in the two air-raid shelters in the school garden. We had a big bonfire on the Green that night and some of these prisoners were mingling with us there and admitting that they’d just come out – I think at the time people didn’t believe them, but apparently it was so, and of course it wasn’t long before the military police were around collecting them up. I think their stay outside was rather short-lived.”
Anthony Vella of the Royal Canadian Electrical & Mechanical Engineers had been sent to ‘Headley Detention Barracks’ in 1944 to be a part of a rehabilitation programme for prisoners charged with ‘Self-inflicted wounds’ (SIW), who were “serving 2 years detention and facing a subsequent dishonourable discharge.” He says: “The programme was designed to teach a trade (I was in charge of the welding school) during their incarceration, and if successful, and if they volunteered to return to their unit and the front, then the dishonourable discharge was withdrawn.” Relating to the events described above: “I am happy to say that this re-hab programme was very successful and that during the riots in this camp, when almost everyone was running amok and vandalizing property and manhandling officers and staff, our ‘students’ did not take part.”

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