These are handwritten accounts by more than 80,000 prisoners of war which have recently become available at National Archives whose description of the documents is as follows: "1945-1946 This series comprises questionnaire-style reports of interrogation of Allied forces evaders, escapees and liberated prisoners of war; compiled by MI9, a branch of the directorate. Information includes acts of bravery by the prisoners, civilians who had helped prisoners, movements of prisoners, and casualties among other prisoners." Has anyone yet used these records? If so, how easy is it to trace individuals, are the records indexed, is the service number required? Any information gratefully received.
Looks like there is scope for major research here. I wonder what proportion this represents. I used to know someone taken prisoner at Arnhem who must have been liberated early and managed to get home quickly, because he was certainly in Britain by VE day. Having lost at eye, he got a fairly quick discharge and I wonder if they ever managed to trace people like him, ot if he would have been willing to complete one.
Angie, you are quite right above the scope for research on these documents. I have answered my own earlier questions about them on a visit to NA yesterday. The 80,000 documents are well indexed under surname sections and each folder is filed in good alphabetical order, so quite easy to use. They are not filmed or fiched - you use the originals. Each 'Liberation Questionnaire' consists of two sheets asking for the personal details of the ex-POW, the names of hospitals, camps and labour camps where they were imprisonedand the dates they were there. Then they were invited to give answers to a long list of questions that covered such topics as escape attempts, sabotage, ill-treatment, torture, help from civilians, etc. It is interesting that some answers are ringed in red, some have a typewritten summary attached that indicate some future action to be taken by MI9. Some of the things noted were 'British NCO stole Red Cross parcels and sold them'. 'Befriended by an Italian family, Mr and Mrs XX' 'Put sand and other things in petrol tanks'. A must if you are researching ex-POWs (German & Japanese) but not everyone filled them in and they seem to be done mainly in 1945/6.
