PWIS - Command Cages

Discussion in 'UK PoW Camps' started by Malcolm56, May 15, 2021.

  1. Malcolm56

    Malcolm56 Well-Known Member

    The info I have says that there were 9 Command Cages for pows after 1940. When I look them up I get different names - and not all 9.

    Does anyone have a list of these 9 cages and did that number include the London Cage?

    Thank you - keep well.
    Malcolm
     
  2. Tricky Dicky

    Tricky Dicky Don'tre member

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  3. Malcolm56

    Malcolm56 Well-Known Member

    Many thanks TD - I have just started reading the book. Its partly where my question is arising from:

    Talking about the London cage ".. it became the headquarters of the ...pwis... a unit that had more than eight other cages... around Britain" I have not yet come across a list of the 'more than 8' cages in the book yet.
     
  4. papiermache

    papiermache Well-Known Member

    This does not answer your question, but the U.N.W.C.C. issued guidance on the information wanted from POWs in reports issued in January 1945.

    https://www.legal-tools.org/doc/e73cf9/pdf

    https://www.legal-tools.org/doc/c6a10d/pdf

    And see page 4 of this download:

    https://www.legal-tools.org/doc/1e2e0f/pdf

    "Reports received in documentation centres bear the following code names of the units which issue them:

    M.I.I. Military Intelligence Interrogation
    I.P.W. ( Now combined as A.I.C.) Interrogation of Prisoners of War
    D.I.C. Detailed Interrogation Centre
    O.S.D.I.C. Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre
    M.F.I.U. Mobile Field Interrogation Unit
    F.I.D. Field Interrogation Detachment
    A.P.W.I.U. Air Prisoners of War Interrogation Unit
    P - WXX American Detachment within C.S.D.I.C. "
     
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  5. Tricky Dicky

    Tricky Dicky Don'tre member

    From the precis of the book there is:

    He joined No. 8 War Intelligence Course at Swanage and then transferred to the Prisoner of War Interrogation Section at No. 2 Eastern Command cage at Hounslow.

    So I took this to mean there was a cage at Swanage and another at Hounslow - hence the 9 possible/probable cages as mentioned above

    1. Kensington Palace Gardens
    2. Latchmere House
    3. Huntercombe
    4. Doncaster
    5. Catterick
    6. Loughborough
    7. Kempton Park
    8. Swanage
    9. Hounslow

    I guess the other option might be (when TNA is open again) trawl through the files - Search results: london cage | The National Archives

    TD

    Organisation of POW interrogation in World War II: status and functions of London... | The National Archives
    Reference: WO 208/5615
    Description:
    Organisation of POW interrogation in World War II: status and functions of London District Cage
    Date: 1941 Oct 01 - 1942 Jan 31
    Held by: The National Archives, Kew
    Former reference in its original department: MI 19(a)/1150 (K003)
     
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  6. GRW

    GRW Pillboxologist

    Hampden Park in Glasgow was the Scotcom cage, probably after D-Day.
     
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  7. Martin Richards

    Martin Richards Well-Known Member

    There is an assumption that the Loughborough site was located / associated with Garendon which was used as the HQ for Munitions handling for a large part of the East Midlands as well as the site of Camps 28 and 590.

    I also interviewed the land owner Squire DeLisle who seemed to think it may have been at the Hathern site during the war its self and before it became a numbered camp in its own right
     
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