Prisoner of war's stint in alpine chalet puzzles family historians
One prisoner of war served out time in the Swiss Alps, staying in a luxurious chalet – or was it?
William Scott Jardine was born in Scotland, but was working as a mine deputy at Metropolitan Colliery when he enlisted to serve in World War One.
Private William Scott Jardine – service no 6276, of the 13th Battalion, 13th Reinforcement – was reported ‘missing in action’ in a field of France on 11 April 1917. He was captured in Reincourt, France with shrapnel wounds (head and left arm) and interned in Lager 1, Soltau, Germany as a ‘Prisoner of War’.
Soltau Army Corps Camp held 35,000 prisoners with another 50,000 on its registers in work camps. This overcrowded camp housed vermin-infested huts with very little heating and hot water.
William spent seven months at Soltau before being sent elsewhere.
On 27 November 1917, William was transferred to the Hotel Belveder, Interlaken, Switzerland and sometime in 1918 he was moved to ‘The Chalet’, Seeburg, via Lucerne, Switzerland.
He was repatriated and shipped out of Europe on 6 December 1918 to England before returning to Australia on 26 March 1919.
Private Jardine experience as a ‘Prisoner of War’ in a two-year period appeared to have been quite different to what most POWs would have experienced. His story was never written down and, as a family historian, I would have loved that it was.
William was married to Catherine Loder in 1910 and they had 9 children (4 before the war and 5 afterwards.) They lived in MacMillan Street, Helensburgh.
Both William and Catherine Jardine are buried in Helensburgh Cemetery.
Jenny Donohoe is a researcher at Helensburgh & District Historical Society
