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Archival description
World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, British
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Island Farm Prisoner of War Camp papers

  • NLW MS 24094E
  • File
  • 1946-2017

Papers, 1946-2017, of Captain Ted Lees, relating to Island Farm Prisoner of War Camp, Bridgend. Captain Lees was the camp's Intelligence Officer and interpreter during the period 1946-1948, when it held some of the most senior German officers, including Feldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt.
The papers include a nominal roll of senior prisoners compiled by Lees (ff. i-ii, I-XVI); some eighteen letters to Lees, from von Rundstedt and others, 1946-1948, 1957 (ff. 1-21); a typescript statement by von Rundstedt concerning the Blomberg-Fritsch affair of 1938 (ff. 22-25); a typescript memorandum, dated 9 July 1947, from a prisoner to a 'Herr Bieri' [?Frederick Bieri of the IRCC], concerning the Geneva Convention (ff. 30-36); Lees's manuscript recollections of von Rundstedt, 1953 (ff. 54-57); and a copy of a War Office urgent memorandum (U.M./4202(P.W.1m)), dated 8 September 1947, enclosing a categorised nominal roll of senior German officers detained in the UK (ff. 38-53). The letters to Captain Lees, mostly in German, are from Generalmajor [Walter] Leuze, 10 May 1946 (f. 1), [Generalmajor Hans] Erdmann, 3 December 1946 (f. 2), von Rundstedt, 25 December 1946 (f. 3), [Generalmajor Burkhart] Muller-Hildebrand, 2 February 1947 (ff. 4-5), [Konteradmiral] Hans Voss, 13 August 1947 (f. 6), General der Flieger Hans-Georg von Seidel, 14 August 1947 (f. 8), General der Artillerie Anton[-Reichard Hermann Friedrich Maria] Fr[ei]h[er]r v[on] Bechtolsheim, 19 August 1947 (f. 9), Dr Rudolf Aettig, 9 December 1947 (f. 11), [General] Gunther Blumentritt, 26 February 1948 (f. 13), and [General Edwin Graf von] Rothkirch [und Trach], 1 May 1948 (f. 14). Also included are a letter to Lees's wife from von Rundstedt, 10 February 1948 (f. 12), a Christmas card from Voss, made in camp, [1946x1948] (f. 17), a note from Voss certifying the handing over of medals to Captain Lees, [1946x1948] (f. 18), and correspondence, 1957, between Lees, Wilhelm Bauer de Betaz and a Manchester bank, concerning the whereabouts of Bauer de Betaz's medals (ff. 19-21). Items subsequently added to the papers include typescript translations of two of the letters into English (ff. 7, 15), photocopies of parts of the Blomberg-Fritsch and Geneva Convention typescripts (ff. 26-29, 37, kept for conservation purposes) and printouts of web pages relating to Lees and von Rundstedt, 2010, 2017 (ff. 62-64).

Lees, Ted, 1921-1985