Catalogue description Committee on the Treatment of British Prisoners of War: Interviews and Reports

The primary source for personal information about prisoners of war during the First World War is the reports compiled by the Committee on the Treatment of British Prisoners of War. These were made by British and Commonwealth servicemen, and occasionally merchant seamen and civilians, who were interviewed after repatriation, escape from captivity or whilst interned in a neutral country.

The reports are in one of two formats. The first is a numbered set of answers to a list of questions given out at either camps or hospitals (called Camp Enquiry Sheets or Hospital Enquiry Sheets). The second is a narrative report that can vary in length. Both types of report include details of the individual's unit, his home address, when and where captured, wounds suffered, transfer between camps, comments on treatment and conditions in camps and escape attempts.

Although these files consist of nearly five thousand pages many reports run to several pages and therefore do not represent five thousand individuals. It should also be noted that these reports, along with other documents held at the National Archives, represent less than 5% of the total number of captives in all theatres of war.

There are a number of indexes to these reports in WO 161/101 which are subdivided into name, place and subject. The name indexes contain the names of individuals mentioned in the reports as well as their authors. These include Americans, Belgians, French, Germans and other foreign nationals. The following key is used to distinguish who made a report: O for Officers; MO for Medical Officers and no prefix for other ranks. When using the index researchers should note the number next to the entry in the index. This is the page number of the report not the report number. The page number is either typed or handwritten and is not the number in bold (e.g O234 or MO 53) found on the top right-hand corner of the documents. For example, the entry: Meiklejohn, Major F F, DSO, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, report O 40-9, reference O 357 means that a report by Major Meiklejohn is on pages 40 to 49 of the officers' reports. The word 'reference' in the entry means that he is mentioned in another officer's report on page 357. These pages are in piece WO 161/95 which contains pages 1 to 538 of the Officer's reports.