Having been doing a fair amount of war crimes research against the BEF over the years I have oftened thought there is more infomation out there and perhaps not released yet. One of the things I've seen is on POW Questionnaires Section 7 relating to War Crimes and filling in a Q Form. See Below: My last trip to Kew finally found one of these forms in a file by chance (See Below). Looking at the Ref No. marked on the form it would suggest there is over 3,000 of these forms somewhere Q Form: To my mind there must have been many more of these forms completed by PoW's but never made it into an investigation file either, I suspect because there was never enough evidence to start an investigation or dare I say if, there wasn't the will to investigate the allegations. Which leaves the question, what happened to them? Were they destroyed or do they still exist somewhere in a rather large box? Also and this maybe a coincidence, credit where its due, it was Verrieres (Jim) who first drew my attention to this, that in some of the BEF Missing Men files there is at the end of some name entries the letter 'Q'. Now does this mean that there is a Q Form submitted against this man as someone saw them murdered or mistreated or could it be for something else? The only reason why I would doubt the entry is the BEF Missing Men files were put together between 1940 and 1942 ish. One could argue though that the files were pulled after the PoW's came home and this was when the 'Q' was added. I have posted an example below which shows Q 57 against men who have been KIA:
Andy, this what TNA say about the Q forms: "Both questionnaires also enquire whether the prisoner witnessed or had any information about war crimes. If so they were required to complete a form 'Q'. These documents were not kept with the main report, but passed to the appropriate Allied authorities investigating alleged war crimes. While no discrete record holds these forms, they are occasionally found in War Crimes files. For further information see research guide Second World War war crimes 1939-1945. "
Drew I've come across a few Q forms attached to POW Liberation Questionnaires but have not yet found any in other records, including War Crimes files. John
The Q Form I posted was in a WO 311 file, first time I've seen one that I can remember and I've copied a few now. That ref number says theres a lot more somewhere or they have been destroyed. I was thinking today if they were in the WO 361 series or another but haven't been released yet.
Andy, I found these 4 cards in a filing system in that little reading room at the NAs where you have to read the contents in the room. I was investigating the murder of L/Cpl Coulthard on the Long march by Hauptman Mackensen at the time. I think they are the original index cards from the War Crime Trials but I am afraid I can't remember their file number. Steve View attachment 86598
File 309/58 has this affidavit written by S/Sgt Aitken regarding the 30 POWs Hauptman Mackensen murdered on the Long March. The four parts attached below. The file has many other affidavits from survivors of the Long March indicting various German officers and NCOs. Other files containing information: 309/648 Ill treatment of POWs on forced march from Stalag XXA 309/707 Stalag XXA Killing of British POWs 309/1560 Ill treatment of POWs on Forced march 309/1982 Ill treatment of POWs at several POW Camps 361/777 Searcher Parties 361/735 Tracing of missing personnel 361/736 List of missing personnel 361/1937 Action Log of POW deaths 361/762 Outstanding Missing Personnel- Adjutant General's list of returns 361/764 All Theatres-Missing List of personnel-Hardcore Cases Steve
Drew, Were these the files you were looking at or for? You might, and I stress might, be able to find more info at Bletchley Park as I believe they do hold files on MI9 and related information. Fingers crossed! WO 311/569 Extracts from Q (Questionnaire) Forms received from repatriated British POWs from Germany 1945 Apr - Sept WO 311/570 Extracts from Q (Questionnaire) Forms received from repatriated British POWs from Germany 1945 Sept - Dec WO 311/571 Extracts from Q (Questionnaire) Forms received from repatriated British POWs from Germany 1945 Dec - 1947 Jan Steve great info, this will help my research looking for British Para POWs from the 6th Airborne Division. Great stuff brithm
Top Man - Think I'll pull one of these on my next visit ! Lee you need to get your 'other' search engine back up and running mate
Drew, I think there might have been a total of about 89,000 "Q" forms completed. A lot of paper. M.R.D. Foot and J.M. Langley referred to "En-Dor" forms: a pun referring to the book about escapes in World War One called "The Road to Endor". They said in their book " M.!.9: Escape and Evasion 1939-1945" : " out of the 166,000-odd Commonwealth prisoners alive in Germany at the end of the war, about 54,000 filled in "En-Dor" forms. Not unnaturally the IS9(WEA) staffs became depressed at what they felt to be failure to carry out their duties....IS9(WEA) was formally disbanded in August." ( 1945, presumably ). "En-Dor" forms may include Liberation Questionnaires and "Q" forms: I do not know. Investigations into War Crimes was carried out under International Law and not under the Army Acts, and the chief body was the United Nations. However, the Judge Advocate General and Military Tribunals did the work in British cases. In the Far East about 35,000 "Q" forms were completed. The index of statements which the JAG found of interest contains some 13,000 names and is in microfilm at Kew. The JAG's index of witnesses for the European cases appears to be in card form only and available in the room with the more comfortable seats. Far East "Q" forms were numbered with a letter from A to M and from 1 to 1000. Where an affidavit was sworn a number was followed by an "A". Details of the allegations in the Q form are rarely seen in the card index. Where the Judge Advocate General lost interest or proceedings were concluded the letters "P/A" appear on cards, meaning "put away." There are many "Q" forms to be found in Far East war crimes cases in WO235 from file number 813 onwards. About 89 cases involved POWs. The United Nations Archive should have all sorts of material. There is a guide to the holdings available on the internet.
The guide to record series WO 353 refers to 24 cards. This means 24 large boxes of index cards. There will be thousands of names of witnesses if the European cases match the Far East cases, possibly occupying about half of the boxes. The guide is not terribly informative. On the other hand, the "War Crimes" guide is excellent The Far East microfilm of witnesses consists of eleven reels in WO356/10 to 21. They are in the bottom drawer of a cabinet in the corner overlooking the picnic spot and the railway line at Kew. The last time I looked some of the microfilm of Japanese names was away from the drawer being photographed.
Drew, Were these the files you were looking at or for? You might, and I stress might, be able to find more info at Bletchley Park as I believe they do hold files on MI9 and related information. Fingers crossed! WO 311/569 Extracts from Q (Questionnaire) Forms received from repatriated British POWs from Germany 1945 Apr - Sept WO 311/570 Extracts from Q (Questionnaire) Forms received from repatriated British POWs from Germany 1945 Sept - Dec WO 311/571 Extracts from Q (Questionnaire) Forms received from repatriated British POWs from Germany 1945 Dec - 1947 Jan Steve great info, this will help my research looking for British Para POWs from the 6th Airborne Division. Great stuff brithm Looked at the first one today and was disappointed by the content. I'll post some examples when I get home but they are not the original Q Forms but extracts from what people wrote on them. None of them are in any order and its just random notes/accounts on different sized pieces of paper.
The guide to record series WO 353 refers to 24 cards. This means 24 large boxes of index cards. There will be thousands of names of witnesses if the European cases match the Far East cases, possibly occupying about half of the boxes. The guide is not terribly informative. On the other hand, the "War Crimes" guide is excellent The Far East microfilm of witnesses consists of eleven reels in WO356/10 to 21. They are in the bottom drawer of a cabinet in the corner overlooking the picnic spot and the railway line at Kew. The last time I looked some of the microfilm of Japanese names was away from the drawer being photographed. The four cards I posted above from the War Crime Trials were from those 24 boxes. You can see that it just gives the details of the victim and the suspect with reference to a filing system that is probably in abeyance now. Steve
Looking through some misc files I found this relating to completed `Liberation` and `Forms Q` from the PoW liberation centres. 1358 Forms Q forwarded to War Crimes sec,21 Army Group? Kyle
