Good Evening, I am searching for a PowCamp in Kirkwall / Scotland. All the soldiers from a Crew from the german Submarine U 39 were going at the 14.September 1939 us Prisoner to Kirkwall. I don't find Documents or Articles in Newspapers from this day. Thank you for an answer Best regards André Girke
Andre68, Given the significance of Kirkwall, in the Orkneys and where Scapa Flow was a significant Royal navy base it is very unlikely in my opinion that there would be a POW Camp. Any stay for the German prisoners would be short, so probably using an existing detention barracks and then they were shipped off the islands to Scotland, thence to a suitable place. Others here have expertise and knowledge on PoW camps etc, they may be along later. See Post 10 on:German prisoners and later in the war there was a POW camp No. 34 at Kirkwall, possibly used by Italian POWs: Burray - Wikipedia
davidbfpo is correct. Any survivors are most likely to have been detained temporarily locally before being transferred south, and the Naval intelligence interrogation teams let loose on them. The RAF certainly had dedicated arrangements for Luftwaffe aircrew. I am not familiar with the naval arrangements, but when the army was finally handed the prisoners after their interrogation, Kriegsmarine officers went to Grizedale in Cumbria and the other ranks to Warth Mills Bury or Glen Mill Oldham IIRC (can't remember which) in 39-40. Most were eventually shipped to Canada.
The first German pows were the 44 members of the crew of the U-39 sunk off the north-west coast of Scotland on 14 September. They were landed at Kirkwall on 15 September then transported to the Tower of London for interrogation before being sent to the pow camps at Grizedale and Oldham. The story goes that when the pows were transferred they were seen at a London railway station and their presence announced in a radio broadcast - this alerted the Germans that the U-39 had been sunk.
According to this article there was 4 POW camps in/on Orkney https://www.ww2pow.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/60Rockworks.docx
