Beschreibung:

A rare and interesting pair of original “Wartime Logs for British Prisoners”, both containing artwork from Colditz - some of which was subsequently reproduced in the fund raising publication Detour in 1946 Both printed by ATAR S.A., Geneva, 1944, and as gifted by the War Prisoners’ Aid of the Y.M.C.A. in Geneva to British P.O.Ws, 125mm. by 175mm., 113 pp., original binding Volume I: the page flanking the inside cover inscribed in pencil, ‘Lieut. S. C. Elms Neale, R.A., Oflag IVC Colditz, Saxony, Germany’, and ‘This Book Belongs To’, the page further inscribed in pencil, ‘Lieut. S. C. Elms-Neale, R.A., The 56th (King’s Own Royal) Anti-Tank Regt., Royal Regiment of Artillery, Territorial Army, June 6th 1944 at Oflag IVC Colditz, Germany’, with pasted down Y.M.C.A. forwarding letter bearing red ink ‘Gepruft’ stamp of Oflag IVC, the central section of art paper containing five water colours, one of them captioned ‘The Gate. Oflag IVC’ and dated ‘Ju. 1944’, another, ‘Move- Feb. 1945. Oflag IVC’, and two of ‘Cooks at Work’, as reproduced in the 1946 fund raising publication Detour (plate No. 28), and therefore by Lieutenant John Watton, Border Regiment, together with an ink and wash drawing of a British officer dining in style, dated ‘5.3.45’, and occasional title references and plate numbers in ink by ‘Lieut. J. E. R. Wood’ (the editor of Detour); and pp. 55-58 with a handwritten account of the chaotic final days of the Greek campaign, entitled ‘Greece 1941 - A Page from a Tank Subaltern’s Diary’, signed by the author, ‘Dennis E. Bartlett, R.T.R.’ (another feature by Bartlett appears in Detour, namely ‘Tracks in Greece’, pp.131-134), overall in excellent condition Volume II: all pages unused excepting the central art section, this with water colours of a German guard and sentry box at Colditz, with signature and date ‘1944’; another titled ‘The French Arrive - March 1945’, with ink inscribed caption on previous page, both as reproduced in Detour (plate No. 30), and therefore also by John Watton; two caricatures in water colour entitled ‘Stooge’ and ‘Posten’, together with another of ‘Fort 8, Posen’, and a pencil sketch of a Colditz doorway, all initialed ‘IMB’, the letter ‘M’ raised for the artist’s surname, so most likely Lieutenant I. B. Macaskie, Royal West Kent Regiment; a pastel sketch of a seated officer reading; and a charcoal and wash caricature of a German guard bending down to pick up a dropped cigarette, this last initialed ‘JW’ (again John Watton), and dated ‘1944’; and another page with pencilled names and addresses of two American servicemen, most probably members of 273rd Regiment, 69th U.S. Infantry Division, which unit liberated the castle on 16 April 1945, one side of spine with vertical tear, but otherwise in excellent condition £3000-3500 Footnote S. C. T. E. Neale was originally commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 4th Battalion, King’s Own Royal Regiment, in November 1937, shortly after which the Battalion was re-designated 56th (King’s Own Royal) Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery. In September 1939, Neale’s unit was mobilised as part of 42nd (East Lancashire) Division (Territorials), in which capacity it joined the B.E.F. in France in April 1940. Taken P.O.W. on 28 May, he ended up in Oflag VIIB at Eichstatt, Bavaria, where, on the night of 3-4 June 1943, around 65 British officers escaped by tunnel - Neale was among them, his name appearing in a list of participants in Detour; so, too, in an accompanying poem ‘Eichstatt Epic’, by Lieutenant G. S. Drew, in which he is credited with ‘stooging hard from every crack’ (see pp. 64-66). Among his fellow escapers were Lieutenant-Colonel C. C. I. Merritt, V.C., of Dieppe raid fame, and Captain the Lord Arundell of Wardour, Wiltshires, and Captain the Earl of Hopetown, Lothian & Border Horse. But it was just two weeks before all of the escapers had been rounded up, the sheer scale of the breakout having prompted a massive manhunt - led by a 50,000-strong force of