Mooragh Internment Camp
Some thirty boarding houses and hotels along the Mooragh Promenade were requisitioned, as well as a number of bungalows nearby to be used for billeting the military guard.
The road leading from the swing bridge to the Mooragh Park was to remain open to the public, although part of the roadway was included within the compound.
[1] On 26 May ten officers and 150 men belonging to the Royal Welch Fusiliers arrived at Ramsey on the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company ship, the Castle Rushen, ready to take up guard of the camp, under Captain Alexander.
[2] On the following day, Monday 27 May, the armed military force took up position guarding the length of Queen's Pier, ready to receive the first shipment of internees.
823 men arrived on the Belgian cross-Channel steamer Princess Josephine Charlotte, and they were despatched in batches to the base of the pier and assembled along the South Promenade.
The guards then accompanied the prisoners, some of them whistling, as they walked along the South Promenade and the quay before crossing over the swing bridge to the camp.
"[4] The camp changed over time, with new countries joining the war and a flow of releases of the internees who were deemed to pose no threat to the Allies.
[7] Each boarding house constituted an independent unit with its internees taking up positions such as leader, kitchen staff, cleaners, orderlies and cooks.
In addition to this there was published a booklet entitled Stimmen hinter Stracheldraht, or "Voices behind Barbed Wire", a collection of works from internees within Mooragh and from other camps on the island.
The field across the bay we cannot reach, We can but pace our cage and let our hungry eye Take in far loveliness which will Remain Beyond our sadness and beyond despair, Beyond our stubborn hope, beyond our fair And puzzled sense of justice.
[12] An escape from the camp was achieved at around 9.30 pm on Wednesday 15 October 1941 by three pro-Nazi Dutchmen, two ships' officers from the mercantile marine and a civil air pilot.
The yacht finally landed at a creek near Eskmeels, south of St Bees Head, Cumberland, some time around midnight, having been driven hopelessly off course during the storm.
A mob then formed which proceeded to severely beat the older man, but he escaped serious harm by running out into the protection of the guards when they opened the gates in order to enter to stem the disturbance.
In the civil trial that followed, the man was found not guilty of both murder and manslaughter: it was held that his life was in danger and so the knifing was carried out in self-defence.
