Escaped German prisoners recaptured at West Hartlepool

This article appeared in the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail of 15 February 1918, reporting on the sentencing of three women found guilty of helping two escaped German prisoners.

Map showing Harrison Street, and Brown Street, where the Germans stayed

The Recaptured German Prisoners

Women at Whose House They Stayed

Sentences of Imprisonment

Today at West Hartlepool police court before Alderman J Suggitt, Doctor Swanwick, Mr J Hardy, and Mr E Birke, three women, living in Harrison Street and Brown Street were each charged under the Aliens Restriction Order with failing to notify the Registration Officer of the presence in their households of aliens. The aliens in question being the two escaped German prisoners of war who were recaptured here on Monday night. The three women, Superintendent McDonald stated, ha had the two men passing from one house to the other. 

[The two prisoners were Otto Auguste Kalinke, and George Davidsen. They had escaped on 21 January 1918 from Sealand Camp in Flintshire, Wales, and were thought to have arrived in West Hartlepool two days later. They were captured on 11 February.]

The first defendant was Mary Elizabeth Collins, of 6 Harrison Street, who was stated to be the wife of a Navy man. Sergeant Roberts said that, having learnt that two men who were not seen through the day, but only at night time, were staying at 6 Harrison Street, he went on the 11th instant, to see defendant who, after at first denying the presence of the men, admitted they were, and called them into the kitchen. He questioned them, and one said he was naturalised American and a seaman, whilst the other, who also described himself as a seaman, said he was a British subject. He told them he was not satisfied with their answers, and took them to the Police Station, where they admitted they were escaped German prisoners from Flintshire. Mrs Collins told him that one of the men went to her house on the 23rd Jan, stayed overnight, went away the next morning, and came back some days later with the other man. Alderman Suggett said the magistrates regarded the offence as a very serious one, defendant had been harbouring men who were nothing less than spies. She would be sentenced to two months’ hard labour.

Elizabeth Ann Mallon, 9 Brown Street, widow of a soldier, was the second defendant. Sergeant Roberts said this woman told him that on the 21st January she saw the two men standing at the corner of Brunswick Street, and they asked her if she could get them lodgings. She mentioned a place that they might try. The next morning the men went to her house. They were wet through, and she took them in and made them some coffee. They remained till next morning, when one man went away, the other remaining till January 31. Mrs Mallon told the bench she took the men in out of pity, they were drenched to the skin. But she had no idea they were Germans. “Five of our family,” she went on, “have been killed by the Germans, and I wouldn’t have taken them in I had known they were Germans”. She added that her husband was killed in-action. Superintendent McDonald said the men both spoke good English, and he did not think the women could tell they were Germans. Superintendent McDonald mentioned further that one of the men succeeded in getting a seaman’s discharge ticket through Mrs Mallon, and the latter admitted that the man representing himself as a seaman and stating that he had lost his discharge ticket asked her if she could get him one so that he could get a ship. She went to a neighbour’s, Mrs Lawson’s, who found an old discharge belonging to her husband, and Mrs Lawson took it over and gave it to the man. This discharge, added the Superintendent, would have taken the man out of the country. Defendant was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment.

Mary Jane Fenby, 11 Brown Street, the third defendant, who admitted that one of the men stayed a night at her house, also declared that she didn’t know the men were Germans. Superintendent McDonald, pointing out that if any of these women had informed the police of the presence of the men they could then have made inquiries to find out who they were, added: “It is always the most dangerous spies who speak the best English”. Defendant was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment, and Alderman Suggitt said people must understand clearly that they must not take people in their houses without reporting to the police.