Timeline

Work begins to erect a military training camp behind the girls high school in Skipton, to become known locally as ‘Raikeswood Camp.’

The 1st Bradford Pals regiment (16th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment) march from Bradford to Skipton to start training at Raikeswood Camp.

The Bradford Pals transfer to Ripon Camp and 17th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment (Leeds Bantams) takes up residence at Raikeswood, followed by a number of other regiments throughout 1915 and 1916.

First German officers arrive in Skipton from Colsterdale Camp near Masham.

Raikeswood Camp receives its first inspection by Swiss Embassy where the conditions are described as “not particularly pleasant”.

Two prisoners who escaped from the camp are recaptured at a pub near Clitheroe after posing as members of the Royal Flying Corps.

The camp theatre group is set up and the officers put on plays such as Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ and Puccini’s opera ‘Turandot’

The second wave of Spanish flu is observed at the camp, killing 47 of the prisoners who are buried at Morton Cemetery in Keighley.

The prisoners hold a 2 day multi-sports festival, which includes sports such as football, athletics and “Faustball” (similar to Volleyball).

In an attempt to secure their freedom, the prisoners release a paper balloon which they stuff with leaflets expressing their wish to be repatriated. The balloon finds its way to Sheffield where it lands in the garden of local businessman, John Biggin.

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German prisoners are repatriated back to Germany and the camp closes.

The camp is dismantled and the huts are sold at auction. They would be used for many different purposes, including village halls and school classrooms.

Kriegsgefangen in Skipton, a book about the German officers’ experiences of imprisonment at Raikeswood Camp, is published in Munich in 1920.

The German airship, the Hindenburg, makes a surprise visit to Keighley where a parcel containing a bouquet of carnations, a small silver cross and a letter is dropped by Father Schulte who requests that the flowers and cross be placed on the grave of his brother, Franz Schulte, a Raikeswood prisoner and victim of the Spanish flu pandemic.

At a memorial service to the 47 prisoners who died from the Spanish flu, a party of 50 Germans who attended from various parts of Yorkshire raise their hands in the Nazi salute.

The graves of the Spanish flu victims are moved from Keighley’s Morton cemetery to the German Military Cemetery in Cannock Chase.

Local historian and translator, Alan Roberts, is joined by a team from the University of Leeds to translate Kriegsgefangen in Skipton, a book written by the German POWs about their time in Skipton.