Mexborough and Swinton Times December 14, 1918

Private Edgar Salkeld
York and Lancaster

Private Edgar Sallkeld, Highwoods road, Mexborough, since June 1947 has been working in the stone quarries at Westig, near Friedrichsfeld.

On one occasion, when through illness he was too weak to work, he was thrashed with a cane by a German non-commissioned officer. He was a witness of the murder of a fellow prisoner who was shot in the head by a guard for no reason whatever.

The batch of Prisoners to which Salkeld belonged were the first British party to arrive at Westig. and they were told by the sentries to expect an un- comfortable time. They were not ” dissap-pointed.” When the Armistice was signed all the prisoners refused to work. Whilst being marched from the station the guards in charge of them were seized and disarmed by the German revolutionists, who told the prisoners the war was over and that they were free men.

Pte. Salkeld was captured on the 9th April, 1917, at Ypres, during an enemy raid. His brother, Pte. E. J. Salkeld, died in Germany in August, 1916.