Author of the splendid analysis of The Swoop! that appeared in the spring 2000 issue of Plum Lines, Tom also submitted the following article, which will be published in the fall as an entry in the Encyclopedia of Prisoners of War and Internment, edited by Jonathan F. Vance (ABC-CLIO: Santa Barbara, Denver, and Oxford; a publisher of specialty encyclopedias in history and social science fields). --AD
P. G. Wodehouse (Sir Pelham Grenville, "Plum", 1881-1975)
P. G. Wodehouse, the creator of Jeeves, the quintessential British valet, and author of novels, short stories and Broadway lyrics, was captured by German forces on May 22, 1940 in Le Touquet, France.
Initially placed under house arrest, Wodehouse was deported to the prison at Lille with other enemy nationals. Over the next year, he was transferred to prisons in Liege, Huy, and finally to a lunatic asylum, Tost, in southwest* Germany.
At Tost, Wodehouse mailed postcards to his American literary agent, requesting his agent send five-dollar checks to individuals in Canada. Upon receiving these checks, parents of missing Canadian Airmen learned that their sons were alive and incarcerated with Wodehouse.
An American Associated Press correspondent discovered Wodehouse in Tost and his American friends began to lobby the German government for his release. After allowing him to publish his story, "My War with Germany," the Germans confined Wodehouse to a hotel in Berlin, asking him to broadcast radio shows to America. The shows were broadcast to London, creating great controversy. Wodehouse was branded a traitor in the House of Commons and the BBC radio personality "Cassandra" launched a smear campaign. A government investigation cleared Wodehouse, but it was not released until 1980.
Because of the controversy over his broadcasts,
Wodehouse was not welcome in England so he emigrated to the U.
S. He became a U. S. citizen in 1955. Wodehouse was finally exonerated
in January 1975 with a knighthood. He died the next month at the
age of 93.
* Tost, now Toszek, lies about twenty miles
north of Gliwice in western Poland, not far from the Czech border.
It was therefore located in southeast, not southwest, Germany
during World War II. --OM