This is the story of Captain Robert Campbell a British POW of WWI. This is also my entry to the #curiousfacts contest held by @river-island.
Robert Campbell started his service in the British Army when he was just 18 years old. As WWI started he was stationed in north-west France. He was seriously injured and captured during an attack and was sent to a POW camp in Germany.
Nothing special you say. 😁
During captivity in Germany, his mother got ill with an untreatable case of cancer and was dying. He wrote to Kaiser Wilhelm II and ask for permission to visit his dying mother, the Kaiser granted him his wish under the condition to give him his word as a British officer that he would return to the POW after the funeral.
Campbell was released and went to England to be with his mother, he stayed for one week and returned to the POW camp after his mother died.
Till this day no one knows how he got to England and back.
Campbell kept his word and returned but with a couple of fellow prisoners managed to escape 9 months after returning via a tunnel they dug. He and the rest were captured on the Netherland border and were sent back to the POW camp until the end of WWI.
Campbell died in 1966 at age 81.