Mexborough and Swinton Times January 25, 1919

Houghton Main Man Repatriated

Worked in Salt mines

Pt D. Lightfoot, Northamptonshire Regt. has returned to his home at 43. Junction-st. Wombwell after being a prisoner of war in Germany for 18 months.

Pte. Lightfoot was taken at Nieuport. Belgium, and has had a rough time in the hands of the Germans. He and his comrades were placed in ammunition trucks and sent inland. This journey he describes as “proper awful,” and states that before reaching Termonde many of the men collapsed from exhaustion and lack of food.

At Tenuonde they were closely confined and the daily food allowance consisted of one loaf for eight men and the usual ‘soup.’

They afterwards taken to Dulmen, and later to Bayruth where Pte. Lightfoot worked in stone quarries and salt mines. On several occasions he suffered imprisonment because he would not submit to brutal treatment, and was actually under lock and key when he received an intimation that an Armistice had been signed. Pte. Lightfoot preferred the salt mines to the quarries, as in the latter they were ordered to work knee deep in water. Prior to enlistment he worked at Houghton Main.