This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.
Rioters at Northallerton military prison detention barracks in North Yorkshire yesterday forced their way into one of the stores and set if on fire, reports the Times. Prisoners then climbed onto the roof and threw slates and bricks at guards. Armed soldiers were rushed from nearby Catterick to cordon off the prison. The fire is the climax to a series of increasingly disruptive events at Northallerton, to which prisoners from British occupied Germany have recently been transferred (and who have apparently been the ringleaders). On February 3, 16 men escaped from their barracks after morning church parade; a week later a further 16 men took the opportunity to escape through a damaged gate while comrades staged a disturbance elsewhere. Northallerton is not the only military detention barracks to experience trouble this year: on February 23, the famous Aldershot glasshouse was destroyed in a fire started by inmates, while seven men are still missing from Fort Darland military detention camp, near Chatham.
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