Overview
- AWM historians David Sutton and Michael Kelly revisited the archives during the current Ashes and highlighted newly surfaced scorebooks and illustrated diaries from WWII POW camps.
- Private Maurice Kelk, captured in Crete in 1941, kept a decorated diary recording 1944 matches in a German-run camp in southern Poland, including an Australia win over England.
- The matches were formally organised with selection committees and meticulous scorekeeping, played on woven-mat pitches with adjusted rules, and sometimes drew about 2,500 spectators.
- Humanitarian aid from the Red Cross and the YMCA supplied bats and balls after prisoner requests, enabling regular competition behind barbed wire.
- A separate 1943 record known as the Ersatz Ashes from Stalag 383 in Bavaria, compiled by POWs Jim Welch and Jim Davies and later brought to Australia by Lt Bill Foxwell, is also held by the AWM and can be viewed on request.