Mott, John Eldred (Jack) (Lieutenant Colonel, b.1876 - d.1933)

Collection relating to service of Lieutenant Colonel John Eldred (Jack) Mott, MC and Bar, 48th Battalion, Germany, 1917. The collection consists of a single letter written by then Captain Jack Mott, 48 Battalion, from a prisoner of war camp in Germany, to his brother Lieutenant Arthur Ernest Percival Mott, Australian Flying Corps. The letter is dated 29 August 1917.

While serving as a Captain with 48th Battalion, Mott was wounded through the neck at Bullecourt in April 1917 and was taken prisoner by the Germans. This letter to his brother was written while a prisoner of war and was sufficiently innocuous to pass the German censors but between the lines of the letter Mott had inscribed an 'invisible' message to his brother regarding materials required for a planned escape and how to get them to the camp. The 'invisible' writting was achieved by writting with a new writing nib dipped in saliva. The 'invisible' writting was releaved by his brother Arthur, by applying a diluted solution of ordinary ink over the page. Mott subsequently escaped from Germany and went back to his battalion. The text of the invisible letter is as follows: --

"Dear Boy, Send me in a food parcel and repeat occasionally, a small illuminated compass and a small light but efficient wire-cutter. If I don't get them in one parcel I may in another. Mark the parcels you send them in with a [swastika symbol] also the articles they are packed in. The Germans open all our parcels and we place the tins (unopened) in a locker in the tin room. Then when we want anything out we select the tins and take them to a counter where the Germans open them. We are not allowed to take anything out of the tin room but in the tin room we can examine our stuff undisturbed. A cake or small tin of biscuits properly sealed would be a good thing to pack the wire-cutters in and the compass could be packed in almost anything. We are not confined to tins only but I think I can safely leave it to your ingenuity. I should like also if you can get them, small maps of the country within 100 miles of the Dutch frontier. If you get this all right I will be able to tell you a bit more, but if they find this out I will most likely get six month's jug. They have bayoneted three or four officers in the camp alone in the last three months. So long"

• Item 1 of 1 - Letter written by Jack Mott to his brother Arthur Ernest Percival Mott