If anybody has any other information on Prail Island we would be grateful as cannot find anything via Search Engines. Chris and Caroline WIDGEONS ATLAS OF THE BRITISH ISLES Prail island, is a tiny island was once part of the British Isles and until 1944 was used as a staging post for German and Italian prisoners of war, that had been transported to the UK from the continent. The island consisted of an area of approximately forty acres of pastureland situated about eight miles south of the Isle of Wight, in the English Channel, and was once a part of the Channel Islands. Discovery of this island was made by Captain Nathaniel Cleaver on the 19th March 1644 , while the Civil war was raging in England. He was sailing back to England from France having just kept a secret rendezvous with French politicians who favoured Cromwells Parliamentatians. The French had donated twelve tons of gunpowder and some small portable cannon to Cromwell and it was Cleavers mission to collect them and land unobserved in Dorset. But during the night a storm blew up and forced the ship off course where it ran aground on rocks that had not been recorded on the charts. During 1943 - 44 over eight hundred German Officer prisoners of war were held here in wooden huts surrounded by a barbed wire enclosure. A minimum contigent of guards were needed as the nearest land was the Isle of Wight which lay several miles away. Though records show that a number of attempts to escape were made. One of the most notorious of Germany's Panzer Generals, General Wolfgang Dieter von Krumpf was held here before being shipped to London for interrogation. It was during this interrogation that the allies first learned about Hitlers scheme to used chemical weapons against London. The camp was closed down at the end of 1944 and the island was put back to its natural state. The great storm of October 1952 did much damage to the island, and due to the strong fast tides that this storm created most of the cliffs crumbled and fell into the sea. All that remains today is a small pile of rocks that lie just below the surface of the English Channel and is known as the Solent Reef. --- All of our outgoing mail is checked and certified Virus Free by regularl updates Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.647 / Virus Database: 414 - Release Date: 29/03/2004