This article is the second in a two-part series on Red Cross support for New Zealand prisoners of war during World War II. Part I explored the power of connection through letters and parcels; this post turns to medical care and the work of New Zealand doctors behind barbed wire. 

A doctor in captivity

Captain John Borrie entered the war as a doctor and remained one in captivity. Taken prisoner in Greece in April 1941, the New Zealand Army Medical Corps officer spent the next four years running sick parades, performing minor surgery, and organising makeshift wards across a network of POW camps. His practice relied on Red Cross parcels, local improvisation, and professional discipline sustained in the hardest conditions.“[W]ithout the International Red Cross Society, with its life-supporting food and clothing,” he reflected, “this tale would never have been told.”¹

In a letter written in August 1941, later printed in New Zealand papers, he described being captured at Corinth, staffing a 900-bed British POW hospital at Piraeus that swelled to some 2,000 after Crete, and paid tribute to the Greek Red Cross for carrying letters and supplies into the wards.² In October 1941 after nearly a month in crowded railway wagons through Europe, he reached Stalag VIII-B (later renumbered 344) at Lamsdorf, Poland. In total, Borrie spent more than four years in captivity.³ 

Support across borders

The Joint Council of the Order of St John and the New Zealand Red Cross Society coordinated these shipments through its London office, arranging the despatch of drugs, vaccines, surgical instruments, and even materials for occupational therapy. Medical officers could request specific items—one hospital received small electric sterilisers, while another was sent a microscope for laboratory use.⁵

Borrie wrote that the arrival of these parcels often lifted morale as much as they restored health: “Back in the barrack room I displayed it all, shared the chocolate and toilet gear and discarded worn-out clothing. The International Red Cross figured prominently in my prayers that night.”⁶

He also described how the Greek Red Cross supported Allied medical efforts before his capture: “The Greek Red Cross had organised our Corinth hospital … and delivered letters received via the International Red Cross. Without them, we knew there would have been no communication across the frontiers of war.”⁷

Hospitals behind wire

“The patients have single wooden beds, their linen being changed each week. The great majority come sick with colds, diarrhoea, boils and minor accidents sustained at work.”⁹

Using limited German-supplied drugs and Red Cross dressings, he performed minor operations, treated infections, and improvised with whatever equipment he could find or trade. Instruments brought into captivity included stethoscopes, ophthalmoscopes, and surgical sets. These were supplemented with items purchased locally. Borrie wrote that he felt “able to cope adequately with most emergencies” once he had secured sterilising equipment and running water.¹⁰

His hospital served hundreds of men working in nearby labour detachments.

“The men engaged in construction work are all fairly fit—leading an out-of-doors life. I have between fifty and sixty sick each day, holding sick parades in the evenings. I have a very attractive hospital of twenty-five beds (three for orderlies) in three rooms, painted green and cream.”¹¹

Borrie’s work formed part of a coordinated Allied medical effort. During his time in captivity he collaborated with New Zealand colleagues including chief surgeon Captain Alfred Norman Slater, medical officer Captain Earl Stevenson-Wright, dentist Lieutenant Pat Noakes, and surgeon Major Selwyn Grahame de Clive-Lowe.

The Red Cross network in action

Red Cross delegates regularly visited camps under the terms of the Third Geneva Convention. An International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) inspection report from May 1942 recorded that “a whole barrack has been turned into an infirmary and dental station” under Dr Borrie’s direction at Work Camp E/3, Stalag VIII-B (Blechhammer). Supplies were judged adequate, though the doctor requested “gowns, ephedrine, Benedict’s reagent for testing urine sugar, cocaine drops (eyes), fluoroshine, gentian violet, and an atomizer.”¹²

Borrie later recalled the arrival of Swiss delegates:

“Men in civilian clothes walked into E/3 … representatives of the Swiss Protecting Power. They brought warm, friendly smiles and handshakes, talked English, noted our many problems and gave us a feeling that someone cared.”¹³

These visits offered reassurance that prisoners were not forgotten. Reports and requests were sent to Geneva, where the ICRC coordinated with national Red Cross societies to deliver medical and personal supplies.

From April 1942, the Fondation pour l’Organisation de Transports de Croix-Rouge, a neutral shipping service, carried Red Cross parcels and correspondence from Britain to Lisbon, Marseilles, and finally Geneva, where consignments were repacked for distribution throughout Germany.¹⁴ Despite wartime risks, this supply chain allowed nearly every Allied POW to receive one parcel per week for most of the war as this had not previously been a reality as noted by Borrie in a letter dated 22 March 1942: ”None have received New Zealand mail lately. We are all well, very hungry as apart from occasional issues of bulk food there has been nothing from the Red Cross for over 7 weeks.”¹⁵

Connection and compassion

Communication also continued between the camps and New Zealand. In 1943 Borrie wrote to a Miss Ramsay at the Prisoners of War Office in Dunedin:

“The men here are in good health, are well-fed, well clothed, get fairly regular mail and parcels and are extremely fit and cheerful—all of which, as you know, we owe to your organisation. Red Cross seeds, too, are now providing us with fresh vegetables, the growing of which adds another interest to this life.”¹⁶

One of the most personal gestures came through family parcels. John’s brother also a Doctor, Captain Alexander William Huntly Borrie MC, served as a medical officer with the New Zealand Division and was awarded the Military Cross on 3 August 1944 for his actions at Cassino. Through Red Cross channels, he was able to send his brother parcels filled with comforts from home; “New Zealand butter, milk powder, sausages, coffee, Bluff oysters and West Coast whitebait.”¹⁷

Even small comforts mattered. On one Christmas Day in captivity, Borrie recalled the simple joy of opening a Red Cross parcel containing a note reading “Christmas Greetings”.

“We realised the international effort and sacrifice behind the Red Cross movement, and the truth of our present flight—‘We are, because they are.’ In war, humanity lies in the personal acts of kindness of one man to another.”¹⁸

After the war

Borrie went on to pioneer thoracic surgery and postgraduate medical education in New Zealand, founding the postgraduate course for surgical specialists at the University of Otago in 1957. His leadership helped establish New Zealand’s first formal course preparing surgical candidates for fellowship examinations, which grew into a trans-Tasman training programme still operating today.

He later became Associate Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Otago and was recognised internationally through fellowships and medals from the Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. According to the Royal College of Surgeons’ Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows, Borrie’s contribution to clinical research, postgraduate education, and historical preservation “was many and varied,” culminating in the creation of the John Borrie History Hall at the Dunedin School of Medicine.¹⁹

In 1975, Borrie published Despite Captivity: A Doctor’s Life as Prisoner of War, drawn from diaries he kept in minute script throughout his imprisonment. While this article focuses on Borrie’s medical work and his collaboration with the Red Cross, his memoir reveals a much broader story of life in the camps—one that includes camaraderie, humour, resilience, and the complex realities of captivity shared by men across the Blechhammer medical “parish.”

The book’s impact continues to resonate. A message on Borrie’s Online Cenotaph record reads: “Huge gratitude to John Borrie for writing about his time as a prisoner of war. His book has given me much insight into what my father may have experienced. A British R.A.M.C. medical orderly, he was also captured in Greece and travelled to Stalag 8B at close to the same time after some months working in the POW hospital at Kokkinia.” — Marion Jane, 10 January 2020.

Borrie’s words still help families piece together what their loved ones endured in captivity.

He died on 1 August 2006, aged 91, and was interred in Dunedin Cemetery.

Closing reflections

Dr John Borrie’s letters and memoir reveal the human face of wartime medicine — a partnership between resourceful doctors and a global humanitarian network that sustained prisoners through compassion and resolve. His experiences show that even in captivity, professional duty and human decency endured.

As Borrie wrote, “In war, humanity lies in the personal acts of kindness of one man to another.” ²⁰ His story reminds us that behind every medical parcel lay a network of care stretching across the world from New Zealand through Geneva to the camps, sustained by those who refused to let humanity be diminished by war.

References