The Isle of Man and WW2

Just a little snippet of news from the past. During World War 2 the Island missed most of the devastation that England experienced , though there was food and clothes rationing. There were blackouts with no street lights permitted and a chink of light from your windows at night would bring instant reaction from the police or the A.R.P Wardens. However, the Island was considered the ideal place to house German POW's and consequently, many areas in the main towns were cleared of their occupants and all their furniture put into storage. I know that several large dance halls were used for this purpose but no one seems to know where all the occupants of these houses went to . Anyway, these areas were surrounded with barbed wire, guards appeared and thousands of prisoners from that awful conflict were housed in these large boarding houses; I have included in this post a picture of a row of houses in Onchan that was used for this purpose.....but this was only a small part of the camp. Incidentally , I grew up in a house directly opposite this terrace of houses, which was surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers during WW2. I left Onchan as a 17 year old for Peel and as I said, there were several locations around the Island where the barbed wire appeared ....including Peel.........just around the corner from where I now live, Strange times, indeed !