Colditz (34 page)

Teddy Barton, Mike Sinclair and Alan Cheetham studied Franz Josef's gestures, facial expressions, manners of speech, accent and intonation for a month on end. They made fourteen mustaches before they had the right one. Franz Josef was dogged every time he entered the courtyard. Mike rehearsed and rehearsed again and again, until he lived in the role of Franz Josef.

His moment was approaching. Two sentries had been chosen to accompany him. They were John Hyde-Thompson and Lance Pope. Both were good German speakers. They rehearsed with Mike the German words of command, and practiced all the movements of guard-changing according to the German routine. (It was Pope who had marched out of Eichstatt prison with “Tubby” Broomhall, the latter posing as a German general.) The idea was simply to relieve two real sentries.

A first wave of twenty men would make the rope descent from the old British quarters immediately once the guard had been relieved and was out of sight. Monty Bissell would lead the first wave. If there was no violent reaction by the time the twentieth had descended the rope, more officers were ready to follow, but responsibility rested with their leaders not to lessen by their action the chances of the first wave.

The main body was to make straight for the park at the double, followed closely by Mike—Franz Josef II—and his two sentries. If a stray Goon appeared they were to keep running. Franz Josef II would give the impression of chasing the party and would intercept any such stray Goons and order them to run in the opposite direction, towards the Castle, with instructions to raise the alarm.

D-day was to be 2 September and the hour was to be immediately after the 9 p.m.
Appell
. Franz Josef I would be the guard commander on that day and a particularly dumb-looking Goon was calculated to be on duty at the crucial gate. The bar-cutting was accomplished successfully and camouflaged.

2 September—a Thursday—arrived. The day passed slowly. There was suppressed activity everywhere, concealed by an overall air of casualness. The men taking part in the attempt were not beginners. What worried most of them more than anything else was the short start. If the first stage—the relieving of the guard—came off, that in itself would be tremendously exciting, but the real fun would start when twenty POWs were out, the first with perhaps a three-minute start, and the last with less than a thirty-seconds start, in front of the pursuing enemy. The hounds would be in full cry. Colditz had never known such an attempt before and the consequences were unknown. Mike Sinclair remained outwardly calm while the turmoil of nervous anticipation was inwardly tearing at his entrails and gripping his throat.

Dick spent his time checking up on everybody's instructions, amplifying them, where necessary, to cover every possible hitch or misunderstanding. The escape was the largest and most daring so far attempted from Colditz. If it succeeded, it would make history. If it failed—“Well!” thought Dick. “It'll still make a good story!'

Franz Josef II could have walked out of the Castle with ease.

The hours dragged heavily towards the 9 p.m.
Appell
. Those in the escaping team lay on their bunks, trying to sleep. They yawned and stretched themselves nervously, finding no relief for the tension around the heart or the nausea threatening the stomach, for the hot flush or the cold sweat.

The
Appell
went off normally. Immediately afterwards, Bush Parker and the guard-relieving party—Mike, John Hyde-Thompson and Lance Pope—faded off towards the sick ward. The second stooging contingent disappeared to their respective posts on the upper floor overlooking the guardhouse. The main escaping party with its stooges, led by Dick, Bricky Forbes, Lulu and Mike Harvey, followed by the members of the second escaping wave—altogether thirty-five strong—passed silently through locked doors into the dark unoccupied rooms of the old British quarters. Dick looked down on to the sentry path below. “The ivory-headed Goon's at his post on the gateway—so far so good,” he whispered.

Sounds of life in the Castle died down. Soon a deathly stillness reigned. Thirty-five men waited for the warning signals. The first message came through: “Franz Josef returned to guardhouse,” Mike Harvey reported in an undertone. Then came, “All quiet in
Kommandantur
.”

This was the signal for Bush to act and release Franz Josef II and his party through the window, down the rope, on to the sentry path.

A silence, vibrant with tension, followed. Then suddenly, Mike Harvey spoke in hoarse excited tones: “Our guard party on their way—past first sentry.”

A moment later, Dick, Lulu, Monty and Bricky Forbes, crouching near the window, heard the crunch of marching feet on the path and a loud heel-click as a sentry, out of sight, saluted the passing patrol. Then they came into view, round the corner of the building. This was the crucial moment.

Franz Josef II, followed by his two guards, walked to the gate and spoke to the dumb sentry in German: “
Sie sind abgelöst. Sie werden Ihre Wache diesem Posten übergeben. Gehen Sie sofort in die Wachtstube! Dort sind Sie nötig, denn einige Gefangene sind geflohen
(You are relieved. You will hand over your duties at this post. Go to the guardroom at once! You are needed there; some prisoners have escaped).” Lance Pope took up his post beside the gate. Franz Josef II mounted
the ladder to the cat-walk and repeated his orders to the second sentry who started to descend. John Hyde-Thompson took over his post.

“My God!” whispered Dick, in a dripping perspiration, “it's going to work. Get ready!”

The cat-walk sentry had reached the ground and was marching off. Then Dick noticed the gate sentry had not followed. Franz Josef II was talking to him. Dick could hear the gist of it through the open window and repeated it to the others.

“The sentry says he's under orders not to move. Mike's demanded the keys. The sentry's handed them over … but he won't move. What the hell! … Mike ought to go. He's wasting time. The three of them can make it. He's getting annoyed with the sentry … he's told him to get back to the guardhouse. No! … it's no good … the dumb bastard won't budge … why the devil won't he move? Mike's getting really angry with him…. He's got to go! He's got to go! Mike's shouting at him.” Dick was in a frenzy. “Good God! This is the end. The time's about up.”

Mike was having a desperate duel with the ivory-headed Goon and the precious seconds were slipping away. He was thinking of the main party—he was determined that the main party should escape at all costs. He had cast his die—it was to be all or nothing. He was sacrificing himself to win the larger prize.

As soon as he started to raise his voice, Dick's stomach began to sink. The game was a losing one. He wanted to shout at Mike to make a run for it, but dared not interfere with Mike's battle. He was impotent, helpless, swearing and almost weeping with a foreboding of terrible failure. The scheme, within a hair's breadth of success, was going wrong. Mike might possibly have disarmed the offending sentry, but it was too late for violence now with less than half a minute's start. If he had been disarmed at the very beginning it might have been different, but who would have done that when persuasion was the obvious first course? Alas! Persuasion meant time and the precious minutes had flown. Four minutes had gone. It was nearly hopeless now.

The two British sentries stood their ground. John Hyde-Thompson was solemnly pacing his beat up and down the cat-walk.

Mike's voice rose to a typical Franz Josef scream of rage. Even as he shouted, there were sounds of hurrying feet and discordant voices shouting in the distance.

The sentry had asked Mike for his pass. Eggers takes up the story from the German side:

The pass seemed in order, but was the wrong colour. The guard had a vague suspicion and pressed his warning bell. He also covered Franz Josef
with his rifle and ordered him to put up his hands. Josef cursed—not very fluently—but did indeed put his hands up. In due course, a corporal Pilz known as “Big Bum” and two men appeared from the guardroom in answer to the buzzer. Franz Josef did not know the password when asked. The corporal Pilz drew his revolver and demanded Franz Josef's. There was a struggle. The corporal swore later that Franz Josef tried to draw his pistol. He himself fired.

Mike Sinclair fell to the ground shot in the chest with a 9mm bullet. The true Franz Josef (Rothenberger) arrived, and the two phoney sentries were marched off, leaving Sinclair unattended on the ground. An
Appell
was called, at which feelings naturally ran high. Lieutenant David Hunter RM accused the Germans of murder, but was himself punished after a court-martial with two months in Graudenz military prison.

Mike was not seriously hurt. The bullet passed out under a shoulderblade. An OKW court of inquiry in Leipzig accepted Pilz's statement that he had fired in self-defense. The SBO also held a court of inquiry which ruled that Pilz had fired while Mike had his hands up. Pilz was later sent to the eastern front.

On 4 September the first news trickled through the German press of an Allied landing in Italy—across the straits of Messina. The POWs were able to read between the lines in spite of the German downgrading of the event.

During this month the “non-belligerents”—padres and doctors—were once more allowed out of the Castle on parole walks; this applied likewise to the
Prominenten
. Padre Platt commented: “I resign my escape interests with some regret.”

The largest consignment of Red Cross parcels ever arrived, consisting of 2,000 British Red Cross parcels, forty-five tobacco parcels, forty of invalid comforts, eight surgical, one of 200 tins of toothpowder, one of 144 rolls of toilet paper, plus sugar from Buenos Aires and coffee from Venezuelan Red Cross. The store of food parcels had now reached 5,000, estimated at five months' supply at one per head per week. The impression was that Geneva was anticipating a period of disorganized transport to Germany.

A British orderly refused to carry out an order given around this time by Corporal Schädlich—the “Ferret.” Eggers reported the incident to the
Kommandant
. Prawitt was furious: “Read my orders,” he roared. “In cases of disobedience push your rifle into their backs. If they further disobey, then use them. Do not report such cases to me.” Eggers comments: “I remained
determined only to use my weapon in self-defense.” The orderly was punished with the German Army standard “glass-house” punishment of thirty days—bread and water diet with only one warm meal. The German corporal in due course was sent to the Italian front where he was killed.

On 7 October the Germans caught Lieutenant Alan “Scruffy” Orr-Ewing in German uniform in a paper dump just outside the Castle. The British orderlies had taken him there in a basket of waste.

Hauptmann Lange, the German security officer since 1939, had gone to another camp after Giles Romilly's attempted escape at the time of the French departure. His replacement was a lawyer who had been severely wounded in Russia. He went about on sticks, but in spite of this disability was determined to go back to the front and win a decoration, and was posted for active service after about six months. This officer, Major Dr. Hans Horn, won the
Ritterkreuz
in February 1945, after breaking out with his troops from encirclement by the Americans at Echternach in the Ardennes area. He died in Soviet hands at Sachsenhausen.

The OKW issued the following order on 15 September calculated to discourage escaping:

Camp Order no. 23 Colditz 15 September 1943

By order of the German High Command, Prisoners-of-War who cause any harm to the German War Economies will be brought in future before a court-martial instead of being punished disciplinarily. The following actions will be considered, amongst others, as harming the German War Economies: (1) breaking through walls, floors, ceilings, etc., damages to iron window bars, etc.; (2) destruction, damage or theft of furnishings and fittings (such as bed-boards, stove-doors, electric fittings, etc.); (3) altering of uniforms which are not the personal property of the Prisoner-of-War; (4) theft of tools and materials and unauthorized use of electric current when building tunnels, etc.; (5) theft and falsification of identity cards, etc.

Offences against these serious war necessities are considered to be crimes against War Economies and will be punished with all severity.

Signed: Prawitt, Lt. Col. and
Kommandant

General comment: “Well, that covers everything, particularly the etceteras!”

Major Miles Reid RE arrived on 22 September via Spangenburg from Greece. He had refused to take down his trousers during a search.

On the night of 19/20 September 1943, Polish officers broke out of their big tunnel at Dössel and forty-seven men escaped, of whom seven were former Colditz inmates. Nine, of whom two were from Colditz, succeeded in reaching France or Switzerland or the Polish underground. Thirty-eight were recaught and executed in two batches, including the remaining five ex-Colditz men. Most of them were apparently hanged, naked, one after the other, from butchers' hooks while those to follow witnessed the proceedings before their turn came.

This took place in the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Among those who succeeded in getting away, the two ex-Colditz prisoners were Władysław Zimiński and Władysław Pszczółkowski. Of the thirty-eight recaptured and hanged, the ex-Colditz men were: Mieczysław Chmiel, Tadeusz Osiecki, Jan Stec, Stanisław Stokwisz, Jan Zwijacz.

Lieutenant-Colonel Bronisław Kowalczewski organized this escape, with Major Stefan Pronaszko and Captain Władysław Wasilewski. All three were from Colditz. They arrived in Dössel in August 1943. Before their departure from Colditz, Dick Howe introduced them to two Canadians in the British contingent who had at one time been at the Dössel camp. Their names are, unfortunately, at this date, not available.
*
However, they revealed the whereabouts and the secret entrance to a tunnel which they had been digging when they left the camp. This became the Polish tunnel and accounts for the fact that the tunnel—thirty-six yards long—was completed within a month of their arrival.