Colditz (7 page)

While with one hand he was capable of ordering the confiscation of all Penguin books (the objection was to certain advertisements in the notice pages), he tried to help the small British contingent, which from November onwards found itself without any “reading” in the English language. Guy German made a spirited approach and the
Kommandant
reacted by involving the German Red Cross in an endeavor to find some reading material in English within the fastnesses of the German Reich. His appeal found its response and
a large boxful of heterogeneous English literature found its way to the British quarters, after careful scrutiny and censorship by the
Kommandant
's staff employed for that purpose.

Amongst the diverse literature that turned up, from English translations of Goethe and Nietzsche to speeches by Hitler, an inconspicuous little book received the Colditz censor's “
Geprüft
” stamp. It was
Stratosphere and Rocket Flight (Astronautics)
by Charles G. Philp, published in 1935. The book attracted me at once (as well as being a civil engineer, I was also a visionary). Philp's book should never have passed the German censor.
Chapter 13
was headed “Man achieves his First Rocket Flight.” It gave graphic details of an ascent by a man in a rocket early in November 1933 up to six miles high, and his safe descent by parachute. The experiment took place on the Island of Rugen.
Chapter 14
was headed “The Rocket in Warfare.” The OKW bought up all the patents and the accompanying technical know-how on the spot. At this point the story must be left in abeyance because nothing further happened until 1943.

Guy German placed me in charge of escape operations. He relied upon me to tell him only the barest essentials; in this way he could keep aloof from these operations and so be in a stronger position vis-à-vis the Germans. Guy nevertheless was keen to participate in any escape attempt into which he could be fitted.

I began reconnoitering the possibilities of escape from the Castle:

As at Laufen we concentrated on parts of the Castle not used by ourselves … we were learning from the Poles their art of lockpicking…. I was next attracted by the drains…. Inside the canteen [so called, though it was nothing more than a shop; in German it was labeled
Kantine
], where we bought our razor-blades and suchlike, in front of the counter on the buyers' side was a manhole cover. I had not far to seek for assistance in opening up this manhole, for Kenneth [Lockwood] had already provided the solution. Some weeks before he had had himself appointed assistant manager and accountant of the canteen!

Kenneth was a London Stock Exchange man and the idea of keeping even the meager canteen accounts evidently made him feel a little nearer home. He had been educated at Whitgift School and was by nature a tidy person, meticulous in his ways and in his speech…. [He relentlessly inflicted demoralizing propaganda on the German
Feldwebel
in charge.] Within a few months he had broken down the morale of the
Feldwebel
to such an extent that the latter was preaching sedition to his colleagues and had to be removed.

The table which Kenneth and the
Feldwebel
used for writing was situated under the only window in the room, at some distance from the counter. While a few people stood at the counter, and Kenneth distracted the German's attention with some accounting matter at the table, it was comparatively simple to tackle the manhole cover…. [It] came away after some persuasion.

Sure enough, there were tunnels leading in two directions, one connecting with the tunnel already noticed from the yard, and the other leading out under the window beside which Kenneth and the German worked. A second reconnaissance in more detail showed this latter to be about eighteen yards long and built on a curve. Under the window it was blocked up with large hewn stones and mortar. Outside the shop window and at the level of the canteen floor was a grass lawn, which also abutted the German section of the Castle. At the outer edge of this lawn was a stone balustrade, and then a thirty foot drop over a retaining wall to the level of the roadway which led down to the valley in which our football ground was situated. Maybe the tunnel led out to this wall. We had to find out.

Padre Platt made a diary entry at this time as follows:

It will be necessary to cut through the foundations when they are reached; and in the meantime to dispose of the rubble, etc. The line they are following passes right under the canteen, and will eventually come out beneath the eastern ramparts. It will occupy about three months, working two or three hours a night after lights out. Having to work in darkness increases the difficulties, and the necessity for silence, lest a night sentry should become suspicious, adds to the other complications. At present there are two watchers who use a system of signals to indicate when the sentry on his beat is near enough to hear unusual sounds.

In her edition of Padre Platt's diary, Margaret Duggan took up the point that this diary entry was surprising in the light of its contents which when subjected to censorship could have compromised the escape attempt. (Platt had told Eggers that he kept a diary and Eggers' initial response had been that it must be confiscated and would be destroyed. Platt, however, managed to reach an understanding with Eggers that, provided that he handed his diary over for censorship, it would be returned to him after scrutiny and this arrangement was adhered to on both sides.) I too have examined this censor's
“Geprüft”
stamp and think that it may well
be forged. However, unless this page was inserted at a much later date, there was a grave risk that the censor might, without notice, demand to reread it with earlier pages. Furthermore I have examined the stamps on other pages carrying “classified” information, and I regret to say that these stamps appear to be quite genuine.

To return to
The Colditz Story
:

A few days later we had made out of an iron bedpiece a key which opened the canteen door. Working at night as before we would open our staircase entrance door and cross about ten yards of the courtyard to the canteen door. This opened, we would enter and lock it behind us. We then had to climb a high wooden partition in order to enter the canteen proper, as the door in this partition had a German-type Yale lock which foiled us. The partition separated the canteen from the camp office; a room in which all the haggling took place between our Commanding Officer and the German Camp
Kommandant
on his periodic visits. The partition was surmounted with the aid of a couple of sheets used as ropes….

My … idea was to make a vertical shaft which would bring the tunnel up to the grass. I would construct a trap-door which would be covered with grass and yet would open when required, thus repeating my Laufen idea of having the escape tunnel intact for further use. Escapes involved such an immense amount of labor, sometimes only to serve in the escape of one or two men, that it was always worthwhile attempting to leave the escape exit ready for further use. In this case the intention was that the whole British contingent would escape!

Once out on the grass patch we could creep along under the Castle walls in the dark; descend the retaining wall with sheets; then continue past the guards' sleeping-quarters to the last defense—the twelve-foot wall of the Castle park surmounted for much of its length with barbed wire. This obstacle would not be difficult provided there was complete concealment, which was possible at night and provided there was plenty of time to deal with the barbed wire. We had to pass in full view of a sentry at one point. He was only forty yards away, but as there were Germans who frequently passed the same point, this was not a serious difficulty.

I constructed out of bed-boards and stolen screws a trap which looked like a small table with collapsible legs—collapsible so as to enter the tunnel….

Before all this happened, our plans were temporarily upset. Two Polish officers [the two Air Force officers Lieutenants Gassowski and Gorecki]
got into the canteen one night when we were not working and tried to cut the bars outside the window…. Cutting bars cannot be done silently. They did not take the precaution of having their own stooges [look-outs] either to distract the attention of the nearby sentry or to give warning of his approach. Throughout our work on the tunnel we had a signalling system from our rooms above which gave warning of this sentry's approach. He was normally out of sight from where our tunnel exit was to be, but he only had to extend his beat a few yards in order to come into view.

The Poles were caught red-handed and within a few days a huge floodlight was installed in such a position as to light up the whole lawn and all the prison windows opening on to it.

This was a good example of what was bound to happen in a camp holding officers bent on escape. We had already asked the Poles for liaison on escape projects so that we would not tread on each other's toes all the time, and now Colonel German called a meeting with their Senior Officers, at which an agreement was reached. The Senior Polish Officer was in a difficult position because he frankly could not control his officers; he knew that they might attempt to escape without telling him or anybody else. However, after this meeting the liaison improved, and when we offered some Poles places in our tunnel escape, mutual confidence was established….

We had to come to an arrangement with the French Senior Officer over escape projects similar to that agreed with the Poles, but unfortunately the French liaison system was also found wanting—at the expense of our tunnel—before a workable understanding was reached.

Before the arrival of General Le Brigant, the French Senior Officer was Colonel de Warren. He had refused to allow a pro-Pétain poster to be hung in his camp office entitled “
Français, n'oubliez pas Oran
”—anti-British propaganda. De Warren had said, “
Messieurs
, our officers form their own opinions of their own accord.” He was packed off to Colditz the next day.

Le Brigant arrived with his German-speaking interpreter Lieutenant André Jung from Gros Born, Westphalenhof (
Oflag
IID). He had been the Senior French Officer there. Being a no-nonsense Breton and pugnacious at that, he had made an enemy of the German officer in command of his prison block by his alleged “subversive reflections.” André Jung, from Lorraine, was also deemed “criminal” because he had refused to append his signature to a document of allegiance to Germany as a citizen of Lorraine.

On 24 February, two French officers, Alain Le Ray and André Tournon arrived. They had escaped from
Oflag
IID at Jastrow, not far from the Baltic Coast and east of Stettin. They had crossed the Rhine at Mainz but were retaken at Bingerbruck, some 600 miles away, on 24 January after five days of freedom. Their escape took place in the depths of a Baltic winter; in fact they had dug a snow grave and hidden in it.

On 18 March, two French lieutenants, Paillie and Cazamayou, were caught tunnelling in the clock tower. They made too much noise. Eggers states in his diary that Hauptmann Lange, the German security officer at the time, thereupon had all doors at different floor levels which led into the tower walled up. The consequences were serious for the Germans. The French constructed a secret entrance to the tower under the roof of the Castle, and thenceforth were able to descend the tower and recommence their tunnel at the bottom in undisturbed privacy.

The British tunnel in the canteen was making good progress. On Saturday night, 22 March, Dick Howe, Rupert Barry and I were working in the tunnel. Geoffrey Wardle and Peter Storie-Pugh were keeping a look-out through the canteen windows in the courtyard and on to the lawn.

The Germans had been having a party. The sounds of their revelry could be heard everywhere. In fact, they were keeping our orderlies, who slept nearby, awake. Solly Goldman, a Jew from Whitechapel, had arrived in Colditz as Colonel German's batman. With the other orderlies he had a place reserved in the tunnel for the second “go.” He possessed a redoubtable Cockney wit and an unquenchable bubbling temperament which expressed itself in explosive laughter whenever the opportunity arose. When Guy German had been interviewed by the
Kommandant
on his arrival, Goldman was beside him and became so voluble at the interrogation that he was mistaken by the
Kommandant
for our new Senior British Officer.

Tonight Goldman wanted to go to sleep. So he lifted the black-out curtain, opened the nearest window and started barracking a nearby sentry. Shots rang out and Goldman withdrew his head smartly. Very soon a posse of Goons (as the British called the German guards) entered the courtyard heading for the British quarters: Hauptmann Priem and the German Regimental Sergeant-Major, Oberstabsfeldwebel Gephard, the corporal known as the
Fouine
(ferret) and half a dozen soldiers. They burst into the quarters shouting “
Aufstehen!
,” waking everyone and prodding men out of bed. They discovered four officers missing. They lost their heads. They had expected and intended to have fun at the prisoners' expense. The new turn of events shook them.

Eventually Priem sent out orders for the dogs to be summoned. He then announced that “Hauptmann Howe” (pronouncing it “Hover” in German fashion) had been seen escaping and had been shot. He observed the reaction to this announcement, and probably deduced from the merriment that an actual escape had not taken place. In any event, his face showed marked relief.

Gephard now appeared following in the trail of the Alsatian dogs and dogmen. This part of the proceedings, the
Schnüffelhunde
(POW slang for the dogs) in action, interested everybody tremendously. But notwithstanding the dogmen's encouraging “
Such! Such! Such!
” and their gentle thrusting of the dogs' noses into bedding and clothing, the dogs appeared to have little idea of what was required. When they produced nothing, Priem sent out orders for the whole camp to be paraded. It was about 2 a.m. by then. Suddenly, “Stooge” Wardle, who was the look-out in the canteen shouted “They're heading this way.” He had scarcely time to jump down into the tunnel, and I to pull the manhole cover over, before the Jerries were in. They searched the canteen and tried hard to lift the manhole cover, but were unable to do so as I was hanging on to it for dear life from underneath, fingers wedged in a protruding lip of the cover. They departed.