Great Escapes (16 page)

The solution was that one man would crawl out, attach a rope to the top of the ladder and then make his way to the tree line. Once there he would give two tugs on the rope if it was clear and the next man would crawl out and so on. Back in the hut the tension was almost at breaking point as the remaining men waited, not knowing what was happening.

At 10 p.m. the German guards began lock-down and all the huts were bolted from the outside. Inside Hut 104 every available bit of space was taken up by strangely attired men in suits and uniforms etc.

Slowly but surely the men were slipping through the tunnel and out into the woods. Then just after midnight air-raid warnings could be heard and suddenly all the lights in the tunnel went out, plunging the area into an inky blackness. Those stuck in the tunnel at the time were suddenly hit with a wave of claustrophobia, but the fat lamps were still in place and they were lit. Outside, the searchlights and boundary lights that had been playing all over the compound were also switched off, the guards peering into the blackness of the compound to look for prisoners hoping to take advantage of the raid and cut through the wires.

This gave the escapees the opportunity to speed up the exiting of the escapees, but more stoppages inside the tunnel were causing delays. Then there was a partial tunnel collapse which took almost thirty minutes to clear and it became apparent that they were not going to get everyone away as they had only two hours before dawn. At 5 a.m. the streaks of dawn started to penetrate the blackness of the sky and it was decided to call it a day. Three more men went down and the trapdoor was closed.

For a moment all was quiet, then suddenly the crack of a rifle was heard and then all hell broke loose. Roy Langlois had exited the hole and was on the rope, when a German sentry suddenly appeared out of the gloom and was walking towards the hole. As he got closer and closer to the hole, Langlois thought that at any moment he must see or step down the hole. The sentry’s foot missed the hole by inches as he walked by, but then he stopped and looked at the trail in the snow that led from the hole into the woods. Then he saw Mick Shand lying motionless in the snow and pulled his rifle off his shoulder. Aiming it at the still figure, he was shocked when another figure, suddenly appeared from behind a bush shouting at him in German not to shoot. Then another figure appeared out of the hole, followed seconds later by Roy Langlois with his hands in the air.

Within minutes the men were surrounded by guards and then marched off to the guardroom. For them the escape was over. Back in Hut 104 they realised that the game was up and started to destroy any incriminating tools and paperwork. The men still in the tunnel heard the shot and immediately knew there was no point in going on and headed back towards the entrance shaft. As the last man climbed out, the trapdoor was shut and sealed and the stove pulled over it. Although they knew the ‘ferrets’ wouldn’t be far behind, they decided that if they found their way in they could jolly well find their way out.

The four captured men were taken to the guardroom where the Kommandant confronted them. To say he was furious was the understatement of the year. Not only had they caused the German High Command embarrassment, but there was no doubt that he would be arrested and court-martialled, as the camp and everyone in it was his responsibility.

Within hours a column of German troops arrived on the scene and all the remaining prisoners were brought out of the huts and onto parade. They were all made to strip and were searched. Any clothes that looked like they could pass as civilian clothes were confiscated and all the time they were kept under the machine guns of the heavily-armed troops. A commotion in one of the huts alarmed the guards, then one of the ‘ferrets’ came rushing out, saying that Unteroffizier Pfelz, who had gone down the tunnel at the exit end could not find a way out.

Two of the escape team took pity on Pfelz and lifted the stove off the trapdoor and then opened it. There, halfway up the shaft, was Pfelz, blinking as the lights shone on him. He scrambled out of the hole, saluted the Kommandant and told him of his discovery. Then all the remaining prisoners were ordered outside into the snow and told to strip. Finding nothing, the Kommandant noted the grins on their faces and ordered them to the ‘cooler’. It is interesting to note that the Germans had adopted the word ‘cooler’ from the American prisoners and always referred to the punishment cells as such.

The remaining members of the camp were left shivering in the snow for the next hour, whilst a roll call and a photographic identification check was carried out to find out who was missing. When completed, the guards reported to the Kommandant that seventy-six prisoners had escaped. At that von Lindeiner turned on his heel and walked back into his office.

Three hours later, the area chief of the
Kriminalpolizei,
Oberregierungsrat Max Wielen, ordered a
Grossfahndung
and a nationwide search was instigated for the missing prisoners. Every branch of the military was put on alert including the Home Guard and the Hitler Youth. All the ports and borders had increased security as this was the biggest manhunt that Germany had ever seen.

Within hours of the escape two men had been recaptured, Wally Valenta and Johnny Marshall had been picked up by civilians whilst walking along the road. Taken to the local police station, they found three more of their fellow escapees already in custody.

‘Wings’ Day and Tobolski had arrived at the railway station, to find it full of escapees. They managed to get their tickets and headed towards Berlin. Meanwhile more and more escapees were being caught and taken into custody to be interrogated by the Gestapo.

Day and Tobolski managed to find somewhere to stay in Berlin the first night, but the following morning caught the train to Stettin where they made contact with some Frenchmen in a labour camp who were working on the docks. The Frenchmen promised to find some Swedish sailors and help them get aboard one of the boats. They stayed at the camp overnight, but the following morning German soldiers burst in demanding to know where the Englishmen were. The game was up and the two men were taken away to be questioned by the Gestapo.

Before being questioned by the Gestapo, they had been taken before the local police chief of Stettin, who told them that a young Frenchman had sold them out for 1,000 marks. ‘Wings’ Day remarked that he would like to ring his bloody neck. The police chief smiled and told him that as they had no further use for him, they would tip off his fellow Frenchmen about his activities, and that they would most likely do the job for him.

The massive search for the prisoners also had the effect of picking up anyone whose ID documents were not perfect, or who had incorrect travel permits. Thousands of people were arrested and among them were hundreds of German deserters, criminals and people wanted for various crimes.

After two weeks of intensive searching for the seventy-six men who escaped, seventy-three had been recaptured. Two of the remaining three had reached England safely and the third was well on his way.

Meanwhile in Berchtesgaden, Adolf Hitler had just received the first of the Gestapo reports regarding the escape. With him at the time were Keitel, Goering and Himmler and the moment he read the report he flew into one of his notorious rages, blaming everyone and everything in sight.

He ordered that all the escaped prisoners were to be shot on capture. Goering objected on the grounds that if that were done, then the German military would be accused of murder and reprisals would certainly follow against German prisoners of war being held by the allies. Goering’s argument swayed Hitler into rethinking his proposal. He then ordered that half of the prisoners should be shot and it was to be carried out by the SS. The
Kriminalpolizei
were ordered to hand over half of the prisoners to the Gestapo for interrogation. The Gestapo would then take them back to the original camp, but shoot them en route, under the claim that they had attempted to escape.

The ‘Sagan Order’ as it became known, was issued by Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the SS and SD in Berlin. SS General Mueller, the Gestapo chief in Berlin, and the chief of the
Kriminalpolizei,
General Nebe, took the record cards of all the captured prisoners and selected the ones who were to be executed. In the meantime von Lindeiner had been arrested and confined to his room in the camp.

The interrogation of prisoners was carried out in different districts according to where the escapees had been caught. Those selected for execution were placed in different cells afterwards and then taken away in trucks. The remainder were taken back to
Stalag Luft III
and placed in the ‘cooler’ for three weeks.

What continued to puzzle those who had been returned to the camp was that they knew of some that had been captured, but had not been returned. The camp’s SBO, Group Captain Massey, tried to make some enquiries regarding the men, but was unable find out anything. Then one morning in April, Massey was summoned to the Kommandant’s office. The moment he entered the office, Massey, together with his interpreter, Squadron Leader Murray, knew that something was wrong, as there was a grim atmosphere. The new Kommandant, Oberst Braune, was standing behind his desk when Massey entered and gave a slight bow – not the usual handshake.

Oberst Braune looked directly at Massey and said:

I have been instructed by my higher authority to communicate to you this report. The Senior British Officer is to be informed that as a result of a tunnel from which seventy-six officers escaped from Stalag Luft III, north compound, forty-one of these officers have been shot while resisting arrest or attempting further escape after arrest.

For a moment there was absolute silence in the room. ‘How many were shot?’ asked Massey through his interpreter. Braune, with eyes now downcast, replied, ‘Forty-one.’ Again this was followed by an eerie silence. Massey looked at Murray and asked him to ask Braune how many had been wounded. Braune listened to the question, then, still looking shamefaced and down at his feet, replied ‘My higher authority only permits me to read this report and not to answer any questions or give any further information.’

Massey asked Murray to ask him again, and again the question was asked. Oberst Braune turned his head, not wanting to meet Massey’s eyes, ‘I think no one was wounded.’ Again the eerie silence. Then Massey’s voice trembled as he spoke, ‘Do you mean that out of the forty-one men shot, not one of them was wounded?’ ‘I can only read you the report’, came the reply. ‘I am acting under the orders of a higher authority and may only tell you what I am instructed to do.’

Massey realised that the conversation was going nowhere and asked for the names of the men that had been killed. Again no information was forthcoming, Braune saying that he did not have the names to give him.

Escorted by one of the Luftwaffe officers, Major Pieber, the two British officers left, both of them stunned into silence. When they reached their hut, the escorting officer looked at both men and told them that the Luftwaffe had not been involved in the killings and that it was the Gestapo who were responsible. Neither British officer replied, but Massey told Murray not to mention what had happened to anyone for the moment. He would call a meeting and tell everyone together. One hour later all the officers were assembled in the theatre and Massey told them what he had been told by the Kommandant. There was a stunned silence, some refusing to believe it and saying that it was propaganda put out by the Germans because they hadn’t managed to catch the men. But deep down everybody felt it was true.

Security in the camp was tightened dramatically, mainly because the Kommandant was frightened that there was going to be some sort of backlash from the prisoners. Then one morning a notice was pinned to the noticeboard giving the names of those who had been killed. Looking at the list of names it soon became apparent that there were forty-seven names on the list not forty-one. Two days later another notice on the board gave the names of three more escapees that had been shot dead, bringing the total to fifty.

Those who had escaped and been returned to the camp had spent three weeks in the ‘cooler’ before being released back into the compound. They were horrified to hear of the deaths of their friends and comrades and couldn’t understand why they had been spared.

A number of the prisoners who had been seriously injured when shot down, were later repatriated to England and among them was Group Captain Massey. The Germans knew that the moment Massey reached England the murders of the fifty allied airmen would be announced to the world. The governments of all those who died vowed to bring as many of those involved to justice and at the end of the war the RAF Special Investigation Branch set out to do just that.

Two weeks after Group Captain Massey had returned to England, the Kommandant informed the new SBO, Group Captain Wilson, that fifty urns carrying the ashes of the murdered men had been sent to the camp. The Kommandant acquired some stone and allowed a working party to go to a nearby cemetery and build a vault to house all fifty urns.

News came through that three of the escapees had made it back to England, but there was no news of the other thirteen.

At the end of the war the RAF immediately started an investigation into the murders of the fifty airmen. An ex-Scotland Yard detective, Wing Commander Bowes, was assigned the task. He formed six teams, each consisting of four men, all ex-policemen, and went after the criminals who had carried out the murders. After months and years of tireless investigation, the majority of those involved in the murders of the fifty allied airmen were brought to trial and on 26 February 1948 at Hamelin Gaol, near Hamburg, thirteen of them were hanged. Others were sentenced to either life imprisonment or lengthy terms of imprisonment. Justice had been seen to be done.

So dramatic was the escape that in the 1960s a film was made about the story starring Richard Attenborough and Steve McQueen. There was a great deal of Hollywood artistic licence applied to the film, including the now famous motorcycle chase which never happened, but the main gist of the story was reasonably accurate.