Great Escapes (8 page)

Among the British contingent of Colditz Castle, was Captain Pat Reid, a notorious escapee. Very soon after arriving at the camp, he became involved in the construction of a tunnel being dug by the French (The French Tunnel), but this was detected. The French Tunnel was constructed in 1941–2. Also known as
Le Métro
by the British, this was a truly amazing escape attempt. A group of French prisoners known as the
Société Anonyme du Tunnel,
dug a shaft in the clock tower of the castle, tunnelled through a wine cellar, through the oak joists of the chapel and around the walls of the castle itself. The tunnel was started in March 1941 and was discovered by the Germans in January 1942 with less than 3m to go. During the course of the digging, the tunnellers removed 1,200 cubic metres of rubble and managed to secrete it away somewhere within the castle itself.

Then on 29 May one of the most audacious attempts for a mass escape occurred. One of the guards who patrolled the area outside the canteen had been bribed with a promise of 700 marks if he was to ‘turn a blind eye’ to any activity. He had been given a down payment of 100 marks, but he reported the incident to his superiors and was told to keep up the pretence of going along with the plan. The problem was that the Germans had no idea how the escape was to be made and how many people were involved.

The escapees had loosened a drain cover in the floor of the canteen, had entered the drain tunnel, broken through a side wall and dug a tunnel under the castle wall. The operation had been carried out at night, and had involved picking the locks of the doors leading from a staircase into a yard, and from there through another door into the canteen.

On the night in question, the Germans waited in the guardroom for the escape to be attempted. Searchlights flickered over the terrace beneath the walls of the castle, and the guards watched nervously for the first signs of movement, not knowing where it was to come from. Then there was a sudden slight movement in the grass. Training his binoculars on the spot, the German officer leading the security team saw a square of turf slowly being raised up on a wooden frame. The turf was then placed to one side and the head and shoulders of a man appeared. Guards quickly occupied the canteen from where the escape was being made. Whilst this was going on, the guards outside surrounded the tunnel exit and arrested Captain Pat Reid, the man coming out of the hole in the grass. In all, twelve men – ten British and two Polish – dressed in civilian clothes, with fake identities and carrying money in German marks, were discovered in the tunnel. The guard was allowed to keep the money he had been given as a bribe, promoted and given extra leave.

The escape attempt, although foiled, showed the lengths and ingenuity to which the prisoners would go to gain their freedom. Almost every day ingenious, and some frankly harebrained, ideas were put before the escape committees and attempts were made every month by the French, Dutch or the Poles. The British at the time seemed to be more concerned with the setting up of escapes rather than actually taking part. This of course was extremely important, as every escape attempt had to be orchestrated to a certain extent, and required a great deal of planning and the co-operation of the other nationalities in the camp.

There were only three ways of getting out of Colditz: through, over or under the wire or wall. Going under meant tunnelling, and Colditz was a castle on a hill, so although tunnels were attempted, none were successful. Going over the wire was the most dangerous method of attempting to escape because the escapee could easily be spotted and left exposed. Through the wire or wall, i.e. hiding in carts or wagons that were delivering goods, or impersonating someone who was permitted to go in or out of the camp, was the most successful of all the attempts.

It was left to a French cavalry officer, Lt Pierre Mairesse Lebrun, to carry out one of the most daring escape attempts. Lebrun attempted his escape on 9 June 1941, when he hid in the rafters of a park pavilion in the local recreation area where prisoners were allowed out in small groups to walk in the park outside. The escape was arranged by using a very small Belgian officer, who hid beneath the folds of a large comrade’s cloak when they left the camp. Lebrun, who had been counted out with the others, slipped into the open-sided pavilion that was in the recreation area and clambered into the rafters. When the group returned, the small Belgian officer took Lebrun’s place when the return headcount was carried out, making the number tally with the number that had left the camp.

Because the escape committee had approved the plan, Lebrun was given German marks and a number of other escape aids. After waiting for the group to leave the area, and ensuring that no Germans were hanging around, Lebrun slipped down from the rafters and headed towards the local railway station. Dressed in a grey flannel suit, which had somehow been smuggled in to him, he offered the stationmaster a 100-mark note for a ticket. Unfortunately the note was an old one that was no longer in circulation. Becoming suspicious, the stationmaster, together with another member of staff, locked Lebrun into a room and then rang the prison camp.

The Kommandant told him that no one was missing from the camp. In the meantime Lebrun had forced open a window and leapt out. Unfortunately he landed on top of an old woman, who was not well pleased and shouted at him in no uncertain manner. On hearing the disturbance the stationmaster and some of his staff chased after him and he was caught. On returning him to the camp, the Kommandant sent him into solitary confinement for a month.

After completing his one-month’s solitary confinement, Lebrun returned to his quarters, even more determined to plan an escape. On the morning of 2 July, Lebrun and a small party of French officers were allowed to walk and exercise in the small park. Some were playing football, others, like Lebrun, were exercising and leapfrogging over each other. The park was contained within an area surrounded by a 9ft barbed-wire fence, which in turn was surrounded by a 9ft wall. Lebrun had figured out that, with the help of fellow officers, he could vault the fence and then climb the wall. He chose one section of the fence because behind it, by the wall, was a small wood into which he could quickly disappear from sight.

As the party of French officers was quite small, so was the escorting party. The guards seemed to take little interest in the officers exercising, they were more interested in watching the others playing football. Suddenly Lebrun sprinted towards the fence where two of his colleagues waited with their hands linked in a stirrup fashion. On reaching them Lebrun placed his foot into their outstretched hands and in one motion, as he leapt, they propelled him upwards and over the fence. On landing, he sprinted towards the wall. The guards had by this time noticed what was happening and raised their rifles. Lebrun realised this and ran backwards and forwards alongside the wall to draw their fire. After firing, the guards stopped to reload and it was at this point that Lebrun scrambled over the wall and into the wood beyond.

He realised that within minutes the area would be crawling with soldiers looking for him. Leaving the wood he saw a cornfield, and walking backwards into it, pushing the corn upright as he did so, he made his way to the centre of the field and lay down. This clever ruse fooled the Germans, and despite them having a spotter plane flying overhead, they failed to spot him. At 10 p.m. that night, he set off. Over the next few days he travelled at night and hid for most of the day. After he had covered around 50 miles, he saw a bicycle leaning against the wall of a farmhouse, and took it.

Heading for the Swiss frontier, Lebrun pedalled for over 200 miles, during which time he changed bicycles when his became unusable. When he reached farmhouses, he claimed to be an Italian and begged for food. On one occasion he was stopped by a German patrol and managed to convince them that he was an Italian making his way back to Italy. On another occasion, he was spotted by some Germans, but managed to make a run for it and escape. Close to the border a German who became very suspicious of him stopped him. Lebrun, realising that he was in trouble, knocked the guard over and hit him with a bicycle pump until he was unconscious.

Entering the woods close to the border he waited, watching the German patrols slowly cruising along the border. At first he thought that he would be able to time the gaps between the patrols, but then realised that the timing of the patrols was completely random. Crawling closer and closer to the border, he waited his moment as a patrol passed and disappeared, and then he dashed across and over the border fence.

Giving himself up to the Swiss police, he was taken to the French Embassy where arrangements were made to take him via the escape lines into France. After going through France he, and a guide, climbed over the Pyrenees and into Spain. Unfortunately his luck ran out and the Spanish police caught him as he travelled through Spain. He was locked in a castle to await his fate, but he jumped from a window into the moat. The fall broke his spine, and had it not been for the French Consul in the area who insisted that he be given immediate hospital treatment, there is no doubt he would have died. His war was over, but his escape showed his determination not to give up and that the spirit of the allies was not going to be broken.

On 24 May 1940, Lt Airey Neave and his men found themselves fighting a rearguard battle against overwhelming German Forces of the 10th Panzer Division, in the town of Calais. Neave was part of the 30th Infantry Brigade, whose job was to try and slow down the German advance on Dunkirk, so that the British and allied soldiers trapped there could be got away. Running from house to house as the German tanks pounded the buildings, Airey Neave realised that this was a hopeless cause, but continued to try and delay the German advance. As he ran across the road, tracer bullets from one of the German tanks followed him, and one struck his thigh sending him crashing to the ground.

Dragging himself into the relative shelter of a nearby house, he was picked up by other British soldiers who took him to a small French hospital for treatment. All that day and the following night, he and many other wounded men lay in the cellar of the hospital listening to the almost continuous bombardment of the town. Then, as he heard that the Germans were closing in around the town, despite his painful wound, Airey Neave decided that he was going to make a break for it and regardless of protestations from the hospital staff tried to make his way out of the hospital. It was then, and only then, that he realised how seriously wounded he was and that there was no way for him to escape without help.

The offer of help came from a French soldier by the name of Pierre d’Harcourt, a medical orderly who Neave discovered later was a member of a tank regiment that had been decimated by the German Panzers. He had taken on the role of a medical orderly in order to effect an escape when he could. His idea was to substitute Airey Neave with a dead soldier who had died in the hospital. The driver of the ambulance that took the bodies away for burial was a loyal Frenchman and was more than willing to help.

Unfortunately, they discovered that the Germans examined very carefully every body that was being removed. Before any of Pierre d’Harcourt’s ideas could be put into action, word came through that all wounded prisoners were to be transferred to another hospital at Lille. Pierre d’Harcourt decided it was time he left and headed for Paris. Some time later, when Airey Neave returned to England and worked for
MI
9, he heard that Pierre d’Harcourt was helping run an escape line through France and had aided a number of allied airmen and soldiers to escape.

The wounded from the hospital were placed in German trucks and the convoy headed for Lille. On reaching Baillieul, the truck carrying Airey Neave broke down. The walking wounded were allowed to walk around the small town unaccompanied and at almost every house the door opened and the men were invited in and offered food and wine. Their generosity was overwhelming and, despite the risks, some even offered to hide them and then help them escape.

Airey Neave accepted all the townspeople had to offer regarding the food and wine, but not their offer to help him escape. He knew that his physical condition at the time would be a serious stumbling block in any attempt to escape and it would probably cost those who helped him their lives if he were to be caught.

With the truck repaired, the journey continued on to the hospital at Lille. Within days of being there a young French nurse offered to help Airey Neave and Corporal Dowling of the Durham Light Infantry, to escape. Plans were made to obtain civilian clothes and some French money, but with no travel documents or identity papers it was going to be difficult. Somehow the Germans seemed to get wind of an escape attempt and told all the wounded prisoners, in no uncertain manner, that anyone escaping would cause severe reprisals to be carried out on those left behind. It was the threat of the latter that caused Neave and Dowling to shelve their plans for the time being.

The following week all the walking wounded were collected and the long trek to Germany started. After travelling through Belgium the prisoners were placed on a coal barge and taken up the Schelde and then into the river Waal. They passed under the bridge at Nijmegen in Holland, a bridge that was to pass into history some four years later when the 1st Airborne Division were involved in the Battle of Arnhem.

As the barge entered Germany, Airey Neave felt the first pangs of despair, realising that any chance of escape was slowly disappearing with every mile covered by the barge. Two days later they reached the prisoner of war camp at Spangenburg near Kassel –
Oflag IXa.
Settling down to recover from his wounds, Airey Neave started to look around at his surroundings with the intention of leaving at the first opportunity. A number of escapes had already been attempted, but none had been successful. In fact some of the escapees had been captured and severely beaten by local civilians.

The morale among the junior officers was extremely low, mainly because of the negative attitude of some of the senior British officers. They considered that escape attempts were hopeless, disrupted the smooth running of the camp and upset the Germans, who retaliated by issuing meagre rations. However the noncommissioned ranks in the
Stalags,
who went on working parties outside the camp, were given additional rations because of their work environment. These men also had access to the outside world and were able to assess the terrain, the roads, railway stations, in short anything that would aid an escape attempt.