The First Great Escape - Part 3

… At the same time, the German officer on guard was looking in that direction and must have seen the white flag. However he turned and walked the other way as if nothing had happened. To this day we don’t know why the guard did this. Maybe he genuinely didn't seen the flag or more likely, he was one the guards who had been bribed and was helping the prisoners. If this was the case he would want to help the prisoners for as long as possible to ensure he still got a supply of food for himself and his family.

They couldn't tunnel the further distant to reach the point of exist, it was harvest time and the escape needed to take place as soon as possible. The stakes where high. They could be on their way back home within a month, possibly with a hero’s welcome and maybe even going back to the front line to help fight again. However it was more likely that they would be captured and could either be sent back to the camp and punished or could even be shot.  The only possible exit route they could take would be under the cover of darkness, running through a few rows of beans.

On the 23rd July 1918 at 10pm the escape began. Lieutenant Walter Butler was first on the list to escape and see if the coast was clear for the rest. In the tunnel he went along with a bread knife to bread ground. It took a hour but eventually, Walter saw the light, climbed out of the tunnel and ran. By 11.30 the first eleven prisoners had escaped through the tunnel and were swimming across the river Visa. It had previously been decided that those who had put the post work into the escape such as the trio that had planned it, would be higher on the list and therefore had a greater chance of escaping. 

By 4.30am 29 officers of the 83 total on the escape list had crawled out of the tunnel. Just as the thirtieth prisoner was nearing the exist, the tunnel caved in. Behind him were three more prisoners which he needed to tell to move back so that they could exist. However with out the noise and dust doing so was difficult and they began to suffocate. Eventually it was understood what needed to happen and the last two to enter the tunnel slowly made their way back to the entrance. However by 6am, there were still two prisoners stuck in the tunnel. They would have to stay there whilst the others went back to the barracks ready for morning inspection. 

After the inspection, the prisoners returned to the entrance of the tunnel and helped to get the two trapped prisoners out. They had no option but to return to the barracks, unable to escape. They carried on as usual in the hope to not raise suspicion so that those that had escaped would have a chance to succeed.

In fact the camp guards were so oblivious to what had happened that it wasn't until later that day, when some angry farmers turned up at the camp gates because their crops had been trampled on, that the alarm was raised. The exist point was found straight away and the prisoners were told to dig up the tunnel.  A large man hunt was launched and a reward given to any prisoner found and brought back. School children were given the day off to help look for them. 

However, the escapees had been on the run since before 4.30am when the tunnel had collapsed and should have had plenty of time to vacate the nearby area so long as they went in the right direction. They had split up into groups of two or three as twenty-nine men walking the streets would have been obvious.  Within days, nineteen of the escapees had been captured, brought back to camp to face trial and be placed in solitary confinement.

Yet there were still ten escapees where still on the run. Probably one of the most ingenious stories of the escape was the story used by the original trio - Blain, Kennard & Gray. One of them spoke excellent German, one spoke moderate German and one didn't speak any German. They decided their best option was to stick together and to deter the locals from who they really were, they came up with a story…

… The escapee that spoke no German was ’mentally insane’ and the other two had been tasked with taking him to a mental hospital. This was at a time when mental health causes where unknown and many people feared that you could catch insanity. This meant that once the story had been explained, people tried to stay out of the way and they were able to pass through towns and villages without further questions. They created a small act whereby the ’lunatic’ would have a fit and be screaming, whilst the other two would pin him down and give him a tablet, which would then make the ’lunatic’ calm down so they could carry on their journey. 

Three weeks after the escape had taken place the last of the prisoners not captured reached Britain to a well deserved heroes welcome. They had beaten the odds and managed to outwit the Germans. This was The First Great Escape. 

The First Great Escape - Part 2

The prisoner’s estimated that they would need to tunnel an extra forty metres to the cover of a Rye field, to better the chances of escaping unseen.

Many of the prisoners decided to give up. However, other officers had heard about the plan and decided to help and the new total of prisoners involved was 28. The original trio came to the decision that they had just six months to reach the field before it was harvested. Their thoughts also turned to the things they would need such as collecting supplies and false papers so that once the tunnel was completed, they would have everything they needed to stand a chance of making it to Holland.

It was the role of the new helpers to get contraband such as local money, clothes, food and other supplies. This was were the Red Cross parcels came in. With much of Germany cut off, food was scares for prisoners as well as guards and their families.  The Red Cross realised this and sent parcels that contained food and other basic supplies. Families also had the opportunity of sending things as well. It would have been easy to hide things that could aid an escape. For example, A tiny compass could be hidden in the heel of a pair of boots, Maps and train timetables could be hidden in the base of a shaving brush.

The prisoners knew they would need clothes to help blend in with the locals, as their prisoner uniform would make them stand out immediately. One of the main items of clothing needed was a hat and although this seems strange today, at the time every man would wear a hat, so to be seen without one would have been suspicious. As previously stated, guards and their families had little food and some were able to be bribed with what the prisoners received in their parcels. After all it was believed that towards the end of the first world war, the prisoners were probably being fed better than the German people. This would have most probably been how they got the clothes and hats.

A typist at the camp pretended to be in love with one of the prisoners and would be seen kissing each other in a quiet location, whilst all the time she was giving them information about camp inspections so that they knew when they needed to be away from the tunnel.
The tunnel itself was proving difficult. The enamel bowl idea that they had previously used was no longer going to work. They needed to be working at a faster pace than previously to stand a chance of completing the tunnel on time. So instead they took the sack down with them, filled it up and then had to push it all the way back through the tunnel.

Their time was up. On the 30th June 1918, an officer took a rod with a white flag through the tunnel and pushed it up through the roof of the tunnel to try to establish where they were. They discovered that they were short by a few metres. But that wasn't all…


Come back on Wednesday for the third part... 

The First Great Escape - Part 1

If I was to say The Great Escape, people would instantly remember the 1963 film set during the second world war at a German prisoner of war camp. The movie was based on a real account of an escape that took place during the second world war.

However, what a lot of people don’t know is that this wasn’t the first great escape to have taken place. It was one of the biggest escape stories of the second world war however one similar had previously taken place with a previous generation. 

The story begins in 1916 with a man called David Gray. David was a pilot at the start of the war. At this time, flying was a new invention with only a handful of men choosing to learn to fly and little safety precautions undertaken. Pilots was considered to be eccentric, mad men. For people on the home front, flying seemed dangerous and scary.

On 17th September 1916, David Gray was flying in his bi-plane when he was attacked by a German plane. He managed to keep control and land the plane but was subsequently captured by German soldiers and sent to a prisoner of war camp. By September the following year, David had tried to escape various camps five times, all attempts being unsuccessful. After his fifth attempt, he was sent to Holzminden.

Holzminden prisoner of war camp was located in Lower Saxony, Germany and was built in September 1917 for British and British Empire officers. The camp was under the authority of General Karl Von Hanisch would believed a harsh, brutal regime was what was needed. The camp Kommandant was Hauptmann Karl Niemeyer who had previously lived in America and so had a little understanding of the English language.

The camp boasted that it was escape proof. The whole area of the camp was heavily guarded and contained two fences and a ‘no mans land’ in-between. After this there was a high brick wall with barbed wire on top. The camp living quarters consisted of two four storey barrack blocks, with basements that contained cells that prisoners could be held in solitary confinement as punishment. In front of the blocks there were several wooden huts that contained facilities such as the cook house, woodshed, bathhouse and parcel room.

The camp could hold between 500-600 prisoners at any one time, with many of the prisoners being sent there due to previous attempts of escape at other camps. Between 100-160 lower ranked prisoners were also housed at the camp and acted as servants to the officers.  

After only a couple of days at Holzminden, David was longing to be back at the front and new he had to escape. Unlike previously, he knew he wouldn't be able to do it alone. Instead David chose Captain Caspar Kennard to help escape. Caspar had just finished six weeks in solitary confinement after a failed attempt of escaping. Together they chose a third member to help plan the escape, Second Lieutenant Cecil Blain, who had tired numerous times beforehand to escape. 

After discussing ideas, the trio camp to the decision that the only possible way to escape was to tunnel underground. To escape undetected they would need to tunnel 10 metres to a point just outside the perimeter wall. However this was just the first section of the escape - they would then need to run 240 kilometres to reach neutral Holland, before they could then be shipped back to Britain. Although this doesn’t sound to difficult, you have to remember that they didn’t possess any tools to dig and so had to rely on handmade items or spoons which would take a long time to tunnel. The trio knew they would need more help and so spoke to some more prisoners who agreed to help. This brought the number of people included in the planned escape up to twenty. 

The prisoners began tunnelling in the cellar of barrack b. This was difficult in itself as there needed to be men to keep watch and they had to make sure the tunnel went un-detected. They had cut the staircase so that work could happen behind it unseen with wood covering the hole made. The tunnel itself was just 16” in height and ventilation low. The prisoners later described it feeling as if you were being buried alive. The prisoners couldn't stand being in the tunnel for more than one hour and a half. They needed somewhere to hide the soil as it was being dug out so they came up with the idea to store inside mattress covers that were in one corner of the basement. Due to the lack of space, the prisoner digging at the time would take an enamel bowl in with him and fill it up. When the bowl was full, he would tug on a piece of string that was tied to the bowl and the prisoners at the other end would slowly pull the bowl out and dispose of the contents. 

The work was physically and mentally exhausting and it was considered a good days work if one foot of soil was taken out a day. Building the tunnel was a long process but the prisoners were kept going by the thought of outsmarting the Germans and escaping. However the further they got the less air and ventilation there was and the less time could be spent in the tunnel. The prisoners complained of severe headaches and feeling sick. This led them to making a home-made ventilation system built out of any materials they could find that a prisoner could pump air into the tunnel while work was being carried out. They also used bed slates to help hold up the weight of the soil above. 

By Christmas that year, they had tunnels the ten metres they needed to get to the point of exit. However, whether the Germans had received information of a planned attack or whether they just decided to step up security, they placed three sentry’s with guards and dogs around the perimeter of the camp. One of these sentry’s was exactly above the exit point. The prisoners had a huge decision to make. They could either give up and spend the rest of the war in the camp or they could tunnel further...


Come back tomorrow for the second part...