Colditz (9 page)

From Thorn, Thom, Donaldson and Flynn had escaped and, dressed as German air mechanics, had tried unsuccessfully to steal an enemy plane. Hyde-Thompson had also escaped from Thorn and was eight days at liberty before recapture. The two Fleet Air Arm officers had discovered an old escape-tunnel working which they followed only to emerge facing the muzzle of a machine-gun.

On Sunday evening, 26 April, after some high-spirited singing around the piano, Peter Storie-Pugh started halloaing from a dormitory window after lights-out. He was brought to his senses by a bullet which splintered the glass above his head and sent him ducking for cover. This would duly be made a serious cause of complaint by the SBO. In reality Peter was, of course, goading the German sentry.

On 10 May, a rare opportunity presented itself. Some French troop prisoners who were held somewhere in the town arrived at the Castle in a German lorry to collect some straw palliasses (the standard prison mattresses). There was no time to lose. Peter Allan—who was small and light and spoke German fluently—was stuffed into one of our own palliasses. With some difficulty I persuaded one of the Frenchmen to carry this bundle down the stairs and load it on the lorry. Then we watched the lorry drive out of the Castle. It looked as if a successful escape was in the making.

More French escapers arrived in May, in particular fifteen officers from a party of twenty-four who had broken out from a tunnel in the prison of Hoyerswerde on 29 March. Eight of the twenty-four succeeded in reaching France. One, though recaptured, for some reason never came to Colditz. Amongst the newcomers were Colonel Damidaux and Lieutenants Duquet, Gérard, Groquet, Jung, Lamidieu, Warisse and Besson-Guyard (these last two escaped successfully later).

Around this time, two Polish lieutenants, Mietek Chmiel and “Miki” Surmanowicz, were caught by the Germans in a locked-up attic in the
Saalhaus
. This was a wing of the Castle containing the theater which housed the Senior Officers (POWs). The two Poles were promptly placed in solitary confinement.

Miki was the most daredevil Polish officer at Colditz among a bunch of daredevils. He was a weedy-looking young man, though with a fanatical ardor glowing in his eyes. He was a great friend of mine, and he taught me all I ever knew about lock-picking, at which he was an expert. It was Miki who had been one of the first visitors up in the loft on arrival of the British at Colditz. The manufacture of magnetic compasses was also a pastime of his.

He now occupied a cell which had a small window, high up in the wall, opening on to the courtyard. Meitek Chmiel occupied the cell next door. On 12 May I received a message from him saying that he and Chmiel were going to escape that night and would I please join them! I declined, mainly because I had the canteen tunnel on my hands. However, I passed on his invitation to a few of the most hare-brained in the British company, but it was politely refused by all. Flight-Lieutenant George Skelton, a South African, who had arrived the day before and had gone straight into cells, was also offered by Miki the chance of deliverance from his cell to immediate freedom that very night. But he too thought the idea crazy.

No one believed Miki could ghost his way out of his heavily barred and padlocked cell, open Chmiel's cell and then unlock the main door of the “solitary” cell corridor which opened on to the courtyard. Having accomplished this feat he was inside the prison camp, the same as everyone else!

In
The Colditz Story
I described what happened next:

He left the invitation open, giving a rendezvous in the courtyard outside the solitary confinement cells at 11 p.m. that night.

I was at my window watching as 11 p.m. struck, and on the minute I saw the door of the cells open slowly. All was dark and I could only faintly distinguish the two figures as they crept out. Then something dropped from a window high up in the Polish quarters. It was a rope made of sheets with a load strapped at the bottom—their escape kit, clothes and rucksacks. Next I saw the figures climb the rope one after the other to a ledge forty feet above the ground. What they were about to do was impossible, but they had achieved the impossible once already. I could no longer believe my eyes. The ledge they were on jutted four inches out from the sheer face of the wall of the building. They both held the rope, which was still suspended
from the window above them. My heart pounded against my ribs as I saw them high above me with their backs against the wall moving along the ledge inch by inch a distance of ten yards before reaching the safety of a gutter on the eaves of the German guardhouse [roof].

Once there, they were comparatively safe and out of sight if the courtyard lights were turned on. I then saw them climb up the roof to a skylight through which they disappeared, pulling the long rope of sheets, which was let loose by Polish confederates, after them.

Their next move, I knew, was to descend from a small window at the outer end of the attic of the German guardhouse. The drop was about one hundred and twenty feet, continuing down the face of the cliff upon which the Castle was built.

At 5.30 a.m. the bells rang for an
Appell
and the whole camp paraded in the yard for an hour while the Germans established the number of POWs missing. The Poles had evidently been discovered. Midnight
Appells
were no longer a curiosity but the 5.30 a.m. variety was a new and unwelcome one until everyone discovered what had happened.

The next morning the two Poles were back in their cells. They had made one small but fatal mistake. Miki wore plimsolls for the climb, but Chmiel, with Miki's agreement, preferred to wear mountaineering boots. As they both descended the long drop from the guardhouse, the boots made too much noise against the wall and awoke the German duty officer sleeping in the guardhouse. He opened the window to see the rope dangling beside him and a body a few yards below him only a hundred feet from the ground. He drew his revolver and shouted “
Hände hoch!
” (“Hands up!”) several times to no avail, then called out the guard. The two Poles apparently laughed so much when they heard his order that they very nearly let go of the rope.

I spent a month in Miki's cell later on without being able to discover how he had opened the door! The secret has since been revealed, however. The cell door was fixed to the outside of the cell. There were two hinges on one side. A heavy metal bar was fixed to the door and was padlocked to the wall on the opposite side to the hinges. The door overlapped the wall at the top and on both sides and at the bottom fitted close to the passage floor. On the inside the bottom of the door was concealed by a wooden strip.

Miki had some tools and keys smuggled into his cell. With the tools he removed the wooden strip and levered the hinge side of the door upwards so that the door came off the vertical hinge posts attached to the wall. He replaced
the wooden strip on the inside of the cell. He then went out into the corridor, unlocked Chmiel's padlock, let him out, and locked up both cells, having put his door back on the hinges.

After this episode the Germans placed a sentry in the courtyard. He remained all night with the lights full on, which was to prove a nuisance for later escape attempts.

The escaping season was indeed getting under way. On 14 May, four new British diehards arrived: Lieutenant-Commander Stevenson RN, Squadron-Leader Brian Paddon and Flying Officer “Bricky” Forbes of the RAF, and Lieutenant Airey Neave RA. A fifth arrival was a Belgian major whose reason for transfer to Colditz was more bizarre than usual. The document relating the charge under which he was transferred reads as follows:

I punish POW Major Flébus with ten days' confinement because on 2.3.41 he captured a cat, not belonging to him, and on 4.3.41 did share in the unnatural consumption of the same.

2) I punish POW Lt. Louis Marlière with fourteen days' confinement because he killed a cat, not belonging to him, in a way cruel to animals, cooked the same, and together with Major Flébus consumed it in an unnatural way, although the menu for P.O.W.s [
sic
] is excellently prepared and abundantly apportioned.

Signed Feurheerd,
Oberleutnant
and
Kommandant

The Germans opened another room on 22 May to serve as a dormitory for the new British arrivals, who came in twos and threes. Several officers of field rank added their dignity to the company, and the first evidence of their presence was (a) a wish to organize everything, and (b) to separate the sheep from the goats by making the new dormitory not a new arrivals' room, but a room for subalterns.

A search was sprung by the Germans at 2 p.m. that day. Teddy Barton had been careless enough to have seventy
Reichsmarks
in his pocket, and Stevenson and Paddon lost some in the same way. Other officers were not a little angry.
Reichsmarks
were difficult to come by, and that officers should carry them on their persons instead of depositing them in one of the two safe hideouts was
considered unpardonable. Much of the tunnelling kit and a quantity of escape clothes were found and confiscated. The searchers had a fair day.

The only source of consolation was Peter Allan's escape. It was twelve days since he had got away, and with reasonable luck he should have crossed the frontier. The British were pretty certain he had made it, otherwise the news of his recapture would have been publicized with immense satisfaction.

Eggers reported that a further escape was made by rope from a solitary-confinement cell on 14 May by the Polish Lieutenant Just. He was aided in this by Lieutenant John Hyde-Thompson MC, of the Durham Light Infantry. Just was recaught near Basel while trying to swim the Rhine. The Germans had concealed barbed wire under the surface of the river and Just got himself enmeshed.

I was thinking again about the canteen tunnel, which had been in the doldrums for some time. I was reluctant to try lengthening it because that would only increase our chances of being discovered. At this stage of wondering what on earth to do with it, the civilian Howard Gee, an excellent German-speaker, told me of his success in corrupting one of the German sentries, who had been smuggling eggs and coffee for the prisoners. Howard soon persuaded him that on a given day and after a predetermined signal he should “look the other way” for ten minutes while on sentry duty. His reward was to be 500
Reichsmarks
—100 as an advance and 400 dropped out of a convenient window one hour after the ten-minute interval.

The first escape party was to consist of twelve officers, two of them Poles, and we decided on 29 May, after the evening
Appell
(about 9 p.m.), as the best time. That evening we all wore under our Army uniforms the “civilian” clothing we had been preparing for months: Army overcoats altered and dyed; trousers and slouch caps made from gray German blankets; knitted pullovers and ties; dyed khaki shirts, and so on. In addition we all had maps and home-made compasses.

After the
Appell
the twelve escapers and a look-out slipped into the canteen. After an hour the bribed sentry was reported to be at his post and I gave the signal for him to start looking the other way. Working frenziedly at the far end of the tunnel I cut round the collapsible tray I had inserted above the vertical shaft, and then heaved it upwards, muddy water streaming on to my face. The windows of the
Kommandantur
(the German quarters) loomed above me. The whole area was brilliantly lit by a floodlight only ten yards away. I climbed out on to the grass and Rupert Barry, immediately behind me, started to follow. My shadow was cast on the wall of the
Kommandantur
, and at that moment I noticed a second shadow beside my own. It held a revolver. I yelled to Rupert to get back as a voice
behind me shouted, “
Hände hoch! Hände hoch!
” I turned to face a German officer levelling his pistol at me.

The Germans were hopping with excitement, and they eventually located the start of the tunnel in the canteen. One after the other the would-be escapers emerged from the manhole, and there was uproar when Colonel German himself, who was a member of that first escape party, appeared at the tunnel entrance. It was a big night indeed for the Germans.

The next day the usual inquiry took place. Special attention was paid to Kenneth Lockwood, of course, as canteen assistant. He was made to sit in front of a table on which reposed the official key of the canteen. Two German officers asked him “How did you get into the canteen?”

Kenneth replied, “Have you ever read
Alice in Wonderland
?”

This was duly interpreted. “No,” they said. “Why?”

“Because Alice got through small doors and keyholes by eating something to make her smaller.”

The interpreter had difficulty in getting this over, but suddenly they broke into roars of laughter and Kenneth was allowed to go.

Padre Platt's diary of the day of the escape includes the following passage:

In the middle of the morning the “bribed guard,” who is already in possession of Rm 100 and will receive the remainder once they are out, came up to our quarters to change the time of the getaway from 9:30 p.m. to 9:50. He affected to be nervous and stood behind a bookcase, sheltering from the eyes of another guard accompanying some workmen. But from my vantage point I saw an exchange of glances as he entered the room, and the workmen's guard became intensely absorbed in the rain outside the window.

I went into the dormitory to Pat who was just ready to take his pack to the tunnel and said “Pat, the Germans know!” and told him what I had observed and what I was sure it meant.

“Oh, go away,” he said angrily. “You're trying to put the wind up us. Anyway, we've got to see it through now!”