Colditz Page 26

  “My God!” whispered Dick, in a dripping perspiration, “it’s going to work. Get ready!”

  The cat-walk sentry had reached the ground and was marching off. Then Dick noticed the gate sentry had not followed. Franz Josef II was talking to him. Dick could hear the gist of it through the open window and repeated it to the others.

  “The sentry says he’s under orders not to move. Mike’s demanded the keys. The sentry’s handed them over … but he won’t move. What the hell! … Mike ought to go. He’s wasting time. The three of them can make it. He’s getting annoyed with the sentry … he’s told him to get back to the guardhouse. No! … it’s no good … the dumb bastard won’t budge … why the devil won’t he move? Mike’s getting really angry with him…. He’s got to go! He’s got to go! Mike’s shouting at him.” Dick was in a frenzy. “Good God! This is the end. The time’s about up.”

  Mike was having a desperate duel with the ivory-headed Goon and the precious seconds were slipping away. He was thinking of the main party—he was determined that the main party should escape at all costs. He had cast his die—it was to be all or nothing. He was sacrificing himself to win the larger prize.

  As soon as he started to raise his voice, Dick’s stomach began to sink. The game was a losing one. He wanted to shout at Mike to make a run for it, but dared not interfere with Mike’s battle. He was impotent, helpless, swearing and almost weeping with a foreboding of terrible failure. The scheme, within a hair’s breadth of success, was going wrong. Mike might possibly have disarmed the offending sentry, but it was too late for violence now with less than half a minute’s start. If he had been disarmed at the very beginning it might have been different, but who would have done that when persuasion was the obvious first course? Alas! Persuasion meant time and the precious minutes had flown. Four minutes had gone. It was nearly hopeless now.

  The two British sentries stood their ground. John Hyde-Thompson was solemnly pacing his beat up and down the cat-walk.

  Mike’s voice rose to a typical Franz Josef scream of rage. Even as he shouted, there were sounds of hurrying feet and discordant voices shouting in the distance.

  The sentry had asked Mike for his pass. Eggers takes up the story from the German side:

  The pass seemed in order, but was the wrong colour. The guard had a vague suspicion and pressed his warning bell. He also covered Franz Josef with his rifle and ordered him to put up his hands. Josef cursed—not very fluently—but did indeed put his hands up. In due course, a corporal Pilz known as “Big Bum” and two men appeared from the guardroom in answer to the buzzer. Franz Josef did not know the password when asked. The corporal Pilz drew his revolver and demanded Franz Josef’s. There was a struggle. The corporal swore later that Franz Josef tried to draw his pistol. He himself fired.

  Mike Sinclair fell to the ground shot in the chest with a 9mm bullet. The true Franz Josef (Rothenberger) arrived, and the two phoney sentries were marched off, leaving Sinclair unattended on the ground. An Appell was called, at which feelings naturally ran high. Lieutenant David Hunter RM accused the Germans of murder, but was himself punished after a court-martial with two months in Graudenz military prison.

  Mike was not seriously hurt. The bullet passed out under a shoulderblade. An OKW court of inquiry in Leipzig accepted Pilz’s statement that he had fired in self-defense. The SBO also held a court of inquiry which ruled that Pilz had fired while Mike had his hands up. Pilz was later sent to the eastern front.

  On 4 September the first news trickled through the German press of an Allied landing in Italy—across the straits of Messina. The POWs were able to read between the lines in spite of the German downgrading of the event.

  During this month the “non-belligerents”—padres and doctors—were once more allowed out of the Castle on parole walks; this applied likewise to the Prominenten. Padre Platt commented: “I resign my escape interests with some regret.”

  The largest consignment of Red Cross parcels ever arrived, consisting of 2,000 British Red Cross parcels, forty-five tobacco parcels, forty of invalid comforts, eight surgical, one of 200 tins of toothpowder, one of 144 rolls of toilet paper, plus sugar from Buenos Aires and coffee from Venezuelan Red Cross. The store of food parcels had now reached 5,000, estimated at five months’ supply at one per head per week. The impression was that Geneva was anticipating a period of disorganized transport to Germany.

  A British orderly refused to carry out an order given around this time by Corporal Schädlich—the “Ferret.” Eggers reported the incident to the Kommandant. Prawitt was furious: “Read my orders,” he roared. “In cases of disobedience push your rifle into their backs. If they further disobey, then use them. Do not report such cases to me.” Eggers comments: “I remained determined only to use my weapon in self-defense.” The orderly was punished with the German Army standard “glass-house” punishment of thirty days—bread and water diet with only one warm meal. The German corporal in due course was sent to the Italian front where he was killed.

  On 7 October the Germans caught Lieutenant Alan “Scruffy” Orr-Ewing in German uniform in a paper dump just outside the Castle. The British orderlies had taken him there in a basket of waste.

  Hauptmann Lange, the German security officer since 1939, had gone to another camp after Giles Romilly’s attempted escape at the time of the French departure. His replacement was a lawyer who had been severely wounded in Russia. He went about on sticks, but in spite of this disability was determined to go back to the front and win a decoration, and was posted for active service after about six months. This officer, Major Dr. Hans Horn, won the Ritterkreuz in February 1945, after breaking out with his troops from encirclement by the Americans at Echternach in the Ardennes area. He died in Soviet hands at Sachsenhausen.

  The OKW issued the following order on 15 September calculated to discourage escaping:

  Camp Order no. 23 Colditz 15 September 1943

  By order of the German High Command, Prisoners-of-War who cause any harm to the German War Economies will be brought in future before a court-martial instead of being punished disciplinarily. The following actions will be considered, amongst others, as harming the German War Economies: (1) breaking through walls, floors, ceilings, etc., damages to iron window bars, etc.; (2) destruction, damage or theft of furnishings and fittings (such as bed-boards, stove-doors, electric fittings, etc.); (3) altering of uniforms which are not the personal property of the Prisoner-of-War; (4) theft of tools and materials and unauthorized use of electric current when building tunnels, etc.; (5) theft and falsification of identity cards, etc.

  Offences against these serious war necessities are considered to be crimes against War Economies and will be punished with all severity.

  Signed: Prawitt, Lt. Col. and Kommandant

  General comment: “Well, that covers everything, particularly the etceteras!”

  Major Miles Reid RE arrived on 22 September via Spangenburg from Greece. He had refused to take down his trousers during a search.

  On the night of 19/20 September 1943, Polish officers broke out of their big tunnel at Dössel and forty-seven men escaped, of whom seven were former Colditz inmates. Nine, of whom two were from Colditz, succeeded in reaching France or Switzerland or the Polish underground. Thirty-eight were recaught and executed in two batches, including the remaining five ex-Colditz men. Most of them were apparently hanged, naked, one after the other, from butchers’ hooks while those to follow witnessed the proceedings before their turn came.

  This took place in the Buchenwald concentration camp.

  Among those who succeeded in getting away, the two ex-Colditz prisoners were Władysław Zimiński and Władysław Pszczółkowski. Of the thirty-eight recaptured and hanged, the ex-Colditz men were: Mieczysław Chmiel, Tadeusz Osiecki, Jan Stec, Stanisław Stokwisz, Jan Zwijacz.

  Lieutenant-Colonel Bronisław Kowalczewski organized this escape, with Major Stefan Pronaszko and Captain Władysław Wasilewski. All three were from Colditz. They arrived
in Dössel in August 1943. Before their departure from Colditz, Dick Howe introduced them to two Canadians in the British contingent who had at one time been at the Dössel camp. Their names are, unfortunately, at this date, not available.* However, they revealed the whereabouts and the secret entrance to a tunnel which they had been digging when they left the camp. This became the Polish tunnel and accounts for the fact that the tunnel—thirty-six yards long—was completed within a month of their arrival.

  One of the successful ex-Colditz escapers, Lieutenant Władysław Zimiński, sent a postcard to Colonel Kowalczewski (who earlier had been the liaison officer in Colditz with the Polish underground) at Dössel camp. He announced his safe arrival in Switzerland. The wording he used was considered by the Germans as the report of a junior officer having successfully executed the commands of his senior officer. Colonel Kowalczewski was therefore accused by the camp Kommandant of being the leader of the escape organization responsible for the tunnel escape. He was handed over to the Gestapo and murdered in Buchenwald, as were his assistants Pronaszko and Wasilewski.

  Jędrzej Giertych was at Dössel when it was liberated by the Americans. He had the opportunity to inspect some German camp dossiers, and found documents revealing that all the captured escapers were handed over to the SS. Another document raised the question of what was to be said to the Red Cross about the executions.

  On 19 October there was a heavy air raid on Halle. Hundreds were killed and thousands injured. Electricity for Colditz was cut off for twenty-four hours. This was the closest evidence of bombing activity so far in the Castle. The morning roll-call on the 20th was postponed for an hour. When it took place, Eggers says: “It was just like old times—shouts, whistles, demonstrations, indiscipline.” At 11 a.m. Eggers was summoned to the Kommandant’s office and shown a telegram sent from the camp at Lamsdorf: “Please collect Lt. Davies-Scourfield from here, he states he is from IVC.” Prawitt asked, “Do we have this man at our camp?” Eggers replied, “Yes, I know him well, he wears a black mustache.” “Then go and fetch him.” Eggers went to the yard and there accosted Colonel Broomhall, the SBO. “Please send for Lieutenant Scourfield, I wish to speak to him.” The SBO went off to the British quarters and on return said, “I regret that the lieutenant is no longer in the Castle.” To which Eggers replied, “I regret to say that we have him.” The Kommandant was furious—Davies-Scourfield had claimed at Lamsdorf to have left Colditz three weeks previously: “How is this possible? You and Hauptmann Püpcke show that the roll-calls are correct; do you keep a check or not? Here are your reports, four times a day you are supposed to count them. I will punish you for sending in false reports. At least sixty roll-calls have taken place and no one has noticed that a POW is missing. How is this possible?”

  Eggers came to the conclusion that Grismond Davies-Scourfield had got out by concealing himself in a large basket of waste-paper removed by the orderlies. This method had been used successfully on 7 October by Orr-Ewing, who unfortunately was soon recaught. But this did not account to Eggers’ satisfaction for the Appells. Had the roll-call been fudged since 30 September? The mystery was only solved five months later!

  Eggers was sent to a camp for a course of training in propaganda during three days in November. This was at Zossen not far out of Berlin. He learned that a special camp for British POWs under propaganda instruction had been set up near Berlin: No. 30 at Genshagen. More of this later.

  In November, two British orderlies escaped from a working party—Corporal Green and Private Fleet. They walked all night to Leipzig and took a train to Kottbus. They had no papers and were caught on the train.

  An instance occurred early in December illustrating the gulf that was widening between the Wehrmacht and the German Gestapo and SS. A search-party of eighteen men in SS uniform led by the Criminal Commissioner, Herr Bauer, of Dresden, arrived in Colditz Castle for a mass search. They found little. It turned out that none other than Feldwebel Gephard had been bribed and had hidden the POWs’ documents and money.

  Another truce was agreed, lasting from Christmas Eve to 2 January 1944, though the Colditz garrison were hardly relaxed by an air-raid on Leipzig on Christmas Eve. Padre Platt, writing during this period, regretted the departure of the foreigners, and had this to say about the new British contingent:

  The coming of the Eichstatt boys marked the end of the British family life such as had been its characteristic from the beginning, with one exception. Hitherto newcomers were received into the family and absorbed by it at once. But the Eichstatters came in large numbers from a large camp, were put in separate quarters, fed and lived separately, and the colonel they brought with them at once succeeded to SBO-ship. They have retained the atmosphere of a large camp and, with the exception of a few of their number, have remained in small friendship circles complete in themselves and almost exclusive, hence they are described almost certainly unjustly as cliques.

  The year 1944 got off to a good start. On 19 January a soldier saw a rope being pulled quickly back into a window over the terrace. Nothing was found in the room in question, but Eggers found wire-cutters, a hole in the barbed wire on top of the outer wall and a short length hanging down from the outside. He sent men in pursuit:

  I then ordered a special roll-call—the most memorable of my career. Very slowly the prisoners, scarcely 300, assembled. There was no order and I had to send soldiers through the quarters to find the prisoners hidden there. When they were all assembled I began to count, then someone put out the main light by means of a catapult. It would take a long time to repair and it was getting too late for the roll-call to be taken in the yard. I decided to order the prisoners into the empty rooms left by the Dutch. The walk upstairs to these rooms took at least half an hour. Col. Tod, the present S.B.O. who had taken over from Tubby Broomhall on his arrival on the 18th of November 1943 [from Spangenburg], was amongst the last ones up the stairs, pretending that he was finding difficulty in getting up them. I was by this time getting fed up and I ordered the guards to hurry the remainder by pushing them with their rifle butts. The Colonel naturally protested over this. Soon I had them altogether in the four big rooms. A large room was set aside to receive those that I had accounted for. I could not do this in alphabetical order so I did this by way of the identity cards we had. I knew nearly all of them by name. Suddenly the lights went out. Someone had caused a short circuit. My guards sat themselves on the boxes of identity cards, otherwise they would soon disappear. The emergency lanterns were sent for and slowly we managed to sort them out. After all the hours that had passed I still was not sure if two or three were missing. Sinclair, I knew for certain, was amongst them. The code word “Mousetrap” went out and the guard company was sent immediately to their search stations but found nothing.

  Mike Sinclair had been planning this escape since September 1943, to take place on the terrace where Don Thom had jumped down. For four months, Mike, Dick and Lulu Lawton watched the changing of the guard in this area, looking for a short blind interval at dusk, before the perimeter searchlights were switched on and when the guards were not at their points of vantage. The watchers established two things. First, that there was a blind spot of sixty seconds between the time when the pagoda sentry left his post at dusk and was replaced and the first turret sentry gained his position. Second that in mid-January would come a time when the searchlights (which were governed by the time of the year) were switched on just after a regular guard change. In mid-January therefore the sixty seconds coincided with the maximum possible darkness.

  Mike chose as his partner in this attempt Flight-Lieutenant Jack Best, who had been a ghost since April 1943 (see Chapter 15) and whose morale was as a result getting pretty low. Their escape kit ready, as well as ninety feet of home-made rope, the bars of a window in the British quarters, thirty feet above the terrace, were cut. Stooges were arranged.

  For the launching ramp they would use a table. One after the other the escapers were to be shot out through the window, holding on
to the rope. Reaching the terrace in this spectacular fashion they would have to make another jump down to the orchard. A thirty-yard sprint would take them to the perimeter fence, where they would have to cut a hole. Then a second length of rope would help them down the fifty-foot cliff down which Don Thom had hurtled.

  At dusk on 19 January, at a signal from their stooges, the beginning of the sixty seconds was marked by the propulsion of the two men through the window. Just as they were dropping down the second thirty-foot descent, having crossed the terrace, the guardhouse door opened and a German NCO walked out slowly across the terrace, straight for the rope. Not until the escapers had released the rope at the bottom of their second drop could their colleagues whisk it back up again. It whistled past the NCO, not a yard from him. Startled, he drew his revolver. But Sinclair and Best were shinning down the cliff in no time at all. They had to cut through more barbed wire at the bottom.

  An announcement was made the next morning, or the morning after that (the date is uncertain), as to who had escaped; there were two, Sinclair and Barnes!

  They were both caught a few days later at Rheine on the Dutch border. They were brought back to Colditz. Sinclair was well known in Colditz, but Barnes? The new security officer from October 1943 to February 1944, Dr. Horn, was careless enough not to examine the new Barnes.

  Months later it was discovered how it was that the Unteroffizier had opened the guardhouse door and walked out on to the terrace just as Mike and Jack dropped over the parapet. Jack, climbing over the balustrading, had accidentally pressed an alarm-bell button which had summoned the German to the very spot where the escape was taking place!

  On 18 January, the gate had opened to let in six new arrivals, officers of the British Army: Captain Pierre de Vomécourt (Peter) and Lieutenants Antoine du Puy (Tony), Noël Burdeyron, Jacques Huart (Jack Fincken, now Jack Mackay), George Abbott and Claud Redding. These six were different. They were not “escapers” but had escaped a worse fate. They had spent some eighteen months, ten of them in solitary, at the notorious French prison, Frèsnes, in the hands of the Gestapo.