Colditz Page 27

  Peter, born in 1906 into a Lorraine family, in which the principles and demands of patriotism were deeply ingrained, was the youngest of three brothers, all of whom had strong views about continuing the fight against Hitler’s Germany. Peter, in 1939, was Franco-British liaison officer with the 7th Regiment of the Cameronians, a Highland Regiment. On 17 June 1940, French liaison officers with the BEF were ordered by the French High Command to leave their regiments and go to Bordeaux. He was then at Cherbourg, where the British were evacuating. Over the radio came the announcement by Pétain that he had asked for an armistice. Peter embarked on the last boat with his regiment, and arrived in England on 18 June.

  Soon he learned that there was still resilience amongst the French population—stunned as they were. Two very young Frenchmen in July 1940 cut the telephone wires in the Nantes region; they were caught and shot. Peter was deeply moved on hearing this. He began to think in terms of organized sabotage. In London he contacted General de Gaulle’s Deuxième Bureau, and also the British SOE (Special Operations Executive). The latter organization, realizing his potential, trained him and parachuted him back into France, near Châteauroux in the Midi on the night of 11/12 May 1941.

  In December 1941, needing a radio link with London in order to arrange his return to England, he was introduced to Mathilde Carré—known as “Victoire” to SOE, and as “La Chatte” to German counter-intelligence. Unbeknown to Peter, she had been arrested by the Germans and had agreed to work for them. Although she later confessed her treachery to him, and although he did return to England for about a month, the Germans had penetrated his (and related) organizations so thoroughly that he and seventeen of his associates were arrested in April 1942. Then followed their spell in Frèsnes Prison. In October 1943 they were split into two groups; those holding a commission in the British Army would be sent to a “potential hostage” camp; the others, recruited in France, would go to Lübeck.

  On 25 January there was another major search of the premises! The searchers were the same as those who had turned up previously. This time they wore the uniform of the SS. A few British fat lamps, “Rex” Harrison’s liquor still and pieces of altered uniforms were all they found; a meager haul. There was, however, no personal “body” search.

  A Canadian officer from the famous Dieppe raid, Lieutenant “Bill” Millar RCE disappeared on 28 January. He was never heard of again. Eggers reported that a jacket that “could have been his” was found on the road some miles from the Castle.

  He escaped, by night, from the prisoners’ kitchen by being hoisted up very high to reach a semi-circular window, which flapped open inwards and was not barred on the outside. He might have needed some rope on the outside but that could have been withdrawn. It is likely that there was an air-raid alarm, which would have placed the window in semi-darkness. How he escaped from the outer courtyard is not known, but a lorry used to park there sometimes. Inquiries elicited from the Canadian High Commissioner in London that his name was on the Canadian war memorial at Bayeux, which would indicate he had made a home-run and gone to Normandy. However, still more recent information from The History of the Corps of Royal Canadian Engineers 1936–1946 and a covering letter from the Directorate of History indicates that he was recaptured in civilian clothes “during the summer of 1944, near Stalag 344, Lamsdorf.” He was held there in solitary confinement for a few days. Then he was moved to an unknown destination. The record concludes “that Lieut. Millar had died on or about 14 July 1944.”

  Leo de Hartog (ex-Colditz), the Dutch author of a book entitled Officieren achter Prikkeldraad 1940–1945, has written:

  On 4th March, 1944, Himmler ordered the so-called “Aktion Kugel.” At the end of 1943 and in the beginning of 1944 so many “kriegies” [POWs] escaped that the Germans decided to execute all POW officers and NCOs who were captured after an escape. They were all sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp (west of Vienna). Thousands of POWs (all nations) were cruelly killed there…. It is almost certain that Bill Millar was one of the victims of that horrible camp.

  By the end of January 1944 with escapes continuing in mid-winter, the Kommandant was jittery about the Prominenten escaping. On Friday, 28 January, when the Prominenten were about to sit down to supper, they were ordered to go to their rooms and be locked up for the night. They refused, and a few minutes later Püpcke turned an armed guard out and escorted them away in the middle of supper. Platt commented:

  The Kommandant is evidently very afraid lest one of them should escape. The special walks they used to get, in lieu of official exercise, when they were guarded by tommy-guns, have been stopped these two months. The poor fellows get no proper exercise and are now locked up each night at seven o’clock.

  Jacques Prot was killed this night in the Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy.

  * Editors were not able to verify further updates to this information as of publication.

  18

  Ashes and Snow

  Spring 1944

  FEBRUARY 1944 OPENED with a gallant escape attempt on the 3rd by “Scruffy” Orr-Ewing. Eggers reporting:

  A few French orderlies still remained in the camp after the departure of the main body of French prisoners to Lübeck the previous summer. Mixed parties of British and French orderlies used to go out for exercise outside the Castle, under guard…. [Gephard’s] successor in Colditz was not so familiar with the faces of the other ranks in his care, and … Lieut. Orr-Ewing took the place of one of the Frenchmen. He got away from the walk and away into the woods. The only sentry with the party chased him as far as the river Freiberger Mulde, having left his rifle behind so that he could run faster. Orr-Ewing felt that he could not stop simply because of a river, waded into the water and swam across. The guard funked the swim, but yelled to a railway worker on the other side who caught the escaper when he reached the far bank.

  In the same month Eggers was appointed to replace the departed Major Horn as security officer, after the Kommandant had insisted that he could accept no responsibility for security if the replacement were a newcomer to Colditz. “It was for me a fateful step, but I did not think so at the time.”

  At that period of the winter it was very cold. There was deep snow everywhere, though the weather was good. It was just right for the bombers. Heavy raids went on all the time, on Leipzig, on Halle and all around Colditz.

  It was some time before the prisoners realized that Eggers was now security officer. He had been one of the duty officers for so long that he was a familiar figure in the camp. As he alone on the staff spoke English, he was more often than most inside the camp during searches and checks, and for the purpose of negotiations.

  Eggers arranged a search of the rooms occupied by the three Prominenten. Lieutenant Alexander and Giles Romilly shared one room, while Captain the Earl of Hopetoun lived in a second. During the search of Hopetoun’s room, a hammer disappeared from a German tool kit. But Hopetoun found out about it, and pointed out that this hammer was the one he always borrowed on parole for stage work. He was one of the theatrical producers in the camp. Hopetoun got the hammer back and saved Eggers a very red face.

  Douw van der Krap and “Bear” Kruiminck had escaped from Stanisław, their new camp, on a bitter November night and joined the Polish underground in Warsaw. One day in February 1944 Douw and an Australian escaped POW named Chisholm were walking by the Vistula when a sentry, posted by a bridge, demanded their papers. While he was examining Douw’s, Chisholm, without warning, sprang at the sentry, knocking him over the parapet and through the ice into the river. Douw and Chisholm ran, but next day heard that the Germans had found the sentry dead with Douw’s papers lying nearby.

  The Polish underground advised Bear and Chisholm to leave Warsaw immediately. Equipped with false papers, they set out for Paris and arrived their safely in May. Douw went into hiding and was given protection by the Polish branch of the Dutch Philips concern and eventually returned to Holland with the Dutch members of its staff to escape the Warsaw upris
ing. There he made his way to Arnhem, where he joined the local underground movement.

  Leap Year’s Day, 29 February, was used as an excuse for a party. According to Platt’s diary:

  Many officers did not go to bed—some were recumbent in unusual places; the no-drunks who did go to bed—unless they were 2a.m. people themselves in a state of intoxication—could not get to sleep. Drunken dancing on the wooden floors of the upper stories of the Kellerhaus sounded like thunder. Several parties are still in full swing, and will continue tonight.

  Notice on the Medical Inspection room door: “If any British officer thinks he feels worse than the M.O.s, will he please visit them in their room.”

  On 5 March, Lieutenant Ralph Holroyd, an Australian who arrived at Colditz in May 1942, received a visit from his mother, a German national. Since his capture in 1941 she had pestered the OKW for permission to visit him. Eventually she wrote to Hitler and obtained his approval. They had tea together in the German officers’ mess, Eggers discreetly in attendance in the far corner of the room.

  There was a new arrival on 8 March. His name was Purdy. The Camp Roll laconically records Sub-Lieutenant E. W. Purdy: “Arrived Colditz 8.3.44. Removed by request of SBO on 11.3.44.” In the middle of 1943, after three years as a POW, Purdy contrived to have himself sent to a propaganda camp, Genshagen in Berlin. On arrival in Colditz he claimed that he had absconded and gone to live with a German girl who had been his sister’s best friend before the war. Her flat was destroyed by a bomb and in trying to obtain official evacuee papers he ran into the Gestapo on 5 March.

  During the evening of his arrival he was examined by two British security officers, and one or two discrepancies in his statement were pointed out, and he was invited to tell the truth. He tried again, but was interrupted and told what would happen to a stool-pigeon in Oflag IVC. His composure was completely shaken. The second invitation to tell the truth elicited the following. He had pre-war acquaintance with William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw), and perhaps through his influence was taken to the propaganda camp. After coming to terms with the Germans he allowed himself to be used on the German radio for propaganda broadcasts to England and America. He tried to double-cross the Germans by introducing bits of his own while speaking to England. He was given an identity card and ration cards and permitted to live with a German woman. He admitted he was a rat, but when asked if he would work for the Germans again if offered an attractive reward by them he replied: “I’m afraid I would do it again. I want to get back to my woman in Berlin.”

  Purdy was removed from the presence of British officers on the representation of the SBO on 10 March. The following dialogue, as reported by Padre Platt, seems to have taken place between the SBO and the Kommandant:

  SBO: Purdy must be removed from the presence of British officers. He is a stool-pigeon.

  Kommandant: He was sent here by the OKW and that is enough for me. I will not have him moved.

  SBO: I cannot answer for his safety.

  Kommandant’s adjutant: But Purdy will be safe, will he not?

  Kommandant intervening: I don’t care whether he is or not. He is an enemy officer.

  SBO: Well, I’m sure I don’t care. Having worked for the Germans he is no longer a British officer, but you have been warned of what may happen; and it’s your affair now.

  Eventually, Purdy was taken to a cell in the Kommandantur area. By order of the Kommandant, on 15 March, a Red Cross food parcel was taken from the British store for Purdy, who was still in the Castle.

  The Germans began a very quiet and successful search on 16 March at 4 p.m. On the second floor they walked straight to what they were looking for—a hide—and found it. It produced one of the richest hauls ever discovered by the Germans in IVC. By 4:45 everything was removed, including a liquor still and typewriter parts.

  On the morning of the 17th the Germans found a tunnel leading from the first floor. They went straight to the tunnel lid and tapped with hammers and scrutinized it by aid of torches, but the camouflage held good. They knew, however, the actual direction that the tunnel had taken, for, the next morning, a Goon arrived at the foot of the staircase with a workman who drove a hole two feet deep into the wall, and entered the tunnel six feet from the proper entrance. Work had been suspended, so no one was caught.

  Purdy was never proven to have been responsible for these losses. The Germans knew something was going on, but so did Purdy. The entrance to the tunnel was on the first floor and Purdy—very inopportunely—passed along the first floor within a few hours of being in the camp, at a moment when the lid was off.

  Eggers quotes Douglas Bader as shouting, “Pay the fellow who gave the hole away with your own food parcels and not with ours!” and remarks that Bader was mistaken in attributing the discovery to the stool-pigeon. But his own version is not altogether convincing. For example, having stated that he decided to allow the prisoners to carry on with a tunnel (which he knew they must be digging somewhere) until such time as they came within range of the German microphones, he at once says “However, I … began to carry out a search,” a search which led to the hide and the tunnel. Why did he not wait?

  The fact that stands out is that he knew that Purdy was “blown” and therefore of no further use to him. If then he could show tangible results from information given by Purdy, he could send him away with a good mark and a pat on the back to carry out his work for Germany elsewhere. The case against Purdy is not proven, but Eggers’ evidence is equivocal. He admits that the OKW sent Purdy (to whom he gives the pseudonym “Grey”) to Colditz to act as an informer, but claims that all he betrayed was a method of getting letters past the German censor—which indicated the use of a corrupt guard. He correctly points out that Purdy was recognized by Captain Julius Green of the Army Dental Corps, who had known him at his previous camp and learned of his treachery.

  In the months before he was transferred to Stalag 111D, Berlin, in June 1944, he was supplied with one Red Cross parcel a week. During that time, he was apparently seen in the outer courtyard on 20 April to salute the Nazi flag and to salute a German Unteroffizier.

  After the war, back in England, Purdy was arrested and charged with high treason. He was prosecuted on three counts; and on the two counts arising out of his broadcasting and the preparation of leaflets for a propaganda branch of the SS he was found guilty, but on the third indictment, arising out of his activities in Colditz, he was found not guilty. He was sentenced to death, and returned to Wandsworth jail, where William Joyce was awaiting his execution. Although Purdy’s appeal was rejected, he was reprieved but with a life sentence. He was released in 1954.

  Mike Moran, who knew Purdy from Marlag days, has the following to say about him (Purdy spelled his name “Purdie” for the Colditz Camp Roll):

  The Germans had assessed the “vulnerability” of Navy and Merchant Service prisoners. They knew where to find the weak links. Certainly not amongst R.N. officers; not amongst R.N.R. officers, and indeed not amongst R.N.V.R. officers who were assessed as “Gentlemen.” The “weak links” were to be found amongst junior R.N.V.R. officers who had been mobilised with their ships, but who had had no naval training. They had been given the rank of temporary Sub Lieutenant R.N.V.R. Purdie was one of these.

  Rebecca West refers to Purdie as being uneducated. This, I feel sure, was the key to his behaviour as a prisoner. R.N. and R.N.R. officers were professional seamen, with mutual respect and often with similar backgrounds. R.N.V.R. (ex King Alfred) officers had obtained their commissions because they had “officer-like qualities.” There was, therefore, a common factor in terms of education or professionalism, and (I can think of no better phrase) “social behaviour.” Purdie had none of these attributes.

  Padre Platt has an entry in his diary for 23 March:

  A new arrival was turned into the Hof during the course of the morning. He is Rudi Reichoffen, an Alsatian who claims to have been taken prisoner at Nettuno and to be an aspirant in de Gaulle’s army. He is neither!
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  Neither Eggers nor any other known source mentions this man again. He remains a mystery.

  On 26 March Bush Parker and Mike Harvey made an escape attempt, dropping by rope from a Saalhaus window down to a causeway and picking a lock to gain access to an air-raid shelter. They were seen by a sentry, who fired, missed, and ran to the alarm bell. Bush and Mike dashed into the shelter. Its door was made of wooden slats, so Bush was able to put his hand through and relock it, removing his key; when a posse of Goons arrived, it never occurred to them that the escapers might be in the locked-up shelter. But the shelter had no second exit, the vital premise of their escape plan. They had to give themselves up.

  Now the fun started. Mike Harvey was a ghost, whom the Germans believed had escaped in April 1943 with Jack Best. But the ghosts had doubles, and Mike’s was Lieutenant D. E. Bartlett—they looked quite alike. As soon as Mike was caught he posed as Bartlett and Bartlett went into hiding.

  But Eggers was suspicious of the captured Bartlett, and found that his face did not quite fit the photograph in his file: he kept this Bartlett and released Bush:

  As I was still suspicious, I sent the Riot Squad to fetch out Lieut. Bartlett. They came out with an officer they said they knew as Bartlett. But he said his name was Champ. This second officer, Champ, looked far more like the Bartlett in the photo than the so-called Bartlett I had in front of me, and looked from one to the other and back again to the photograph of Bartlett, that I had in my hand.

  Again I sent the Riot Squad back into the camp, this time with orders to fetch out the officer whom they knew as Champ. They came out with “Champ” and I asked him at once, “Who are you?” and he replied, “Champ!”