FIRST TO ESCAPE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 157, 4 July 1940, Page 6

FIRST TO ESCAPE.

BRITISH PRISONER.

OH THE RUN FIVE DAYS.

TJCoxrTii>Ei> or fxakdeks. LONDOr, Tune a. The first British pr : .^.- J n<»T of war to have escaped from tii<» toW hia sr;ory tMa week: from a fc»<i in t Lorwlon military hospital where he ia auriing , a. wo«a<i«d aliowlder.

Two torriea fnil of men of tile Royal Army Ordnance Corps were suddenly confronted by a bij German tank, at wlliok they fired before retreating to A nearby woo«L TTie isoldier coccerned, a 22-year-oid Dajrenllani man, wae wounded Lα the thonideT.

*I w*s left behind and taken prisoner by two he *aid. ''One of thetn applied a. field to my shonaMer and. then wafkpd sooie milee with, me to & German drtnaiag staftiou. The aexfe mnrninc , we wsrs niarirfiied oat. Aα iorm aa I jot oat of the yatee I saw theft the gniards wert: not in my dirp<rtkm. I jumped over a fence and hid. behind a bias"h. Vo jpe.ieetaed te oetiee that I had £ooe.

-Foe th« best part a? S.va days I liid to into ditirfi'es or hide in An niglxt I called at; f.Lrm hoasei for At the firs*. t'j»»y me some eiviltan i»iothee. I fo«n4 myaelf outside 3. v-illaffe that had jx«t b4en bom ted. Fo«Tr frennaj! a«o4di*!T» ws-re fillinj in a hofe in the road. I crrxjrmed bekiad a diteh for three hvwirs. Finally they went away, and I ran thrombi the villisje. I flame to a ea.na.l and. a» I feeaird the fixing <A rifiea in the diataruce, awivni across it. I oaly juat made it.

*Two h-o-urs later I met some French so-Idier*. At first they tioraykt I wras a spy, fcrat Indeily I etill fead niv identifiicatirao. disc wi*li me. TTia;t eonvmoed them. They took me to a dreaeiag statioei, aad the first man I saw there was another woand-ed Britia& soidier."