ESCAPE OF 76 PRISONERS

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24270, 30 May 1944, Page 5

ESCAPE OF 76 PRISONERS

EPISODE AT STALAG LUFT 3 ACCOUNT BY VISITOR TO STOCKHOLM (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON. May 29. Claiming that it is the first full, authentic account of the mass escape of 76 British and Allied air force members from Stalag Luft 3, at Sagan, the London "Daily Telegraph” gives prominence to a story from its Stockholm correspondent. He says that the men escaped through a tunnel which took more than a year to dig. The publication of this account of the escape follows the announcement by the Foreign Secretary (Mr R. A. Eden), on May 19, that the Germans shot 47 Royal Air Force, Dominion, and Allied airmen who attempted to escape from Stalag Luft 3. “The epic of the Sagan tunnel was first told to me more than three weeks ago by a friend from Breslau, but only now can the main details be made public,” says the “Daily Telegraph” correspondent. “The Germans had long boasted that Stalag Luft 3, surrounded by a complex system of electrified wire, and with sentries armed with tommy-guns backed up by searchlights, was ‘escape proof.’ “Special Nazi officials, nicknamed ‘the ferrets.’ regularly visited the camp equipped with long steel skewers, with which they probed for tunnels. “It is considered that the Germans’ rage at the. Allied airmen breaking out from this monumental prison camp was the reason behind the Germans being suspected of the cold-blooded murder of 47 of the escaping officers. 450-Foot Tunnel “Wing Commander ‘Smith,’ whose real name cannot be revealed, was the determined hero who organised the escape. He began the tunnel inside the dormitory of a building* housing officers. Using a knowledge of engineering, he worked out a design for a 450-foot tunnel, which, he calculated, would emerge just outside the outer belt of wire under the shadow of surrounding trees. . "The Germans estimated it took Smith and his companions 15 months to excavate the tunnel, working in relays. They hid the earth which they dug out. They had to scrabble against a hard undersoil in a "arrow burrow which, because this was originally forest country, was still a maze of thick, gnarled roots round which the battling prisoners had to dig a tortuous way. The air in the tunnel was so foul that many of the diggers must have been overcome and nearly suffocated. , , , . . . , "When the work was at last finished the officers must have drawn lots for the order in which to leave. Timetables were arranged for each man, which he would have to follow to the split second to avoid the sentries and the searchlights. "Just after dark on a moonless night last March the first man shook hands with Smith and dropped from sight. The 76 escaped before the sentries discovered the tunnel.” Excitement in Silesia The correspondent says that the friend from Breslau told him that a general alarm was issued and the province of Silesia "became a madhouse Battalions of soldiers were turned out to comb the woods. Police dogs and the whole civilian population over a wide area were mobilised to join in a day and night man hunt. Armed members of the Gestapo searched travellers at every wayside halt. Trams and buses were stopped and the passengers ordered to descend for investigation. “My informant said: 'lt was a sensation which for the time being completely overshadowed the invasion or the war in Russia. People walked cycled, or rode for miles to get a glimpse of the famous tunnel. They found the camp surrounded by detachments of Himmler’s dreaded security police, but even these could not stop ton cues wagging. We heard later that the camp commandant and the whole contingent guarding Stalag Luft 3 on the nieht of the escape had been removed" in disgrace and either shot or sent to penal' battalions’." One of the returned prisoners aboard the Gripshohn was a New Zealander. Flight Lieutenant John Grocolt, of Auckland, said an earlier message. He was recently in Stalag LuA 3. PERSECUTION IN ESTONIA (Rec. 12.30 a.m.) NEW YORK. May 29. “Anticipating a Russian offensive against the Baltic Stales, the Nazis have launched a terror campaign in Estonia," reports the “New York Times" correspondent m Stockholm. “According to trustworthy witnesses, virtually all intellectuals in the country have been arrested and charged with conspiring to achieve the political union of Estonia and Finland. "The Nazis disarmed 3000 Estonian so-called volunteers for the Finnish army and herded them into a concentration camp, because they were allegedly unreliable* I