ESCAPE FROM GERMANS

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 111, 3 February 1934, Page 16

ESCAPE FROM GERMANS

War Incident Recalled ELTHAM MAN’S BROTHER A cabled report recently referred to a dinner in London to Lieutenant Medlicott, R.F.C., who during the war was shot by the German- when making his fourteenth attempt to escape from a German prison camp. Medlicott was one of the famous Escaping Club,” which was not so exclusive but quite as picturesque as the Caterpillar Club, the most exclusive club in the world. Medlicott (states the “Observer”), never live dto write an account of his experiences. Nor did another famous escaper, Fitzgerald, a New Zealander, who among the hundreds who tried, was one of the small total of only 30 British officers who during the whole war succeeded in getting out of the German camps and finding a way to freedom across the borders of neutral countries. Fitzgerald escaped in company with Geoffrey Harding, an R.A.F. observer, whose book, “Escape Fever,” has just been published by John Hamilton, Ltd. Fitzgerald was a brother Of an Eltham resident, Mr. G. H. P. Fitzgerald. Harding and Fitzgerald walked out of the prison camp at Strohen, in central Germany, in broad daylight under the eyes of the sentries. The camp was surrounded by barbed wire, but they disguised themselves up as servants, carrying pitchers to draw water from a well outside the camp. Inside the pitchers, suspended from their fingers by strands of blackened string, were parcels containing chocolate, compress>ed foods (which had been smuggled into the camp in parcels from home), compasses, maps, and the other necessities for a forced march by night across unknown country. Their journey to tlie Dutch coast was accompanied by sever privations. Winter was coining on, and when Harding, already weary, lost Lis jacket and boots in swimming the river Ems, and had to stagger along on feet that were bruised, blistered and bleeding, it was all he could do to reach Holland. But the worst part, of course, was getting across the border, which was strongly guarded. Awaiting their chance they crawled on hands and knees from one patch of cover to another. They penetrated at least a mile into Dutch territory before daring to give themselves up. One of the most tragic stories in the annals of the Escaping Club concerned i wg officers who actually got across the frontier into Holland and then, not knowing their whereabouts, stumbled back into Germany and were recaptured. After their escape Harding and Fitzgerald were received by the King at Buckingham Palace. Six months later Fitzgerald, then an officer in the Royal Air Force, was killed in France.