STORY OF STALAGLUFT 3

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 126, 30 May 1944, Page 5

STORY OF STALAGLUFT 3

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.

LONDON, May 29.

Claiming that it is the first full and authentic account of the mass escape of 76 members of the British and Allied air forces from the Stalagluft 3 prisoner-of-war camp at Sagan, the "Daily Telegraph" gives prominence to a story from its Stockholm correspondent saying that the men escaped through a tunnel which took more than a year to dig. The correspondent states: "The epic of the Sagan tunnel was first told to ma more than three weeks ago by a friend from Breslau, but only now can the main details be made public. The Gtrmans had long boasted that Stalagluft 3, surrounded by a complex system of electrified wire and with the sentries armed with tommy-guns backed up' by searchlights, was 'escapeproof.' Special Nazi officials, nicknamed 'ferrets,' regularly visited the camp equipped with long steel skewers fitted to wooden handles, with which they probed for tunnels. "It is considered that the Germans' rage at thi. Allied airmen breaking out from this monumental prison camp was the reason why they are suspected of the cold-blooded murder of 47 escaping officers. •' "Wing Commander 'Smith,' whose real name cannot be revealed, was the determined hero who organised the escape. He began the tunnel inside a dormitory of the building housing the officers' quarters. Using his peacetime knowledge of engineering, he worked out a design for a 450 ft tunnel which he calculated would emerge just outside the outer belt of wire, under the shadow of the surrounding trees. FIFTEEN MONTHS OF EXCAVATION. "The Germans estimated that 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 the hard under-soil in the narrow burrow which, because it 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. "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 a split second to avoid the sentries ani prying searchlights. "Just after dark on a moonless night last March the first man shook hands with Smith and dropped from sight in the dark mouth of the tunnel. Seventy-six escaped before the sentries discovered the tunnel."

The correspondent said his friend from Breslau told him that a general alarm was issued and the province of Silesia became a madhouse. Battalions of soldiers turned out' to comb the Silesian woods. Police dogs and bloodhounds and the whole civilian population over a wide area were mobilised to join in the 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. The informant said: "It was a sensation which for the time being completely overshadowed invasion or the war in Russia. People walked, cycled, and 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 tongues wagging.

"We heard later that the camp commandant and the whole contingent guarding Stalagluft on the night of the escape had been removed in disgrace and either shot or sent to penal battalions."

The Foreign Secretary announced in the House of Commons on May 19 that the Germans had shot 47 R.A.F., Dominion, and Allied air officers who were prisoners of war. The Germans, he stated, had said the men were attempting to escape. Germany had informed the protecting Power that 76 officers had escaped, 15 had been recaptured, 14 were still at large, and 47 had been shot, some of them while resisting arrest.