GERMAN PRISONERS

Grey River Argus, 21 March 1945, Page 7

GERMAN PRISONERS

PLAN MASS ESCAPE IN WALES.

LONDON, IS. The “Sunday Express” stated: Before the 70i German prisoners, escaped from the Bridgend war prisoners camp, last Sunday, the mass escape of 2,300 Germans was planned. All of the 70 escapees have now been recaptured. Warning of a mass escape plan was given in a note, apparently written by an anti-Nazi. The • note was thrown through a barbed-wire fence surrounding the compound and was picked up by a sentry. The guard was doubled, flares were placed "around the camp, and sentries stood with rifles at the ready. Although no signs of movement could be seen, the 70 prisoners who escaped managed to crawl through a tunne. dug from inside a hut to a point outside the camp. The tunnel, started below a cot in a' hut, was so carefully camouflaged that routine weekly searches failed to reveal it. The horizontal portion of the tunnel was so large that men could walk along it without stooping. The walls and the roof were supported by props, which the prisoners had made from pieces of timber. GERMAN DESERTERS EXECUTED. LONDON, March IS. According to the German radio, mobile court-martial .'have ordered the execution of one thousand Wehrmacht men and officers for desertion or other military offences.