Epic Story of Escape of Airmen

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 125, 30 May 1944, Page 5

Epic Story of Escape of Airmen

First Authentic Account of Heroic Feat (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) Received Monday, 0.3 p.m. .LONDON, May 29. Claiming it to he the first full and authentic account of the mass escape oi the 76 British and Allied Ait Force members from Stalag Luft 111. 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 over a year to dig.

The correspondent states: “The epic of the Sagan tunnel was first told to me over three weeks ago by a friend irom Breslau, but only now can the main details be made public. The Germans had long boasted that Stalag Luft 111., surrounded by a complex system of electrified wire and witb sentries armed with tommyguns backed up by search lights, was ‘escape proof.’ 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 Allied airmen breaking out from this monumental prison camp was the reason behind the Germans being sus pected of the cold-blooded murder of 4. escaping officers. “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 the building housing the officers’ quarters. ‘Smith,’ using his peacetime knowledge of engineering, worked out a design for a 450 feet tun nel which he calculated would emerge just outside the outer belt of wire undei the shadow of the surrounding trees. ‘ ‘ The Germans estimated that it took, ‘Smith’ and his companions fifteen months to excavate the tunnel working in relays. They hid the earth which they dug out. They had to scrabble against hard undersoil in a narrow burrow which, because it was originally forest country, was still a maze of thick gnarled roots around which the battling prisoners had to dig their tortuous way. The air in the tunnel was so foul thax many of the diggers must have been overcome and nearly suffocated. “The work was at last finished and the officers must have drawn lots for the order in which the leave timetables were arranged for each man which he would have to follow to a split second to avoid the sentries aqd the prying searchlights. Just after dark on a moonless night last March, the first man shook hands with ‘Smith’ and dropped from sight into the dark mouth of the tunnel, and 76 escaped before the sentries discovered the tunnel.”

The correspondent said a 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 with police dogs and bloodhounds, and the whole civilian population over a wide area was mobilised to join in a day and night manhunt. Armed members of the Gestapo searched travellers. At every wayside nalt, trams and buses were stopped and passengers ordered to descend for investigation. The informant said: “It 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 oi Himmler’s dreaded ‘security ponce,' but even these could not stop Cngues wagging. We heard later that tne camp commandant and the whole contingentguarding Stalag 111. on the nighfOf the escape had been removed in disgrace and either shot or sent to penal bat talions.”