Wanganui Escapee Outdoes Plot. Of War Thriller

Northern Advocate, 11 February 1944, Page 4

Wanganui Escapee Outdoes Plot. Of War Thriller

(P.A.) WELLINGTON This Day. Adventures that could from tha pages of a novel befell a New Zev and o fiver. Captain Colin Armstrong, M.C. of Wanganui, in Europe during the past two years. There are still parts of the stow that cannot be told but Captain Armstrong, on his return to New Zealand with the furlough draft, gave a glimpse of numerous escapes, o! wandering journey that stretched from Libya to Sweden, until he arrived safely in civilian dress in England towards the end of last year—to be greeted on the streets of London with the emery as to why he was not at toe war.

His experiences until he was captured with Brigadier Hargest in Libya in 1941 were but a prelude to an odyssey that did not finish until his arrival back in the Dominion-

He went away with the second echelon “and from England I went to Egypt, to Greece, to Crete, and back to Egypt.” he added casually. Then came the Libyan campaign, his capture and his transference to Italy in a submarine. That was in November. 1941. In July of the following year, he and -a friend, Captain Alan Yeoman, of Whakatano. made their first escape.

Italians Hoarded Officers \talian camps arc very difficult to escape from.” he said. ‘The Italians used to regard officer prisoners as pieces of gold and sometimes hundreds of guards would be employed keeping watch over a few prisoners. “fiiieir liberty though it lasted only tluec weeks, nevertheless was a record at that time. The Italian internal security was obviously excellently orgynir.ed, and when they were recaptured at Spczia, steps wore taken to see mat they did not escape again, iney were sent to a punisnment camp near Genoa —“A great grim old castle venae- lhcv make certain there is no escape. We were there until the armistice with Italy.” In German Hands

Extra Italian troops were drafted to the castle after the armistice and preparations were made to defend it against the Germans. “The Germans fired a few shots,, however.” he added, “and the Italians surrendered.” Captain Armstrong and other prisoners were taken over by the Germans and sent to a prison camp in Austria, about 40 miles inside the border. The thought of escape was never out of their minds, however, and when the prisoners arrived at the camp, three of them, Captains Armstrong, Yeoman and MacPherson. of a Scottish commando unit, took advantage of the general confusion and hid while the rolls were being made up. The result was they did not appear on any roll in the camp and when, four days later, they escaped, they were not missed. Over the Alps

Back over tire Alps to Italy came the three men, a journey about which Captain Armstrong said little but which must have been an ordeal in itself. They were 50 miles inside the Italian border when one wet. miserable night they encountered a German patrol. Captain Yeoman, fortunately, was not at the time with the other two, ns he was acting as advance guard. "1 have not seen him since but lie is liable to turn up any day,” said Captain Armstrong. The patrol arrested the other two and questioned them for 24 hours. They tried at first to bluff their way out of the situation but realised, at the end of 24 hours, that they would have their choice of admitting they were escaped prisoners or of being treated as British spies, so they chose the wisest course and admitted their escape. Placed .on a train with Italian prisoners of war, they headed north into Germany. Then followed five days of j misery. " ; From Polish Corridor “Apparently we had been forgotten," he said. “We spent five terrible days in a steel cattle truck until we found ourselves in a prison camp in East Prussia. We were the only British prisoners, the remainder being about 30.000 Italians.”

The two officers were kept in (.•lose confinement and believed they were there for the duration of the war. But their adventures were far from over. Ultimately they were sent to a British prisoners’ camp in what was formerly the Polish Corridor. There they were well looked after and fed and. as Captain Armstrong said, their morale improved tremendously—so much so that they began to think about escaping. It was exactly a week after arriving at that camp before they did escape.

Of the following events Captain Armstrong was very reticent. How he and Captain MacPherson did it he would not tell, but it was not long before they were in Sweden and, after their arrival at Stockholm, they placed themselves in the care of the British Legation. They were a week in Stockholm before their return to England where they stayed for six weeks. The finale to his adventures came with Captain Armstrong’s return to Cairo and home to New Zealand.