TUNNEL ESCAPE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24538, 22 March 1943, Page 3

TUNNEL ESCAPE

IRISH REPUBLICANS BREAK FROM PRISON 11 SOON RECAPTURED (Reed. 9.15 p.m) LONDON. March 21 Twenty-one Republican internees escaped from a Londonderry prison into a yard adjoining a house and fled in a furniture van which was waiting in a near by street. The men • drove a tunnel through 40 yards of clay from their prison cells and emerged to freedom through half a ton of coal in a shed in the backyard of the house. Dripping with wet clay and mud, they walked into the kitchen, where the daughter of the occupier was preparing breakfast. The daughter told them to get out of the house. They filed out rather quietly through the front door. The furniture van, in which were several men with Tommy guns, was drawn up in the street. A passer-by said: "You are early this morning." One of the men replied: "Yes, we have a bit of shifting to do. r ' The men entered the van and were driven off toward the border. At Saint Johnston's customs port the driver threatened the officials with a machinegun as the van entered Eire. Five hours later the Eire police and military captured 11 of the men, who were surrounded on a hill near Saint Johnston. Hundreds of armed police and troops with high-powered cars are combing the district for the remainder of the men. Those captured stated that six or seven of their number were leaders of the Republican movement, They planned the escape and the others joined in at the last moment. The excavation of the tunnel occupied six weeks. Five tons of clay were dug out, carried away in the men's pockets and scattered in the prison grounds.