ACROSS THE RHINE

Otago Witness, Issue 3334, 6 February 1918, Page 17

ACROSS THE RHINE

ANZACS DARING- ESCAPE. Two South Australians, J. W. Pitts and W. Choate, of tho 53rd Battalion, who recently daringly escaped from Germany have reached London (reports the Sydney Sun's London representative). They were captured in 1916. While working- in a cammando in Muenster they were imprisoned on the third floor of the barracks. They broke _ the bars and barbed-wire protecting the windows, and descended 50ft by a steel rope, stolen from the railways, confederates singing to drown the noise. Threo Tommies and L. H. Barry, of the First Australian Engineers, followed. All these were recaptured, but the two successful ones took a tram to Dussoldorff. Choate learned German to enable him. to escape. They bought tickets, and entered a train. In their compartment two soldiers were seated. They crossed the Rhino, and walked for three nights to the frontier, sustained by chocolate. Choate had been previously recaptured near tho frontier, and a new route was chosen. The method of disguising their clothes was ingenious. It was Barry's second failure.