MEMORIES OF WAR

Taranaki Daily News, 14 January 1935, Page 13

MEMORIES OF WAR

FAMOUS TUNNEL ESCAPE. HELIGOLAND ADVENTURE; Memories of eighteen months of prison-camp life in Germany were brought back to a skipper in the intercolonial service, states the Wellington Post, when he read an account in the Post of one of the mo? amazing escapes from any prison camp ’’"during the war. He was an officer on the “Mystery ship” Q 27 off the coast of Ireland in March, 1917, when a German submarine with her last torpedo sank her. With six of the crew he was taken to Germany, where he had varied experiences in many prison camps. At Holzminden camp on the Weiser a party of British officers dug a trench more than 60 yards long over a period of nine months. The trench was not discovered until after 29 prisoners of war had passed through. A blockage occurred and prevented the escape of the remainder. Only 10 of the 29 reached Holland, neutral country, 100 miles off. The New Zealand skipper, a Royal Naval Reserve lieutenant, told a Post reporter some of his experiences recalled vividly to him by the Post’s account of the tunnelling escape in which he played a part. Enlisting in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, the skipper went to England and obtained a transfer to H.M.S. Q 27. Off the Irish coast the Q 27 had picked up the crew of a vessel torpedoed off Beerhaven. Knowing that a German submarine was in the locality, the crew rerigged the Q 27 to change her silhouette by adding a dummy deckhouse and by other contrivances. „ “At 9 a.m., however, we got it,” said the skipper. “It struck the Q 27 aft about the engine-room. We stood by for about one minute and then abandoned the ship. I don’t know how many casualties there were. There was a crew of 68. One boat got away full but the other fouled. I know definitely that the skipper, Commander Biddlescombe, R.A.N., went down with her. “There was quite a sea running. I was clinging to a small bunker hatch with another man. The submarine came to the surface and headed straight for us and ran us down—went over the top of us. IN GERMAN SUBMARINE. “The next thing I can remember was being in the-submarine. -I found later they had taken the other men—six of them. One was badly wounded—his jaw was shattered and his thigh fractured. They had no real splints on board, but we patched him up as best we could. With a few pieces of wood we set his thigh with the aid of the commander of the submarine. All we could do with •the jaw was to bandage it firmly up—’the bone was projecting. The Germans made him some soup which we fed jo him. Eventually he went into hospital at Bremerhaven and that was the last I saw of him. “The Germans on the submarine played their parts well. The commander and his officers were gentlemen undoubtedly. The attitude and atmosphere, later, among the military people was altogether different—insolence. “The submarine commander had a suspicion our ship was a Q-ship but was not certain. She had sunk in three minutes. Three of the submarine officers spoke English. They were not taunting, but very decent. They were optimistic and ‘were going to win the war.’ They tried to get me to talk, and offered me wine before I had recovered from the shock of the immersion. Needless to say I said nothing. “Four fights took place between the submarine and other craft during our five days’ journey to Heligoland. The crew were afraid of meeting anything because they had been out for a long period and had run short of ammunition. If there was any sign of a ship they would remain submerged. The course they took was round the north of Scotland. I could write a long story even about the happenings of those five days. “LONDON DIAMOND MERCHANT.” % “From Heligoland we went to Maintz, a fortress on the Rhine where there were no English prisoners, and then to Karlsruhe, where I was kept in a hotel for a fortnight. I was the only officer picked up as far as I knew. I was interviewed by a military officer who said he had been a diamond merchant at London. He was very anxious to learn about conditions of ships and affairs in England ‘for his own personal use.’ He got no satisfaction. “The victuals in the hotel were very poor, but I was able to buy stuff, as I had saved my money from the drenching. In fact I got my clothes dry cleaned of the salt. Fats were among the things in short supply, but such things as wine could be bought easily. “There were far more restrictions in the prison camp. I met the first New Zealander to go to a German prison camp—a man named Garland, I think, of Wellington. He had learned to fly at Auckland with the Walsh brothers. He had been brought down over the German lines. We used to talk of New Zealand. “From Karlsruhe I was sent to Crefeld, which was a wonderful camp that had been in use since the beginning of the war and used for training regular officers. In Crefeld food was very short, and the permanent officers put down a • ‘banquet’ for us when we arrived. For some reason that camp was split up suddenly and prisoners were taken to three other camps. It was a funny exodus. The party I was with went to Schwarmsted, 40 miles north of Hanover, in the middle of a moor. It had been occupied by Rumanians and was in a filthy state. NEWS BULLETINS. "We were always happy and cheerful. Certain things were allowed, certain games and concessions. Some of the officers used to translate the German newspapers and publish a bulletin every day. The majority of the German officers in the camps were scarcely gentlemanly. When we arrived there the German commandant—who was an old man who had

fought in the Franco-German War, with the rank of colonel—made a speech of welcome. He said he knew it was our duty to escape if it was passible, but he was there to : we didn’t. “The Germans had no sense of humour in my oninion. Some very laughable things happened—escapes during dust storms, in wicker laundry hampers, and so on. Some dressed as German under-officers. We were allowed grey slacks from England—cleared through English banks’ and merchants in Holland, and out of those 'German uniforms’ were made. “On one occasion an Irishman dressed aS an under-officer with a companion dressed as a German pOSten. They unlocked the side gate of the prison yard with a key they had made, walked through the bushes, and escaped under the eyes of the German guard. “From Schwarmsted the camp was shifted to Holzminden, where there were the barracks of some regiments of Germans, The prison was very heavily enclosed in barbed wire, with a neutral zone of 20ft between where no one could go without the sentries immediately shooting. There We were also received by an English-speaking commandant, who had an American accent. He was immediately dubbed ‘Milwaukee Bill.’ “He pointed out to us that no one had escaped from his camp to date, and he intended that no one should. In spite of all his precautions three British officers disappeared that night and got away. They might have been caught and brought back and sentenced and then taken to another prison. Recaptured prisoners usually were held for a while to gee whether they had dpne anything while they were at large before being shifted. “There were some really humorous escapes out of that Camp, and the exploits of the Scarlet Pimpernel had nothing on them. It was surprising the number of British officers who could speak German perfectly. Just to prove that, the man first out (a colonel) at the time of the escape through the tunnel, travelled to Holland on a German train and arrived there in four days. He spoke German absolutely perfectly. The next best time was done by two officers who took ten days to cross the Dutch frontier. They walked at night only. GETTING RID OF SPOIL. “When the tunnel was ready after the nine months’ work we all set out one by one, commencing at 10 p.m. After twenty-nine got through, I was with Captain Gardiner on the prison side of the rock when the passage became blocked. We had to get the dirt off our clothes and run the gauntlet back to our quarters and act as though we were innocent. We were not allowed out after 10 p.m. “One way of getting rid of the spoil was rather novel. When the tunnel wag begun we got permission to make a tennis court. We had to dig down to the subsoil and part of the spoil from the tunnel was distributed there. Officers would wear their trench coats hiding bags full of spoil and let it dribble as they walked about the yard. Others would follow leisurely and help to tramp it in. “A terrific change came over the people towards the end of the war when it was known that Germany could not face the winter. It was a pity, I think, that the Armistice came when it did. It would have been better to let the populace experience some of the horrors of war as France had done both in the Franco-Prussian and the last war. Many of the Germans do not yet know that they were licked.”