Irish Internees Tunnel Through 40 Yards Of Clay

Taranaki Daily News, 22 March 1943, Page 4

Irish Internees Tunnel Through 40 Yards Of Clay

Escape in waiting furniture van Rec. 7.45 p.m. London, March 20. Twenty-one Republicari internees escaped from Londonderry prison into a yard adjoining the house and fled in a furniture van waiting in a nearby street. The escapees constructed a tunnel through 40 yards of clay from the prison cells and emerged to freedom through half a ton of coal in a shed situated in the backyard of the house. The men, dripping with clay and mud, walked into the kitchen, where the daughter of the occupier was preparing breakfast. The daughter told them to get out of the house and said 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. To a passer-by's comment: "You are early this morning," one of them replied: "Yes. We have a bit of ehifting to do." The escapees entered the van and were driven off towards the border. At St. Johnston customs port the drivers threatened the officials with a machine-gun as the van entered Eire. Five hours later the Eire police and military captured 11 of the escapees who were surrounded on a hill near St. Johnston. Hundreds of armed police and troops with high-powered cars are combing the districts in Eire and Northern Ireland for the remainder of the Republican escapees. Those captured stated that six or seven of the escapees were leaders of the Republican movement who planned the escape. The others j oinc-d in the last moment. The excavation of the tunnel occupied six weeks, in which five tons of clay were dug out, taken out in pockets and scattered in the prison grounds.