TUNNELLING TO FREEDOM.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15916, 9 September 1919, Page 7

TUNNELLING TO FREEDOM.

FROM A GERMAN PRISON CAMP. AN amazing exploit. TOLD BT A WELLINGTON AIRMAN. (Dominion.) Probably no officer or man who has returned to New Zealand during or since the war has had such amazing stories of adventure to tell as Lieutenant Edgar H. Garland, of the Royal Air Force (a son of Mr Frank L. Garland, of Oriental Bay), who returned to Wellington via America by the Tofua on Saturday last. It only need he related that he was taken prisoner in 1917, was incarcerated in twenty prisons, and escaped from seven of them before finally freeing himself, to show the mettle of the man, and the amazing experiences he went through in order to get back to “his own.” The records of the German War Office show that he was regarded as one of the most dangerous and elusive of the British officers held prisoner by Germany. His record certainly bears this out. Lieut. Garland learnt his flying at Kohimarama (Auckland), in 1914-15, and joined up with the British Air Force in 1916. It was in 1917 that his squadron was detailed to intercept a flight of Gothas which had been reported over England, bombing small towns. Flying an 80 horsepower L Rhone machine, he accompanied the squadron to a position over Ostend. Whilst manoeuvring there his machine “went dead.” and he was forced to descend on enemy-held territory. He was immediately surrounded by German troops, taken prisoner, subjected to the usual cross-examination, and told the usual military lies, and was sent to prison at Brugge. From there he was shifted to Gourtrai, and thence to Karlsruhe. A FAMOUS ESCAPE TUNNEL. It was whilst imprisoned there that serious'consideration was given by the prisoners to the possibility of escape by means of tunnelling, but before the dangerous job could be started, Lieut. Garland was removed to Holzminden prison. There, in collusion with other prisoners, and under the eyes of the German guards, an escape tunnel was commenced. The digging continued for nine months. Twelve officers, whose work had familiarised them with tunnel construction, were chosen to direct the work. Regular hours of work were allotted to them. The first job, however, was to select flhe best spot for the tunnel. The entire prison was inspected, and finally a tiny lumber room under a staircase in one of the buildings was selected. It was never inspected by the German guards, as it was protected by a huge padlock. With the first step taken, preparations were made to take out the first shovelful of earth. Uniforms were procured from British privates, prisoners detailed to act as orderlies to the British officers. The officers who composed the working parties each day wore the orderlies’ uniforms, aud the orderlies wore the officers’ uniforms, and mingled with the officers, so that the guard would not notice the absence of the tunnellers. Floor-boards in the lum-ber-room were prised loose, and in the middle of December the digging besrnn. It was not difficult at first to remove the earth, but as the shaft went deeper, the task became harder. The earth, stones, and old roots of trees were carefully concealed in small bags, and stored in the apparently locked lumber room, until opportunity served to remove them to the shrubbery surrounding the tenuis court.

It was not until several weeks had elapsed that the direction of the tunnel was changed and the work of pushing it toward the boundary line 0 f the prison camj) attempted. The entrance was four toet across, and at the base of the shaft the tunnel was rounded out so that a man might change his direction without becoming jammed, but from that point an economy was resorted to to avoid more digging than was absolutely necessary. The tunnel was bored just lame enough to permit the passage of a man’s body. It was planned that packs should be pushed ahead of the men when the time for escape came. KNIVES AND TRENCHING TOOLS USED. Shovels, such as the Germans need to dig themselves in with at the front were unceremoniously abstracted from the storehouse in the prison yard. A supply of jack-knives intended for the prigarrison was samplede soon after its arrival, and enough of the knives were obtained, to reinforce the supply of tools. The end of December saw the digging temporary halted. Captain Gray, of°the Indian Forces, and Lieut. Murdoch, his aid in directing the excavating, was told at 4 o’clock one morning that a large lump of sandstone had been uncovered immediately in the path of the tunnel. Examination by the officers in the hole at the time proved that the obstruction was too big to be moved back to the shaft, and thence to the surface, aud it could not have been disposed of could it have been so handled. Captain Gray crept from his cot, clad in his underclothing only, and after examining tho position, said that the direction of the tunnel woull have to be changed to pass the obstruction. This announcement created something akin to consternation owing to the amount of useless work which had been done. But the turn had to be made, and it was so. INSTALLING ELECTRIC FANS. Then presented itself tho problem of ventilating the tunnel, as the farther the diggers progressed from the shaft, the worse the air became. There seemed to be no feasible method of forcing fresh air into the burrow. Work had to bo stopped until Lieut. Garland and another officer found time and opportunity to get several electric fans and two air’ pumps from the store-room. Up to that time the diggers had worked in complete darkness. Once, however, it became necessary - to provide energy for the operation of teh air pumps and fans, the officers lost no time in tapping the prison lighting circuit, thereby obtaining current for ventilation and illumination. The fane and pumps and a dozen incandescent bulbs were arranged in place, and wires were led into the tunnel and connected with them. The vibration of the pumps and the whirring of the fans, it was at first feared would betray the tunnelling operations to the guards above ground. To keep the apparatus from letting the entire camp know what was going on, the bearings were well soaked with oil. Even then, in the confined space, the noise of tho machinery of the pumps and tho hum of the fans were almost deafening, and for a breathless half-hour following the turning on of the power the officers waited for the discovery which seemed so certain. But to the great joy of all concerned in the plot, the German sentries failed to notice anything unusual. Shifts gere

changed regularly, and the tunnel slowly lengthened out towards the boundary. A PERILOUS TIME. By the end of the fourth month the work had progressed a distance of 150 feet. The danger of the walls and roof collapsing was always present, for wood to shore np the sides was not to be had without exciting suspicion. Now and then while a man was digging ahead and he was out of breath with his exertions ho would hear a stone or handful of earth fall in the passage behind him. Under such circumstances it was not surprising that the tension saused by such slight accidents was tremendous, and the men suffered accordingly. The eighth month found tne tunnel finiished to a point where the officers were ready tc turn towards Iht surface. Compasses and measuring cords had been need to determine the approximate spot where the end of the tunnel would be located, and it was believed that the exit shaft would break through the surface just outside the clectrically-charged barbwire entanglements beyond tho wall. PRISONER CAUGHT CUTTING THE WIRE. Just as the exit eshaft was about to be started, An officer. who had known nothing of the cutting of the tunnel—a man who had been confined to another part of the prison—was caught cutting the wire almost at tho exact spot where the tunnel would emerge, ills effort to escape was defeated by the guards and he was brought back. II is attempt resulted in tho German commander ordering a special guard for the weakened barrier. New surveys wore made, and it was decided to push the tunnel out under a wheat field a hundred feet from the barrier. Another mouth was occupied in boring the extension, and it was not until August, nine months after the work had begun, that all w&s ready for flight. 'The shaft was dug to within a foot of the surface, and 29 officers, including Lieut. Garland, were instructed by Captain Gray to be ready to enter the tunnel on five minutes notice. THE ESCAPE. “1 was warned at 5 o’clock one morning to be ready at the entrance of the lumber-room in five minutes,” said Lieut. Garland. “I slipped into the orderly’s uniform that 1 had concealed in my mattress, and sneaked into the orderlies’ quarters. The Gorman sentry outside was leaning on his rifle half asleep. The lumber-room was crowded, aud after waiting a few minutes I was passed inside. A humming noise came from the month of the tunnel. I could hear the sound of talking and the buzz of tho fans. Once in the tunnel, I push- ' ed the pack in front of me and started to crawl down the steep incline that led to tho passage proper. There was no room above me to raise my head, and 1 worked myself forward by pushing against tho side walls with my feet. “Here and there on the floor of the passage I came across cans of bull'/ beef abandoned by men who had gone before me. So anxious were they to get away that they were leaving them stores of food that had taken weeks and months to collect. I had to jamb the abandoned tins into the earth under me before I could advance. “Half-way to the wlicat-Celd a big follow just ahead of mo became jambed. His shoulders were wider than ihe tunnel at one spot and he could neither go forward nor retreat. His bulk filled the passage, and at the end of twenty minutes the ventilation failed to operate and the air became stifling. “Finally, he managed to work himself loose. I helped him to crawl back a foot and he succeeded in working himself out of tho heavy trench coat bo had foolishly worn. Again, far ahead of us another man became jambed. lie was just beneath tho exit. Hie man behind him and the one in front tried to extricate him, but Iris and their struggles did what was most feared. They loosened the roof and the walls, and with a crash the exit cave collapsed. “All of us who were in tho passage had to crawl back to the lumber-room as best wc could. There it was found that 29 of ihe party had succeeded in getting away. “The entrance was boarded over in the hope that the Germans would not locate the cave in, and we returned to onr cots feeling pretty done and sick at heart. THE AFTERMATH. “The dawn witnessed the aftermath of the adventure. The British officers were summoned into tho yard for rollcall, and when tho Gorman sergeantmajor discovered a shortage of 29, he nearly collapsed. He counted the men present, and then turned to the commandant, Hauptmann Niemeyer. “‘Twenty-nine are gone,’” he fairly screamed. “Niemeyer became a madman. He raved and cursed and threatened to shoot the first British officer seen near the walls. He ordered a thorough search of the prison. The tunnel was found at tho end of the second day after intelligence agents had lieen summoned from headquarters near by to aid in the search.” Lieutenant Garland, who subsequently effected his escape in a manner yet to bo related, was afterwards appointed a member of tho British Military Mission to the United States,