Great Escapes (11 page)

For the next couple of weeks the horse was carried out and the men performed their routine of vaulting, and once again the same man, who appeared to be getting better, occasionally clattered into the horse, knocking it over. By this time the guards had lost interest and only occasionally glanced over to watch. Then one morning the horse was carried out and the men were warned that under no circumstances were they to knock it over. This time Eric Williams was inside and he was to start digging the escape tunnel.

The statistics had been worked out with regard to the length of the tunnel and how long it was estimated that it would take. The calculations were that it was around 45ft to the trip wire, 30ft to the perimeter wire, a further 8ft to clear the wire, another 30ft to clear the guards’ patrolling area and a further 7ft in case of any obstructions. This was a total of 120ft and digging 3ft a day should take six weeks – well that was the theory.

The moment the men started to pound up to the horse and then vault over it, he started digging. Taking away the top grey layer of sand, he placed that in a box and then started digging down into yellowish sand beneath with a trowel. With each scoop he placed the sand into cloth bags that had been made from trouser legs, and when full, hung them on hooks inside the box. Also inside the box with him was a Red Cross tea chest that had the top and bottom panels removed and this was used to shore up the shaft.

After two hours of continuous digging, Williams managed to sink the shaft to a depth that allowed the tea chest to be slid into position 6in below the surface. He then placed the lid over the top and covered it with the earth he had placed in the box. With this done, he tapped on the box to let the instructor know he had finished. The poles were then pushed through the holes and the horse lifted up, only this time the four men had to carry not only Eric Williams, but also twelve bags of sand back to the canteen. Once inside the canteen, Williams got out and the twelve bags were removed. The sand was then transferred into long sausage-like bags that six men had attached to their waists and beneath their trousers. The men would then wander all around the camp, and by means of a cord that opened the bottom of the bags, distribute the sand as they walked.

The next day Michael Codner took his place inside the horse and continued to dig the shaft. The two men alternated whilst the shaft was dug and after almost a week of digging, the shaft had been sunk to a depth of 5ft. In order to keep the shaft shored up, the tea chest was placed on bricks, the latter having been stolen from building works that had been going on in another part of the camp.

Now came the difficult part, digging the tunnel. Because of the narrowness of the shaft and the tunnel, the diggers had to lie on their backs to carry out the work. Boards were removed from the bottoms of beds so that the tunnel, as it progressed, could be shored up. Above the heads of the diggers, the pounding of the gymnast’s feet confused the sound of the digging for the microphones.

As the weeks passed the tunnel progressed towards the wire, the two diggers shoring up as they went. Then after reaching 20ft, which placed the tunnel past the spot above where the vaulters landed, it was decided not to bother shoring up, but just to continue tunnelling. Working in the confined space the air became foul, but the tunnellers could not make any air holes in case the guard dogs discovered them. Then one afternoon disaster struck when there was a cave-in.

Immediately as the hole appeared, one of the vaulters threw himself across the hole complaining that he had broken his leg. Williams, who had gone to the canteen to fetch some water, saw that the vaulters had stopped and were crowded around one of their men. Another of the vaulters whispered to him that the tunnel had collapsed, so Williams told him to fetch a stretcher. Crouching beside the ‘injured’ man, Williams thrust his hand down the hole and whispered to his colleague in the tunnel asking if he was all right. Codner replied that he was and was in the process of shoring up the tunnel, but he needed Williams and the other men to buy him some time to do so, and for them to then fill the hole in when he finished.

In the meantime one of the men had gone to fetch the first aid kit, and for the next fifteen minutes Williams made a big fuss of binding the ‘injured’ man’s leg to the stretcher. All the time the men were becoming aware that the guards were now taking more than a passing interest in the incident and that any moment they would be coming over to see what was going on. Suddenly there was a soft tap from the inside of the horse, signifying that Codner was back inside. The men quickly shuffled around the hole and filled it in with the grey sand of the compound.

The tunnelling was becoming more and more arduous and two days after the cave-in incident, both men collapsed with exhaustion. Out of the 100ft required to take them under the wire and into a space close to the trees, they had only completed 40ft and that had taken over three months. With 70ft still to go, both Williams and Codner had reached the point where they felt like quitting. The main problems were the lack of air and lighting. Once in the tunnel they were working in the dark and it was difficult to keep the tunnel level. In addition to these problems, the farther they got, the longer it took to drag the sand back, consequently each foot dug was taking progressively longer.

It was also a one-man operation once down there but then Codner came up with a suggestion. If they both worked down there it would be quicker. In addition to this system, they built a little trolley that the tunneller took with him to the face, but this wasn’t the success they had hoped for, so they replaced it with a basin that had a hole drilled at each end and a line attached to both ends. The tunneller took the bowl to the face and filled it with sand; it was then pulled back to the shaft where the contents were placed into the bags.

The two men went down the shaft and dug out a workstation in which they placed thirty-six bags of sand. At the end of the shift, they both got back inside the horse, but with no bags of sand. In the next shift one man went back down and brought back twelve of the bags. The following shift the other tunneller went out and collected twelve of the bags, then on the next trip the last twelve bags were collected.

With all the bags collected, the two men then went down again and dug out another thirty-six bags of sand and the routine would start again. However at this point the gymnasts were starting to weary of all the same exercise, and with both instructors now down the hole tunnelling, interest in the project started to wane. It was then that Flight Lieutenant Oliver Philpot stepped forward and said that he would organise and instruct the class.

Williams and Codner knew of another tunnel being dug, one that had previously been discovered, but was now being reactivated. Suddenly, whilst the team that were helping to build the tunnel were dispersing the sand in various places like under the floor of the barbers shop, under the floor of the kitchen area and in the roof space above the huts, a truckload of German soldiers came hurtling through the gates and stopped outside the canteen. It was quite obvious what was going on, they had somehow got wind of an escape plot and were about to search everywhere. This meant that if they found the other team’s tunnel, then there was a good chance they would look for others.

The men were called out for parade whilst the camp was searched. Suddenly the ceiling in one of the huts collapsed on top of the searchers and moments later the entrance to the other tunnel was discovered. This seemed to satisfy the Germans, and after disciplining the senior officer by sending him to the ‘cooler’ for a week, the camp settled back into a semblance of normality.

It was decided to let the atmosphere in the camp settle down before recommencing work on the tunnel. The two men took the opportunity to arrange for the clothing they would wear when they got out and the documents they would need. Because Codner could speak very reasonable French, it was decided that they would both be French draughtsmen working for the Arado Aircraft Company just outside the port of Stetin. The two men intended to try and stow away aboard one of the numerous Swedish merchant ships that used the port. They knew this was risky because the Germans constantly searched the ships using dogs.

They were also given the address of a brothel in Stetin, which was used by foreign workers, but banned to Germans. Operated by Polish girls, it was said that they had offered refuge to allied soldiers in the past. As tempting as it might have been, it was decided not to take advantage of it because it was felt to be wide open to scrutiny by both the German army and the Gestapo, and raids upon the establishment were more than a possibility.

Work restarted on the other tunnel and the ‘Gymnastic Club’ kept up its relentless pursuit of fitness. To their dismay, Williams and Codner found that the sand and the ground above had dried up, causing a number of falls within the tunnel. These of course had to be cleared and the tunnel made safe before any more excavating could be started. Once past the area where the vaulters landed, the shoring up of the tunnel was no longer required, which speeded up the process significantly.

Another problem arose; because of the small diameter of the tunnel, the longer the tunnel became the amount of air available decreased. They did find, however, that as the bowl was pushed up, it forced additional air up to the tunneller at the face. It was under these horrendous conditions that the two men worked. All through the summer the two men toiled in the tunnel and above ground the vaulting gymnasts kept up their relentless exercise routine. As the autumn days started to close in and the first signs of winter started to appear, problems arose regarding the weather. If it started to rain, the vaulters could not continue in the pouring rain and it would look suspicious if they left the horse while they took shelter. They couldn’t bring the horse in whilst the two men were in the tunnel, because this would leave the shaft exposed. So it was decided to check the weather every day and if it looked like rain, they would not dig, but the vaulters would carry out their regular exercise and bring the horse in if it started to rain.

As winter neared, it was decided to try and find out exactly how long the tunnel was. They knew they were under the outer perimeter wire, but how far out they did not know. Eric Williams crawled the length of the tunnel and slowly pushed a 4ft thin poker up and through the soil above. One of the vaulters standing by the horse kept a wary eye out for where he though the poker might appear. Then suddenly he spotted it just 3ft beyond the perimeter fence – 15ft short of their proposed target.

An emergency meeting was hurriedly called to decide what to do. The problem was that the railway timetable they had acquired expired in just one week, so it was decided to continue digging for another 9ft. This was because just at this point there was a ditch, and it was noticed that at night, when the searchlight was played around the compound, this was one place where it cast a shadow, so if they opened the tunnel there they could slip out and roll into the ditch. Two days before the timetable expired they had reached their objective and the decision was made to go.

Then a simple oversight nearly put an end to the attempt. Three men were going to make a break through the tunnel, which meant that the three men had to be taken to the trapdoor in the horse. This in itself would cause a problem because of the additional weight. The stumbling block was that once the three men went down the shaft and into the tunnel, who was going to close the trapdoor behind them?

It was decided that the obvious way was that when the horse was taken out in the morning of the escape, two men would be inside. On 29 October, Michael Codner and Eric Williams were carried out in the horse. A bulge had been made at the end of the tunnel to allow for their escape gear. Michael Codner went into the tunnel with his escape gear and on reaching the end, made an air hole and settled down to wait for night. Eric Williams closed the shaft, crawled back inside the horse and was taken back to the canteen. There, he and Oliver Philpot dressed themselves in black combinations, collected their escape gear and got inside the horse together with another of the prisoners. With the two escapees holding the other inmate between them, the poles were pushed through and the horse, with three men now inside, was lifted up and carried with great difficulty to its spot in the compound.

Once over the spot the cover of the hatch was opened and Williams and Philpot slipped down the hatch and into the tunnel. The other man then closed the hatch, covered it with dirt and climbed back into the horse. After the vaulting had finished it was taken back to the canteen, leaving the three men in the tunnel to wait for night to fall.

As Eric Williams crawled up the tunnel, he suddenly came to a wall of sand and realised that Codner, in digging out the final 6ft, had pushed the sand behind him. Forcing his hand through the wall he was met with a strong smell of foul air and sweat. Realising that he would have to get the sand back to the shaft, he signalled Oliver to send up the bowl so that they could transfer the sand. For the next hour, the three men worked tirelessly not only to move the sand back, but also to dig upwards to just below the surface. Their work was hampered by the fact that the original tunnel had been dug when the two tunnellers wore no clothes. Now they were fully clothed making fitting in the tunnel even more difficult and claustrophobic than before – if that were possible.

As darkness fell, the men in the tunnel broke through the thin layer of dirt and into the fresh air. They then became aware of pre-arranged singing and the banging of tins coming from the other prisoners in the compound. Slowly Michael Codner poked his head out of the hole, looking around he could see no movement as the searchlight swept by. The noise coming from the compound was drawing the attention of the guards in the towers and they knew this was the moment they had to make the break.

Pushing his escape kit in front of him Codner crawled out of the hole and along the grass and then rolled silently into the ditch. Then came Eric Williams, followed by Oliver Philpot. The three men looked back towards the compound, and as the searchlights from the guard towers swept across it, they ran into the pine forest.