The Great Escape: A Canadian Story (36 page)
Read The Great Escape: A Canadian Story Online
Authors: Ted Barris
RCAF pilots Barry Davidson (left) and Dick Bartlett, once shot down, became chief scrounger and custodian of the secret wireless radio for the escape committee respectively. They developed such skills early in 1940 at Stalag Luft I and were seasoned pros by the time they were sent to Luft III.
Meanwhile, fellow RCAF pilots Keith Ogilvie (left) and Kingsley Brown at Stalag Luft III worked in intelligence—the former fleeced German guards for their wallets, the latter searched the prison library for German officials’ identities to steal and for police protocol at train stations and borders—all to assist camp forgers manufacture fake documents for the escapers.
Before the mass breakout on March 24–25, 1944, RAF F/L Ley Kenyon was asked to record images of escape tunnel “Harry.” Underground, sometimes on his back, by the light of fat-fuelled lamps, he sketched (above left) a digger cutting into sand at the face of the tunnel; (above right) an underground workshop (tin over worker’s head, activated from tunnel trap above, contained pebbles as signal for quiet). In Hut 104 (below) he drew the entrance to tunnel “Harry” through the trap in the concrete foundation under the stove (the entire operation required lookouts—“stooges”—to warn tunnel crews of any approaching German guards).
Aerial intelligence photo (c. 1944) shows the evolution of Stalag Luft III prison camp from original East and Centre compounds, opened in 1942, to additional North, South, and West compounds; the prison camp eventually held 10,000 air force POWs. Despite hundreds of attempts, only six POWs completed the “home run”—getting from Luft III back to the UK.
RCAF airman George Sweanor (left) vowed not to get romantically involved while training as a bomb-aimer in the UK, while Joan Saunders felt her work in the British war industry was a top priority. Nevertheless, they fell in love, married, and were separated a month later when George was shot down and sent to Stalag Luft III for the duration.
For RCAF Spitfire pilot Don Edy (left), barracks in the North African desert were rustic at best; it got worse in February 1942, when he was shot down, imprisoned first in Italy, and then sent to Stalag Luft III. On the other hand, severe conditions for RCAF gunner George Harsh were nothing out of the ordinary; before being shot down in October 1942 he’d been an inmate in US prisons for a dozen years.
Stalag Luft III POWs—particularly those from North America—organized dozens of baseball teams; this one was typical, featuring (back l to r) “Gee” Rainville, Slim Smith, Joe Loree, Stephens, Jimmy Egner, Jimmy Lang, Randy Ransom; (front l to r) Art Hawtin, Earl Clare (team captain), Tommy Jackson, Glen Gardner, Ernie Soalier.
(middle) Ice hockey games didn’t end with regulation time or even sudden death goals, but when the last of the hockey sticks (donated by the Red Cross or stores in Canada) broke beyond repair. (bottom) Boxing matches inside Stalag Luft III, such as one with George McGill and Eddie Asselin in 1942, offered exercise and a diversion while other POWs attempted to escape.
(above) RAF officer Ley Kenyon captured the climax of The Great Escape in his sketches, including February 29, 1944, when German guards fortuitously transferred key players of the escape committee to a neighbouring prison, and (below) the night of March 24, 1944, when escapers realized their tunnel “Harry” came up short of the pine forest, requiring a rope system to signal when German sentries had passed and another escaper could crawl out and make a run for it.
After German guards discovered the mass breakout and recaptured 77 of the 80 escapers, they displayed the contraptions the POWs had built inside tunnel “Harry.” (above) Prison guard Karl Griese (left) and a second guard show off a tunnel trolley inside shoring box frames (they’ve got them upside down—frames were narrower at top). (below right) Griese (a.k.a. “Rubberneck”) operates a ventilating pump that kept fresh air flowing underground through nearly 400 feet of Klim tins soldered together. (below left) Guard demonstrates sand-dispersal sacks hidden under POWs’ coats and inside trousers. In over a year of tunnel excavation at Stalag Luft III, “penguins” dispersed several hundred tons of sand from tunnel “Harry” alone.
(above) Senior British Officer G/C Herbert Massey (right) speaks to German officer Hans Pieber, who guarded Commonwealth air officer POWs at both Stalag Luft I and III; also in charge during the forced march in the winter of 1945 (he then knowingly carried the POWs’ secret radio to receive BBC broadcasts about the war). (below) Controversial crime investigator and SS officer Arthur Nebe is said to have soured on Nazi philosophy (extermination of European Jewry and executions of Russian civilians) and joined the plot to kill Hitler in July 1944; however, he was guilty of choosing 50 of the recaptured Great Escapers to be executed.
(above right) This secretly photographed image of Allied air force officers being force-marched from Sagan, Poland, was taken in January 1945. Indicative of their skill to adapt, in just hours, the POWs transformed prison camp tables, chairs, and bed boards into sleds and backpacks to carry survival gear. (above left) Just before their liberation in western Germany, the POWs posted signs to prevent being shelled or strafed by friendly forces.