Among his inbound cards and letters, Brickhill had heard from Del Fox. Writing a card in reply on 27 November, he lamented that he was ‘extensively browned off’ and voiced the hope that he would see Del sometime in the future. He told her that the first snow had fallen at Stalag Luft 3, and it was getting mighty cold there. By that time there had been several shows put on by the kriegies in the compound theatre, and Brickhill reported that he’d enjoyed one or two of these. He also mentioned that he was involved in the fermentation of raisin wine for Christmas.96
Even Roger Bushell was contributing to the wine-making process, pilfering sugar from colleagues to go into the pot. The last big brew had been for riotous Fourth of July celebrations led by the Americans. This latest concoction would end up being consumed on New Year’s Eve, with near-tragic results. Most wine drinkers would come off with crushing hangovers, but one drunken young Englishman would stagger out into the snow after lights-out, and be shot by a guard, although not fatally. The SBO would ban the making of raisin wine after that.
Brickhill also told Del that he was studying French and Spanish intensively. He didn’t tell her that he had chosen to learn these two languages because his intended escape route would take him through the south of France to neutral Spain. Likewise, he failed to mention that in October the men of North Compound had been heartened to learn that the Williams trio had escaped from East Compound using their wooden-horse tunnel. All three would succeed in reaching England.
This break was encouraging news for North Compound’s X Organisation. The men of North Compound needed geeing up. While Harry’s progress had been steady, the tunnel was still well short of the woods, and digging had been suspended until the new year, when the worst of winter had passed. The Gestapo, Germany’s secret police, were seething that three POWs had escaped to England, and security in the Reich had tightened. As the X Organisation learned through its contacts, the Gestapo was now talking about shooting POWs caught on the run.
When Roger Bushell was told this, he dismissed it as a bluff, reminding colleagues that the Geneva Convention prevented the execution of POWs. And hadn’t Germany been the first nation to sign the Convention, in 1929? Bushell remained gung-ho about his big break. As tunnelling had forged ahead the previous spring, he’d trumpeted the motto ‘Home by Christmas’. Now, as the Christmas of 1943 came and went and he was still a prisoner, he was forced to revise that goal.
11.
The Great Escape
COME 7 JANUARY 1944, the weather was mild enough to consider recommencing work in Harry. After an initial inspection and running repairs, digging resumed a week later, after a two-month hiatus. At this time of year the perennial problem of tunnel-soil dispersal was exacerbated by the fact that snow lay throughout the camp. It would be impossible to hide earth coming up from Harry on the ground. The solution proved simple. There was a gap beneath the sloping floor of the compound’s theatre and the ground. Penguins paid regular visits to the theatre while rehearsals for the latest show were underway, depositing their loads. The theatrical kriegies protested vehemently. Should the ferrets find tunnel soil there, they said, their theatre would be closed down. They were overruled by Wings Day. Escape came before entertainment, he proclaimed.
As digging progressed in Harry through February it was freezing down below, and all thirty diggers involved continually suffered from colds. It was estimated the tunnel would reach the woods within a few weeks when Roger Bushell called in star forger Flight Lieutenant Ley Kenyon and gave him a special assignment. Bushell wanted a permanent record of X Organisation’s amazing feat of engineering. Previously, their precious camera had been taken down into Harry in an attempt to take photographs. Due to regular Allied air raids in the vicinity, the Germans had cut the power supply, blacking out the camp, and Harry. The candlelight used in the tunnel proved insufficient for successful photography, and some bright spark had suggested that Kenyon be sent into Harry with his sketchpad. An art teacher before the war, Kenyon was a fine artist, and Bushell commissioned him to draw what was going on below.
‘Prepare to go down for four hours,’ Bushell instructed, ‘and make your drawing board a small one.’97
At the change of tunnelling shift, Kenyon clambered down into Harry, remaining until the next shift change. In candlelight, he sketched men working in the dispersal area, in the workshop and air-conditioning pumping station, and in the tunnel itself, where, lying on his back, he used the wooden ceiling as his drawing board. Returning to the surface, Kenyon packed his drawings into an airtight container made by the engineering department from Klim cans. The container was taken to 122 block and secreted down Dick’s dispersal chamber along with forged escape documents awaiting use.
In late February, X Organisation received a blow. Twenty men were called out by Rubberneck, chief ferret now that Glemnitz was occupied elsewhere.98 Considered troublemakers, these men were immediately transferred to the maximum-security punishment camp at Belaria, thirty-five kilometres away. Among the purged group were Floody, Harsh and Fanshawe. Harsh didn’t mind so much. He still considered the mass break harebrained, and at least he and best friend Floody would still be together. Bushell regretted their loss, but nothing would deter him from his big break.
By 14 March, Harry measured almost 130 metres in length, and three kriegie mathematicians calculated that the tunnel was beneath the forest on the northern fringe of North Compound. Sure enough, digging an exit shaft straight up, tunnellers reached tree roots 30 centimetres from the surface. Bushell ordered further operations suspended until a night with good weather and no moon. On that night, the final breakout would be made.
Excitement ran high in X Organisation ranks. Escape kit was readied – forged documents, clothing, accessories, and high-energy ‘Fudge’ escape food in 4-ounce cocoa tins. Concocted by pre-war dietary expert David Lubbock, Fudge was high in fat and sugar. Big Four members reviewed escapees’ fake identities and cover stories, sending some away to revise when holes were found. The Big Four now also chose the escape order for breakout night. Wings Day’s policy was to top the list with men who’d dug the tunnels and worked in dispersal at the head of the shafts, followed by X Organisation’s senior men, with all others coming next.99
Bushell nominated the first thirty names, which included Day and himself, with their order of escape dictated by a draw from a hat. After this, seventy more names from a list of 190 were chosen from the hat. Brickhill was to say that his name was chosen for a privileged position. Once these first 100 were selected Bushell nominated another thirty, after which a further seventy names were drawn from the hat. That made 200 names. Bushell estimated that between lights-out and dawn at least 220 men could use the tunnel to escape. Another twenty names were drawn.
Brickhill was excited at the prospect of adventure as he fled across western Europe. Equally, he was terrified at the prospect of going back into a rat hole ten metres underground, then crawling for a hundred metres with the possibility of another cave-in burying him. Roger Bushell soon called in Brickhill and four others who had panicked while underground, and informed the little group that he had summarily removed them all from the escape list. X Organisation was worried that, should any of these men again panic while in the tunnel and try to back out, they would cause chaos, perhaps even bringing the roof down in their blind desperation to regain the surface. Either way, they would block escape to those waiting behind.100
Bushell tried to soften the blow by telling the delisted quintet that at least they would get to see, and enjoy, the aftermath of the break. ‘I can promise you plenty of entertainment later,’ he told Brickhill and his equally disconsolate comrades.101
Brickhill acknowledged that, for the sake of all, being dumped from the list was the right decision. But that didn’t prevent him from feeling angry and frustrated. After all the work he’d put in, to lose his privileged place in line and be barred from escape was a kick in the guts. Two additional men were also prevented from taking part in the bre
ak, this time by order of SBO Massey. Cronk Canton and dour Scotsman Robert ‘Crump’ Ker-Ramsey had been chief tunnellers with Floody, and that was why Massey ordered them to stay behind, to form the nucleus of the X Organisation that would resume tunnelling once the big break was history. For no one knew how many years this war would last. Likewise, no one knew how many more escapes it would be necessary to engineer at Stalag Luft 3 before it was all over.
Friday 24 March was chosen for the breakout. There would be no moon that night. In addition, according to escaper Sydney Dowse, the ferret rostered onto Friday nights was lazy and unlikely to bother entering the compound for a spot check.102 In the lead-up to breakout day, a team of kriegies not on the escape list checked the papers and equipment of the 220 who were. When the escape clothes of Dutchman Bob van der Stock were checked, a Gieves Ltd label was found in the rollneck sweater he intended wearing, while his real name was on his socks. Off came the labels. Even Big X himself made a slip-up; Bushell had packed a hairbrush labelled ‘Kent of London’. Out came the hairbrush.
Throughout escape planning and preparation, Bushell had been forbidden by SBO Massey from being physically involved because he was closely watched by the Germans, and he’d kept well away from tunnels and workshops. The Germans considered Bushell an arch-escaper after he’d bolted from a train when being transferred from Stalag Luft 1 at Barth on the Baltic. He’d succeeded in spending months in hiding with a Czech family in Prague before being recaptured. His Czech helpers were arrested and shot. Partly to keep the Germans thinking he’d since become a model prisoner, Bushell had taken part in the compound’s theatrical shows, and leading up to the break he rehearsed the lead role of Professor Henry Higgins in the upcoming production of Pygmalion. Not expecting to be around for opening night on 25 March, Bushell had encouraged his understudy to prepare to take over at short notice.
At Sagan on the morning of 24 March the sun shone weakly, but snow lay fifteen centimetres thick on the ground. This was not ideal for an escape. Snow would make walking cross-country extremely difficult, and tracking of escapees extremely easy. There was the danger of frostbite. And, if driven to find overnight shelter, escapees risked being captured in outbuildings. At 11.30 that morning, Bushell hosted a meeting of X Organisation’s executive. It was only a short meeting. After sounding out his colleagues about making the break now or waiting for April and better weather, Bushell, impatient to get on with it, made a decision, and a decree.
‘Tonight’s the night.’103
Feverish preparations proceeded through the afternoon. Men on the escape list gathered up escape kit from hiding places. Fake travel documents were stamped with the current date using a date stamp fashioned from a rubber boot heel by Al Hake. And men began slipping in and out of 104 by circuitous routes. Those coming in were escapers. These going out were 104 occupants remaining behind. Giving up their rooms to kriegies down for escape, they would spend the night in the blocks and bunks of escapees. Among those moving out of 104 was code user Henry Stockings. His eyesight had become so bad he was rated unfit for an escape bid.
In 103, Brickhill tried to be upbeat as he shook the hands of Al Hake, Wings Day and others on the escape list as they moved next door to 104 in preparation for going out. In 104, escapers reported to escape ‘controller’ Dave Torrens, who marked their names off a list. By sundown, 104 Block was packed with 220 nervous men. Anxiously they waited their turn to climb down the block’s narrow shaft then propel themselves along Harry’s rail lines full-length on the little trolleys that had been used to bring out soil.
The first fifty men were considered to have the best chance of success. Most of this first batch had foreign-language skills and were given a share of the small cache of German money collected by X Organisation, to enable them to buy railway tickets. The remainder would have to make their way overland – Bushell called them the ‘hard-arsers’ and he frankly gave them almost zero chance of getting home.
Come early evening, in 104’s room 23, the hot stove covering the entrance to Harry was lifted aside and tunnel king Ker-Ramsey went down to check that everything was in order after weeks of neglect. He seemed to be gone forever, but eventually he reported back and gave the OK after making minor repairs. At 8.45, Leslie ‘Johnny’ Bull and Cuthbert ‘Johnny’ Marshall descended into the gloom. Along with Floody and Ker-Ramsey, the two Johnnies had made up X Organisation’s tunnelling subcommittee, and they’d been at the forefront of digging over the past year. It was their job to open up the tunnel at the woods. For their efforts, they would have the privilege of being first men out. They were followed into Harry by fifteen others including Big X.
It took quite a while to trolley one at a time along the tunnel. Finally, at 9.30, Bull, standing on a ladder built up one side of the exit shaft, dug the last 30 centimetres of earth away from above him, and stuck his head out into the cool night air. He was horrified to discover that the tunnel’s surveyors had blundered – the exit shaft had come up in the open, three metres short of the trees and just fifteen metres from the legs of a goon tower. Fortunately, the guard up in the tower routinely looked into the compound, not out to the surrounding woods. Meanwhile, close to the tunnel’s exit, two patrolling guards were walking by in opposite directions, crossing midway on their beat. Withdrawing back down into the tunnel, Bull had a whispered consultation with Bushell and Marshall at the base of the exit shaft.
They considered closing up the entrance and digging further until Harry reached the woods, postponing the break until the next month. Then Bushell remembered that their travel documents, which had taken many months to forge, were date-stamped for this weekend. They had to go now, he declared. The trio quickly agreed a system to get escapees across the snow-covered open ground beyond the exit hole. The first man out would trail a rope to the woods. When all was clear, he would jiggle the rope for the next man to exit. Succeeding men would briefly take over his role, then make their escape into the woods. A request was passed back along Harry to 104 for a twenty-metre length of rope.
More time ticked by as the rope was acquired. Johnny Bull then went back up the exit ladder and looked out. When the patrolling guards were out of sight, he clambered up into the snow and scurried to the trees, trailing the rope. Using this, he signalled the all clear. Marshall appeared, and scuttled to join him. After wishing Bull good luck, Marshall played the rope out into the trees, then hunched down as he waited to be joined by the next few men out. Like a nervous mole, another man popped his head up and looked anxiously all around. The rope quivered. The mole sprang from his hole.
The Great Escape was underway.
12.
Counting the Cost
LYING IN HIS bunk in 103, Brickhill could only imagine what was going on down below, and at Harry’s exit. Just after 10.00 pm, he heard the German guard who closed up the blocks for the night doing his rounds. The men in 104 held their collective breath as their block’s outer door banged shut and the wooden bar that locked the occupants in for the night was slid into place. The guard trudged away. Midnight was lights-out time in the blocks, and camp rules meant that all blackout shutters had to be open so that guards could look inside. Even in 104, escape central, the shutters were opened when the witching hour arrived. Out in the compound, a Luftwaffe hündefuehrer was on the prowl with a fierce German shepherd on a leash.
Brickhill lay listening for sounds that would indicate the break had been detected. It was impossible to sleep. Not long after midnight, the camp’s air-raid sirens began to wail. The RAF was bombing Breslau, fifty kilometres away. In the Kommandantur, a guard threw a switch, and the camp’s lights were abruptly dowsed. Stalag Luft 3 was thrown into darkness. Only later would Brickhill learn that this caused a lengthy delay in the breakout. Escapees could get by without the electric lighting strung along much of Harry’s length because it was supplanted by candles. But because the blackout also closed down the camp’s perimeter lights and tower searchlights, the Luftwaffe doubled the guard. With tw
ice as many vigilant sentries walking the perimeter, it was judged too risky to try to make the move from tunnel exit to woods. Only after the sirens sounded the all clear and the guard was reduced could escaping resume. By 2.45, the blackout had ended and roughly thirty men had made it out. In 104, men continued to file to the trap to follow their colleagues in the slow, jerky exit from Harry.
A little before 5.00 that Saturday morning, a rifle shot rang out on the northern edge of North Compound. It was heard all the way back at 104. A guard had stumbled on an escapee emerging from the tunnel exit, then spotted two others on the edge of the woods. The guard blew his whistle, then, shining a torch down Harry’s exit shaft, found a fourth man on the ladder. All hell broke loose, above and below ground. Armed troops came dashing from the guardroom, and inside the tunnel scores of frantic kriegies attempted to retrace their way back to 104. In the block itself, small fires broke out as escapers tried to burn forged papers – which might get them shot for espionage.
Some escapers launched themselves out 104 windows and tried to run back to their original blocks. A Spandau machinegun chattered from the goon tower near the Cooler, and 9mm bullets whistled over running men’s heads, putting an end to their flight. Retreating to 104, they awaited their fate with their comrades.
The Hero Maker Page 11