by Damien Lewis
Also By Damien Lewis
World War Two:
War Dog
Judy: A Dog in a Million
Churchill’s Secret Warriors
The Nazi Hunters
Hunting Hitler’s Nukes
SAS Ghost Patrol
Smoky the Brave
SAS Italian Job
SAS Shadow Raiders
SAS Band of Brothers
Modern Day Elite Forces:
Operation Certain Death
Bloody Heroes
Cobra 405
Zero Six Bravo
Operation Relentless
Co-authored by Damien Lewis:
Sergeant Rex
It’s All About Treo
Fire Strike 7/9
A Dog Called Hope
Operation Mayhem
X Platoon
Homeland
This ebook published in 2021 by
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PICTURE CREDITS
1, 2 and 3: Courtesy Teresa Bonfiglio; 4, 6, 11 and 13: Imperial War Museum, London; 5 and 9: Bundesarchiv, Bild 141-0864 / CC-BY-SA 3.0/101I-782-0009-01A / Moosmüller / CC-BY-SA 3.0; 7: Courtesy of Bournemouth News and Picture Service; 8 and 14: Courtesy Mayne family private collection; 10: Courtesy of National Army Museum, London; 12: Langton family private collection; 15: Courtesy SpecialForcesroh.com; 16: Courtesy family of Major Eric Bill Barkworth; 17: Courtesy Chris Drakes; 18 and 19: Courtesy Jonathan Peck; 20: Author’s collection; 21: Author’s collection
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For the great escapees as depicted in these pages.
And for all who slipped the clutches of the enemy,
so as to continue the fight against Nazi tyranny.
The hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men.
Henry David Thoreau
Contents
SAS Great Escapes
Also By
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Author’s Note
Preface
Great Escape One
Great Escape Two
Great Escape Three
Great Escape Four
Great Escape Five
Great Escape Six
Great Escape Seven
Acknowledgements
Sources
Bibliography
Picture Section
Author’s Note
There are sadly few survivors from the Second World War operations depicted in these pages. Throughout the period of researching and writing this book I have sought to be in contact with as many as possible, plus surviving family members of those who have passed away. If there are further witnesses to the stories told here who are inclined to come forward, please do get in touch, as I will endeavour to include further recollections of the operations portrayed in this book in future editions.
The time spent by Allied servicemen and women as Special Service volunteers was often traumatic and wreathed in layers of secrecy, and many chose to take their stories to their graves. Memories tend to differ and apparently none more so than those concerning operations behind enemy lines. The written accounts that do exist tend to differ in their detail and timescale, and locations and chronologies are sometimes contradictory. Nevertheless, I have endeavoured to provide an accurate sense of place, timescale and narrative to the story as depicted in these pages.
Where various accounts of a mission appear to be particularly confused, the methodology I have used to reconstruct where, when and how events took place is the ‘most likely’ scenario. If two or more testimonies or sources point to a particular time or place or sequence of events, I have opted to use that account as most likely.
The above notwithstanding, any mistakes herein are entirely of my own making, and I would be happy to correct any in future editions. Likewise, while I have attempted to locate the copyright holders of the photos, sketches and other images and material used in this book, this has not always been straightforward or easy. Again, I would be happy to correct any mistakes in future editions.
Preface
In 2016 I had the good fortune to be approached by an influential member of the Special Air Service regiment, who asked if I would be interested in telling the story of how the SAS had hunted down Hitler’s war criminals in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. I had heard about this incredible tale, but knew that without access to solid source material – Second World War-era reports, war diaries, personal recollections – it would be impossible to relate. That individual offered me all of this and more, for which I am hugely grateful. The resulting book – The Nazi Hunters – is one that I am immensely proud to have written.
At one stage in the story related in that book, in the autumn of 1944, a Canadian airman was shot down over the border between occupied France and Germany. That man, Flight Officer Ronald Lewis ‘Lew’ Fiddick, managed to evade the enemy and, with the help of the French resistance, linked up with SAS forces operating deep behind the lines in the Vosges Mountains of north-eastern France. Those men would go on to form the core of the SAS Nazi-hunting unit that would track down some of the most elusive war criminals, until their operations were brought to a precipitate end in 1948.
The SAS’s hit-and-run exploits in the Vosges were legendary. Aiming to ‘cut the head off the Nazi snake’, this elite, behind-the-lines unit targeted senior enemy officers, shooting apart and blowing up their staff cars, before melting away, wraith-like, into the Vosges’ dark forests and hills. But Fiddick’s story particularly stood out. Made an honorary member of the SAS following the dramatic way he slipped the enemy’s clutches after his aircraft was shot down, his subsequent escape and evasion took him from the war-torn Vosges all the way back to friendly lines.
From there I developed a fascination for similar tales of astounding bravery, resourcefulness and endurance, as members of the SAS risked all to evade enemy capture from the earliest years of the unit’s formation until the e
nd of the Second World War, and across all nations in which they served. There are scores of such stories, and my selection of the seven related here reflects the many theatres and wide means by which such escapes were executed, and features some of the key individuals involved. Suffice to say, a dozen more volumes of such tales could be written, featuring similarly compelling and dramatic tales.
The seven stories I’ve chosen embody the wider esprit de corps and attitude of the Special Forces’ great escapees of the Second World War. Of course, the incredible endeavours portrayed here were not the exclusive domain of the SAS: other elite forces and indeed regular units have their own share of similarly heroic tales. But as the SAS pioneered and perfected such escape and evasion techniques, it is only right that the stories of their exploits should lead the way.
So, in that spirit let me take you to the first in a dramatic series of escapes and evasions, which last from the earliest years of the Second World War until its very final stages.
Great Escape One
Escape from Colossus
The fleet of eight Armstrong Whitworth Whitley medium bombers flitted across the moonlit Sicilian countryside, destination mainland Italy. Inside the aircraft were thirty-six raiders hell-bent on pulling off a mission of unprecedented daring, but one on which the odds were stacked against anyone returning alive. Forming part of No. 11 Special Air Service Battalion – the forerunner to the Special Air Service proper – they included some of the British Army’s finest.
Four days earlier they had been shivering in the bitter winter rain and fog of an English winter, as the seemingly invincible Nazi war machine attempted to bomb the island nation into submission. Now, they were poised to execute an utterly audacious operation, one that had the personal blessing of Winston Churchill – dropping into the heart of Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, to blow up that nation’s life-giving watercourse, the Aqueduct Pugliese, which supplied fresh drinking water to three million Italian souls.
If they succeeded, they would destroy not only the water supply for the major cities in the south of the country, but also that supplying the country’s key ports, including Taranto and Brindisi, which were vital to Italy’s campaign in North Africa. Depriving those ports of water could shut them down completely, massively boosting Britain’s fortunes in the war.
According to the raiders’ commanding officer, Major Trevor Allan Gordon – ‘Tag’ – Pritchard, their mission, codenamed Operation Colossus, would be ‘an experiment to see just what we can do. We’re pioneers, or guinea pigs, whichever way you prefer to look at it.’ They were indeed guinea pigs, for this was to be the first ever airborne operation by Allied forces, no Allied troops ever having parachuted into combat before.
One of Pritchard’s men, Lieutenant George Paterson, of Canadian origin and a sapper – a demolitions expert – by trade, was to play a pivotal role. At six-foot-three, Paterson – known as ‘the Big Canadian’ – was an easy-going but tough giant of a man, hailing from the city of Kelowna, in British Columbia. But as they flew towards the target Paterson’s mind was consumed by one thing only – the sense of his nerves knotted tight in his stomach.
Over his headphones, Paterson heard the Whitley’s pilot announce that they were twenty minutes away from jump-hour. Shaking his corporal, Jack Watson, awake, he began to rouse the others. His men had seemed to suffer few of the nerves that he had, for most had slept soundly through the long flight.
With the red jump-light switching to green, Paterson took a grip on his fears and leapt into the darkness, drifting down towards the shadowed countryside. Below and above him the fellow men in his stick were likewise suspended beneath swathes of parachute silk. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he caught sight of the aqueduct, its silhouette bold and clear on the mountainside.
Once safely on the ground, he and his men broke out their weapons and explosives from the containers, which had also been dropped by the Whitley. Armed up, they began to climb the ravine leading to the aqueduct itself. In the distance, a faint rumble of explosions broke the silence. That had to be two Whitley bombers carrying out their diversionary attacks on Foggia rail yard, a vital link in Italy’s wartime logistics. Hopefully, any watchers who had seen the fleet of British aircraft fly overhead would presume that all had been engaged upon that bombing mission. That at least was the plan.
As Paterson and his men reached the aqueduct, the mission commander, Pritchard, brought them up to speed. On two counts there was bad news. One: the Whitley carrying the main team of sappers was missing, along with the bulk of their explosives. Paterson being the only sapper remaining, it now fell to him to come up with a plan to demolish the aqueduct. Two: as the raiders gathered together all their explosives, the sum total amounted to less than seven hundred pounds in weight, or just a third of the amount they’d expected. Some was lost on the missing aircraft, while the rest must have frozen solid in the Whitley’s bomb-racks, and failed to drop.
Undaunted, Paterson went about assessing the target. The mission briefings had stated that the aqueduct’s three piers were constructed of masonry, but Paterson soon discovered the grim truth: they were made of reinforced concrete, and that took much more explosive power to destroy. The plan had been to blow all three piers, shattering the aqueduct from end to end. That was now impossible, with such limited explosives to hand and knowing the true nature of the aqueduct’s construction. All Paterson could suggest was that they concentrate all their charges on the one pier, and hope for the best. He began packing the crates of explosives against the target, before adding the detonators and a length of fuse, at which point he informed Pritchard that all was ready.
At 0029 hours on 11 February 1941, with everyone backed away a safe distance, Paterson lit the fuse and rushed to join Pritchard in the cover of some boulders. But as the seconds ticked by there was no detonation. Eventually, Paterson decided to go and see what was wrong, taking Pritchard for company. After creeping forward a few yards, they were stopped in their tracks by a sound like a massive clap of thunder erupting before them.
A whirlwind of debris erupted skywards, showering the men with clouds of blasted rocks and mud. As the thick pall of dust and smoke dissipated, the two men held their breath in hope: had the charges done the trick? The air cleared to reveal a beautiful sight: half of the aqueduct was down. The target pier had been demolished completely, and another was leaning badly, leaving the precious water of the Apulian Aqueduct cascading down the ravine and away into the valley beyond.
Against all odds, Operation Colossus had succeeded. It was now that Tag Pritchard revealed to his raiders their escape plan: they were to trek westwards through the Apennine Mountains, which form the spine of Italy, making for a coastal rendezvous with a British submarine, HMS Triumph. Six days hence, Triumph was scheduled to pluck them off Italy’s western shores and to safety – but only if they could make it.
With no time to lose, the men split into smaller parties, in an effort to escape and evade a vengeful enemy. Major Pritchard led one group of would-be escapees, along with Lieutenant Anthony Deane-Drummond, his second in command. Lieutenant Paterson took charge of another. They formed up and headed into the snowbound mountains, in a desperate effort to avoid capture and whatever grim fate would then follow.
Paterson led the way with his group, heading up the mountain slope over treacherous ground. In no time they were ankle-deep in freezing mud, which sucked at their every step. Husbanding their precious reserves of water, they stopped to quench their thirst at every stream they came to. Just before dawn, they took refuge in a shallow ravine. Over portable stoves they brewed tea, before trying to eat their pemmican, the fatty porridge that constituted their main rations. But its heavy, greasy consistency made the men gag, and those who did manage to get it down them soon found it paying an unwelcome return visit.
Sticking to the cover of that ravine, they hid during the hours of daylight, only setting out again come nightfall
. Moving through the high peaks of the Apennines, the going proved horrendous, as Pritchard and his men struggled to keep going in the bitter cold. Despite a second night’s hard march, they’d barely managed to cover seventeen miles come daybreak, their every footfall dogged by treacherous ice and snow.
Having lain up in hiding for a second day, Paterson decided they had no choice but to risk taking to a road, to speed them in the direction they needed to travel. They were exhausted, frozen stiff, famished and their progress through the mountains was proving too slow to make the rendezvous with the British submarine. By contrast, taking to that night-dark road enabled them to cover six miles in the first two hours. Spirits lifted. Paterson pushed them on at pace, moving past a crossroads, before coming to a stone bridge. But they were barely over that, when a group of heavily armed Carabinieri – the Italian military police force – burst out of hiding, weapons at the ready.
At first, Paterson and his men tried to argue that they were German troops on a night exercise, but it fooled no one. By now local villagers had gathered: men, women and children, over a hundred of them, and some armed with shotguns. Sensing resistance was futile, Paterson and his men were rounded up and taken to a small village. Handcuffed, they were packed onto mule carts for the journey to the local town gaol. At gunpoint, they were ordered into the cells, whereupon they discovered that some of their fellow Operation Colossus raiders, including their CO, Tag Pritchard, were already present, having been taken captive just a few hours earlier.
After an uncomfortable night in the cells, the Operation Colossus captives were transported to the city of Naples, by train. On arrival, they were driven to the military prison – an archaic building that resembled a medieval dungeon. There, Paterson was thrust into a cell, his guard stating in broken English that he was to be shot. The grim reality finally hit home. In the cell that night, believing he faced imminent execution, Paterson thought about his family back in Canada and his life before the war – studying hard, drinking beer with his mates – and of the pretty blonde typist he had had his eye on. Come daybreak, he was led into another room, to undergo interrogation by the Questura, Fascist Italy’s secret police. But despite their many attempts to extract information, and the death threats, Paterson maintained a rigid silence.