The Grand Escape

by Neal Bascomb

  One of the other “escape fiends,” William Colquhoun, decided on a new course: straight through the wire. The Canadian lieutenant, 28 years of age and 6 foot 6 in height, had proved his mettle on the front. In early 1915, he earned the Military Cross while retrieving a mortally wounded officer under intense fire. When he was captured, a German soldier looked him up and down and asked, “Are all Canadians as tall as you?” Colquhoun responded, “Well, they call me Shorty.” One day, in broad daylight, Colquhoun cut a hole in the fence around Clausthal, stepped through, and ran. Such was the brazenness of the attempt that the guards didn’t notice. Some children playing in pine woods outside the camp spotted him, but the guards didn’t believe them. By the time the Germans realized that he was gone, he was already far away.

  A week into his 212-mile flight to the border, Colquhoun was captured by a German searching for an escaped Russian. Hours after being sent to the nearest prison camp, he busted through the skylight in his cell. He was caught again three days later by some trackers with dogs. Unbroken, he used his long arms to reach through the viewing slot in his cell door and take the key out of the lock. Although starving and exhausted, he stole a bicycle and pedaled off to the north. The bike broke, and, while trying to fix it, he was taken again. This time he was returned to Clausthal.

  Blain and Kennard were just as bent on escape. They dyed some clothes black to resemble the camp workers’ outfits, then forged papers using a typewriter for the text and an official stamp made with the lid of a small tin, a two-mark silver piece, and the ink from a toy printing set sold in the canteen (of all places). Then they walked straight out the gate. They only made it a few steps before the guards caught wise and hauled them back inside. Wolfe confiscated their escape kit and sentenced them to solitary once more.

  It was a cruel punishment, particularly when extended for long periods of time. The isolation, the absence of physical exercise, the interminable days and nights with nothing to do but brood—all could sap a prisoner of hope or drive him mad.

  As well as individual punishments of periods in solitary confinement, Wolfe made life at Clausthal collectively harder for its prisoners. Parole walks were stopped, and searches of rooms became ransacks. Some of the prisoners believed the “escape fiends” were the source of all their troubles and frowned on anyone who tried. Blain and Kennard paid no heed to these complaints, carried on through the punishments, and ignored the threat of death for even plotting an escape. They simply wanted to be free and far away from these hated Germans.

  Wolfe made sure the two inveterate escape artists would not be escaping together from his camp. To their chagrin, the commandant removed Kennard to a different camp, breaking their partnership. Blain and Kennard were on their own.

  As the fall of 1917 neared, prisoners throughout Germany learned through the Poldhu grapevine that their captors were forming a new camp in a town called Holzminden. Expectations were high. According to the Poldhu, it was to be a “prisoner’s Mecca—fine, brand-new buildings, spacious grounds, good scenery, good air.” They did not know whether this was true, but the very possibility fostered great debate, both dour and hopeful.

  Lieutenant Colonel Charles Rathborne looked out into the dark night of September 11, 1917, from a train headed northward from Heidelberg. Crowded into his carriage were two dozen other British officers. They passed town after town, but, except for a brief stop in Kassel, the train never slowed, thwarting a plan by several prisoners to escape by leaping from a window. They were destined for Holzminden, the first group to be sent to the new camp.

  Broad-shouldered and thickset, Rathborne had soft features and a welcome smile. One likened his visage to “the face of an archbishop.” Whatever his look, it belied the grit and ambition underneath. Private-school educated and fluent in German and Italian, Rathborne joined the Royal Marine Light Infantry on his eighteenth birthday. He quickly rose through the ranks, his superiors remarking that he was “keen,” “energetic,” and “very good in taking charge of men.” In 1912, sensing that air flight was the future, he trained to become a pilot. At the outbreak of war, he was named a flight commander, then a squadron commander, then he was placed in charge of an operational wing. The mission on which he was shot down was likely one he could have sent others to perform.

  As a POW, Rathborne proved no less capable. In May, he arrived at a camp in Karlsruhe, where he assumed the role of senior British officer. He fielded pleas from his fellow officers for better conditions and convinced the commandant to provide them. Escape was a high priority, but his first effort to walk straight out the gate in civilian clothes was foiled by a spy who gave away the hiding place of his escape kit. Before he could concoct a new plan, the order came for the transfer to the new camp of Holzminden.

  It was after midnight when the train finally stuttered to a halt, and Rathborne and the others disembarked. In the 21 hours it had taken to travel from Karlsruhe, they had been given nothing to eat and had slept only a few halting minutes in the overpacked carriage. They dragged themselves and their few belongings a mile east to the edge of the town. At last, they arrived at the Holzminden officer camp. The former infantry barracks, built a year before the war, was ringed by tall stone walls and lit by electric arc lamps. Guards directed them through the arched main entrance on the camp’s western side. Although exhausted and desperate for food, they were made to assemble in rows on the cobblestone path in front of the barracks and forced to wait in the chill of the night beneath the glare of arc lamps.

  Charles Rathborne before the start of the war.

  After a long time, a beetle-browed camp officer strode up, smoking a cigar. Captain Karl Niemeyer was tall and stout, like an upright rectangle. Except for his brows, his bowling ball of a head was pasty white and cleanly shaved. He wore a military cap, perched at a rakish angle. Niemeyer opened by saying that he was happy to see them, as he was “glad to see any Englishman,” many of whom he called “great friends” before the war. He hoped this would be the case again, but, “in the meanwhile, war was war.” He advised that they would be best served, “y’know,” to write straightaway to their families and friends “for your thickest clothes, y’know. It is very cold here in winter, y’know.” He concluded, “So now, gentlemen, I expect you will be glad to go to your bedrooms. I will wish you good-night. You will be searched in the morning.”

  Holzminden.

  With that, the guards took them to the third floor of one of the two main barracks, a four-story whitewashed building with a mansard roof covered in slate. As they climbed the steps, many of the prisoners still believed Holzminden might well live up to what the Poldhu had promised. Some imagined “bedroom candles and a comforting nightcap” awaiting them. They were divided into three rooms with high ceilings and bare walls. The rooms had stoves, but no coal or wood to fuel them. Each officer had a small cupboard, a stool, and an iron-framed bed whose mattress was filled with straw, wood shavings, and paper. Although they were desperately hungry, the guards offered no food and the doors clanged ominously shut when they left.

  Karl Niemeyer.

  Still, Rathborne and the others continued to hope for the best.

  When the morning roll call was made, the 25 officers gathered outside. If they had been hungry the night before, now they were nearly faint. Beside Niemeyer stood the titular head of the camp, Habrecht. An elderly man, he had the look of a doddering old fool and merely stood by and watched as his camp officer addressed the new arrivals. Niemeyer asked if they had breakfasted. The men answered no. Niemeyer promptly ordered his guards to prepare a meal, the likes of which, he promised, “you wouldn’t get in Regent Street or Piccadilly.” Visions of bacon and grilled sausage overcame the British officers. They hurried to the dining hall on the second floor of their block, only to be served some tepid imitation coffee made from acorns. Nothing else. When Rathborne complained, Niemeyer pretended that he could not understand why they were upset.

  As day after day passed, the officers in Holzminden
were allotted little more than cabbage soup and small portions of bread. They quickly grew to despise Karl Niemeyer. A bully of the first order, he was beholden to a rash temper and a thin skin. He skulked about the camp in his starched uniform and high cavalry boots, smoking a huge cigar while seeking out trouble like a dog would a bone. No slight from a prisoner—a weak salute, a roll of the eyes, an impertinent remark—passed unnoticed or unpunished.

  The prisoners did not hold back in the descriptions they recorded in their diaries and their letters home. He was a “cad,” “a low-bred ruffian,” “the personification of hate,” “a bloated, pompous, crawling individual,” “a man of unbridled ferocity and bravado,” “a cheat,” “a plausible rogue,” and “a coward with all the attributes of one: he deceives, he is cruel, he blusters, he is dishonest, he cringes.” Prone to apoplectic fits of rage, typically while brandishing a revolver or his walking cane, Niemeyer ran down and threatened prisoners with a zeal that left him red-faced and panting for breath. The root of his grievances was unclear, and, given his propensity to tell lies, his background was murky. Although born in Germany, he spent seventeen years in the United States. He might have tended bar in Milwaukee. He might have built billiard tables in New York. He might have done both. His stories changed as often as he told them. Despite being in his sixties, he claimed he had fought at the Somme—for one week, he said, which “had been enough for him.”

  A despicable character, Niemeyer was the perfect choice for General von Hänisch, head of the 10th Army District and responsible for overseeing POW camps in his area. He wanted Holzminden, a camp established to hold the most troublesome Allied officers in Germany, to be ruled by someone who viewed his charges as nothing better than criminals.

  Over the course of its first month in operation, officers poured into Holzminden in the hundreds, many of them inveterate escape artists from camps across Germany, including Ingolstadt, Freiburg, Augustabad, Schwarmstedt, and the dreaded underground prison Fort Zorndorf. Holzminden was in no way ready to house the hundreds of POWs and the guards who oversaw them. The cookhouse lacked dishes and had only three pots. The wash rooms had but a handful of taps and no showers. Nor was there a parcel room or a canteen from which to buy goods. If this was a prisoner’s Mecca, it was a spartan one, the epitome of disorganization. There was too little food and not enough fuel to heat the stoves. Habrecht became overwhelmed. Prisoners practiced in the art of escape knew that the best chance was often in a camp’s early days when chinks in its security had yet to be discovered. The chaos at Holzminden added to this opportunity.

  The prison was a series of secure enclosures, one smaller than the next, like nesting dolls. On the outside was the rectangular stone wall, eight feet high and topped in places with a barbwire palisade angled at 120 degrees to prevent climbing. Within this was a half oval—like the shape of the letter D—protected by a 12-foot-high fence of thick mesh topped by another barbwire palisade. A chain of sentry boxes was positioned directly outside this fence. Six feet separated this enclosure from another barrier, which was the same shape and made from a simple three-strand wire fence strung on low wood posts. The space in between these two fences was no-man’s-land. Prisoners were allowed only within the inner enclosure, which contained the barracks and the Spielplatz (a dual parade ground and exercise yard). In a sense, Holzminden was a prison within a prison within a prison, all set 150 miles from the Dutch border.

  Two prisoners recently arrived from Fort Zorndorf were particularly keen to find a way out. Canadian infantry officer John Thorn, captured on the front in April 1915, had made several breakout attempts at previous camps, one of them dressed as a German war widow, black crepe veil and all. His partner was RFC pilot Wally Wilkins. Thorn and Wilkins scoured the camp for weaknesses and found a significant one. The two barracks—known as Block A and Block B—were of identical design. Each had a main building, 50 yards long, with wings at the ends that extended back and away from the Spielplatz. Each had two entrances (one at either end) facing the main grounds. Inside, stairs at both ends ran from the cellar up four floors to the low-ceilinged attic. An entire third of Block A—including the wing closest to the main gate, outside all the barriers apart from the surrounding wall—was reserved for the Kommandantur, the offices and sleeping quarters for the German staff. Wooden walls separated this section from the quarters of the British officers, and it had its own entrance.

  Holzminden from the outside, its high fence and sentry boxes in clear view.

  Thorn and Wilkins figured that if they could open up the wooden barricade on the attic level, then they could enter the Kommandantur headquarters, come down the stairs, and exit Block A just beside the main gate. The gate was in the part of the camp occupied only by Germans, so its lone guard was unlikely to be suspicious of anybody leaving through it, especially anybody dressed in German uniform. Late at night, they snuck out of their rooms in Block A and went up to the attic. In two hours, using only a penknife, Wilkins managed to cut a small panel out of the barricade wall, which was constructed from wooden planks, two inches thick and bound with wire. When they removed the panel, they found another wall of boards, thicker than the ones on their side and secured with six-inch nails bent at the ends. Wilkins was unfazed. He needed only to straighten the nails and sever their exposed ends. Then he could push the boards free. A penknife, however, would not do for the job.

  Informed of the need for wire cutters, several of their friends searched the camp, and not half a day later a pair was nicked from a German soldier who was fixing the fence. After lights-out, Thorn and Wilkins returned to the attic and finished their escape hatch. A quick inspection of the German side confirmed their theory that they could access the stairs. Then they replaced the two panels, hoping they would not be discovered too soon. Next, they prepared to go. One of the prisoners had smuggled a sewing kit into Holzminden with him. Within a couple days he whipped up two jackets and two pairs of gray trousers with red stripes down the sides. Food for their border run was donated by their fellow prisoners.

  On September 28, the day they were meant to go, Wilkins came down with a high fever. Knowing that the hatch might be discovered at any minute or that a new security measure might sink their plan, he gave his place to Reginald Gaskell, a British Indian Army captain and fellow veteran of Fort Zorndorf. After answering to their names at the last roll call of the day, Thorn and Gaskell returned to the barracks, donned their disguises, and placed their civilian clothes and knapsacks into two of the plain sacks the guards often used during work detail. An hour later, they crawled through the barricade wall in the attic, replaced the panels behind them, and descended the stairs into the Kommandantur. Just before they got to the door, they saw Habrecht and several other Germans. They continued on, not saying a word. Nobody stopped them. Once outside, they made a beeline for the main gate and did not slow down until they had passed the guard and were out and away.

  The next morning roll call came, and still there had not been an alarm. When a guard called the names of Thorn and Gaskell, their fellow prisoners answered for them. Then Niemeyer arrived onto the Spielplatz and summoned Thorn—something to do with contraband found on him when he first arrived at Holzminden. Not wishing to risk further subterfuge, a British officer who had helped prepare the escape stood forward. In a calm voice, he announced that Thorn “had left the evening before on a journey to Holland.” A great cheer rose among the prisoners, sending Niemeyer into a steam. He demanded the roll call again, and Thorn and Gaskell were found missing.

  Commandant Habrecht, a man predisposed to inaction, left the matter for Niemeyer to handle. He ordered everyone to return to the barracks, and a search began for how the two officers had escaped. Bloodhounds were brought in. Freshly arrived from Clausthal, “Shorty” Colquhoun shared a room with Thorn. Thinking quickly, Colquhoun sprinkled cayenne pepper into his fellow Canadian’s old shoes. Then he took Thorn’s socks and replaced them with his own. The same was done for Gaskell. Soon enough, the guard
s gathered up the escapees’ remaining clothes and shoes and brought them out onto the Spielplatz. The bloodhounds first took the scent of the socks and began racing around the camp like they were chasing ghosts. Watching from the windows, Colquhoun and the others could barely contain their laughter. Then the dogs buried their noses in the boots laden with pepper. After a good whiff, they went completely mad, leaping about, hurling themselves back and forth, their handlers barely able to keep a grip on their leashes. Shouts and hollers followed from the windows. Enraged by the scene, Niemeyer drew his revolver and brandished it at the barracks.

  After an intensive inspection, which failed to uncover the hatch, the Germans had no idea how Thorn and Gaskell got out undetected. A drain, sniffed out by the dogs, was suspected as a possible route until its diameter was determined too small to fit a man. Still, it was cemented closed. Wilkins, who was by now feeling better, decided to use the attic hatch for himself the following night. Others aimed to follow. For all its rings of defenses, perhaps Holzminden was not the unbreakable fortress that Niemeyer boasted.

  Then on October 1, 1917, Holzminden was visited by General Karl von Hänisch of the 10th Army Corp Division, an ogre of a Prussian officer and Habrecht and Niemeyer’s superior. The Poldhu relayed that Hänisch’s son had been killed by the British, and it was clear he hated them. The prisoners, now numbering over 500, paraded into the Spielplatz and drew together in straight lines, under the close watch of Niemeyer. They showed proper form and answered their names promptly when called. They had only just started to receive food parcels to supplement their diet, and they intended to give the general no reason to stop deliveries or to make their lives any more difficult.

  All the staff, from Commandant Habrecht down, were present, dressed in their finest uniforms, their boots polished to a shine. The previous night another handful of prisoners had got away, their method unknown, and Niemeyer intended to use the escapes to get himself promoted over his superior. General Hänisch was quiet throughout the roll call, but as he toured the barracks and other facilities he made no secret of his feelings toward the prisoners. They were “barbarians” and “schweinhunds,” and, in his opinion, “they did not deserve to be allowed to live, let alone receive letters.” Niemeyer agreed. No treatment was too harsh for their enemy.