The Grand Escape

by Neal Bascomb

  “Halt!” a German sentry ordered.

  Bennett and Campbell-Martin knew what they had to do. They barely gave each other a look before they charged straight through the trees at the sentry, their sticks at the ready. Their sudden movement shocked the soldier, and he stood frozen as Bennett swept past, running so fast he did not have the time, nor the need, to use his stick. Campbell-Martin followed close behind. They found a break in the barbwire fence and raced through it. “Halt!” the sentry shouted again. The crack of a rifle echoed behind as they charged headlong into Holland. The first shot, and the next, missed. They ran and ran until they splashed into the Dinkel River in free Holland. On the opposite bank, they collapsed and shook hands. Together, both at the same time, they said, “We’ve made it!”

  On the morning of August 5, hidden in a stretch of woods outside Lathen and beyond the Ems River, Gray, Kennard, and Blain had their last meal—some Horlicks tablets (a mix of dried milk, barley, and wheat). Other than a couple squares of chocolate each, they were completely out of food. To warm them, Blain served out the few ounces of cognac left in his flask. They had long since smoked their last cigarettes, but the spirits offered some relief before the rising chatter of birds in the trees signaled that it was time to sleep.

  At twilight, Gray spread out the last remaining section of the map. This was reason enough to be encouraged. He sensed his partners’ spirits needed bolstering—and maybe his own too. There were no major roads to cross and only a few small hamlets to circumvent along their path, almost due west. On the map, the amorphous form representing the Walchumer moor separated them from Holland, eight miles away. A single night’s march and they would be across the line, enjoying a hearty breakfast. Or, if things went the other way, they might be shot trying to cross.

  The three airmen soon fell into the maw of the Walchumer.

  They trudged through its narrow channels, across islands of peat, and into hollows that were waist deep with fetid water. Every step was unsure, their boots almost always either in a stream or buried in sticky mud. They slipped and stumbled, floundered backward, sideways, every which way. Often it was impossible to move forward without leaning on one another—or asking for a hand or a yank on their rucksacks to loosen them from the moor’s sucking grasp. Night crawlers slithered underneath their clothes, and clouds of insects swarmed around them. If the three had known more about the Walchumer, they would have circumvented its clutches for sure.

  Hour after hour, they struggled through, never on a straight compass line. Rain pelted down, mixing with the sweat in their eyes, and the sky was black. After 14 nights of marching, the previous two on little more than nibbles of chocolate, their bodies had no reservoirs of strength to offer.

  What kept them going? Many things. The shame, unwarranted though it was, of being shot down and captured. Imprisonment—in one camp after the next—months, years, stolen from their lives. The separation from their squadrons and their families. The narrow escapes. The recaptures. Solitary confinement, sometimes pushed to the brink of madness and death. Holzminden. Its petty annoyances, its waiting, its drumbeat of theft and deprivation. The endless hours of tunneling, the terror of the dark, the fear of collapse and suffocating in the bowels of the earth. All the setbacks and the stubborn effort. And Niemeyer. His venomous harangues, his never-ending abuses. The thought of Niemeyer, of besting him, was reason enough to continue. Above all, they wanted to be free, to be masters of their own lives again, to simply take a walk where and when they pleased.

  It was approaching 4 a.m. on August 6 when Gray spotted a string of faint lights ahead. There were no towns nearby to explain their presence. Unless they had trekked far off their line, these had to be arc lamps illuminating the border. The first blush of dawn would soon appear, and they needed to be across the frontier before then. They crept slowly through the moor, feeling the stir of danger enlivening their bodies. The rain muffled their movements, but they made sure not to cough or splash in the puddles underfoot. Soon they were close enough to see a high dyke and on top of it individual lamps hung on posts, each spaced roughly 200 yards apart. German sentries paced back and forth between the posts, silhouetted by the light.

  They discovered that the dyke was a sloped wall of mud and grass roughly 12 feet high. Backs flat against it, hidden from the sentry patrolling above, they took a few minutes to calm themselves and to ease their breathing. Then they started to watch the guard’s routine: how long it took him to walk from post to post; how long his eyes would be turned away from them; whether he made any pauses along the way. Unable to see beyond the embankment, they had to take on faith that it would be a continuation of the moor. Once “over the top,” Gray whispered, they would have to run as fast as they could through the bog. Only the darkness would protect them.

  The guard paced away from their position, and Kennard turned to climb the dyke first. Digging the toes of his boots into the wall, grasping some bunches of short grass in his hands, he made it a few feet up before slipping down. His next attempt had the same result, and for an instant they feared the embankment might be insurmountable. Then Gray had an idea. Bracing his back against the wall, he threaded his fingers together, palms up, and told Kennard to step into the hold. This he did, and, with a quick jerk, Gray launched him up against the embankment. Kennard gained some purchase, enough to get his feet on Gray’s shoulders to stop himself sliding down. Suppressing a grunt as Kennard bore down on him, Gray cupped his hands together again and heaved Blain up in the same way. Blain then used Kennard as a ladder to clamber to the top of the embankment.

  At that moment, the sentry turned and came back toward them. Blain pressed himself against the edge of the dyke wall, fingers clawed into the mud, trying to keep himself from tumbling backward. Kennard supported him as well, with Gray holding up the human ladder at the bottom on already-exhausted legs. The sentry turned again, passing close enough to kick gravel down on top of them, but Blain remained unseen. After a short countdown, fearing Gray might buckle at any second, Blain scrambled up onto the gravel track that ran along the top of the embankment. As the sentry distanced himself, Blain yanked Kennard up to his side. Now they had to get Gray up before the German turned.

  Forming a chain, Blain at the top, grasping Kennard by the legs, they leaned over the embankment and reached for Gray. Desperate as he was to reach them, his boots slipped on the mud like it was slushy ice. Every attempt he made to mount the few feet he needed to grasp Kennard by the hand ended in a tumble down to the dank moor.

  Gray spotted that the sentry was about to turn back in their direction. “Duck!” he warned. Blain and Kennard slithered off the gravel track and clung to the edge of the embankment. With every second that passed, their fingers were losing the strength they needed to keep their hold. Both kicked their boots into the wall for support only to create a tumble of mud that splashed into the puddles below. They were sure they were lost at that moment, but the sentry continued on his beat, and Blain and Kennard climbed back up onto the track.

  Gray had one more idea. If it didn’t work, they would have to go on without him. Kennard stretched down as Blain held tightly on to his legs. Gray tied together the straps of the two rucksacks (his own and the one Blain had left behind). “Catch!” he hissed. He burst up the wall, throwing the bundle up at the same time, holding its end tightly. Kennard grabbed the bundle and hauled Gray up the side of the wall. Blain heaved them both up onto the embankment. At last Gray scrambled to the top, and the three sat gasping on the track. They could go on together.

  The trio had barely realized that they had been successful when they heard the sentry yelling and saw him start to come toward them. “Run!” Gray shouted. “Down the bank! Run!” They leaped over the side of the dyke, tumbling and sliding until they hit the bottom. Then they hurled themselves blindly out across the moor. Rifle shots rang out behind them followed by curses and shouts in German. But the sentry was aiming at shadows in the dark and missed. They rushed on across the uneven
terrain until the sentry’s threats faded behind them. Then they slowed, but kept moving until Gray was sure they were well out of range and far over the border.

  He drew to a halt, and Blain and Kennard stopped beside him. “It’s all over,” Gray said, throwing an arm around each of their shoulders. “We’ve bloody well made it!” Together they yawped, leaped up and down, hollered, and splashed in the marshy moon like schoolchildren in a puddle. In all his young life, Blain had never experienced such joy; it overwhelmed him. Kennard felt the same. He sat down on some grass and ate the last sliver of chocolate, which he had saved to celebrate if they made their home run. Then he wept.

  “That, dear friends and fellow lunatics, is the Dutch village of Sellingen,” Gray said, looking northward at a halo of lights. Then he returned to his usual restrained self and rallied them to their feet. “Come on, then. Let’s not waste time. There’s a war on, you know.”

  Outside Sellingen, Blain, Kennard, and Gray surrendered to the first patrol they could find. The Dutch soldiers received the three of them as if they were honored guests and took them to the nearby town of Coevorden. Put up in top-class accommodation at the Hotel Van Wely, they ate, shed their filthy clothes, bathed and shaved, then collapsed into beds that must have felt like clouds. The next day, they telegrammed their families. The notes were spare but glorious. Kennard’s read: “Escaped and arrived safely in Holland. Expect me home shortly—Caspar.”

  Three other Holzminden escapees, John Tullis, Stanley Purves, and Edward Leggatt—all RFC—joined them at the hotel the next day. The six had a photograph taken, wearing wooden clogs, together with the owner of the hotel. Although their faces were gaunt from malnutrition, they all wore the looks of conquering heroes. Soon after, the Dutch military escorted them by train to Enschede, where they idled for a week in quarantine, segregated from a large contingent of German deserters. Bennett and Campbell-Martin met them there soon after. Including Rathborne, who had already gone ahead to England, and Lieutenant John Keith Bousfield, 10 of the 29 who escaped Holzminden made it to Holland.

  A signed photo of Blain, Gray, and Kennard after their escape, in the outfits they wore.

  It was the greatest escape of the war. Secret cables from the British Consulate in Rotterdam informed London, where Lord Newton and officials in the War Office, Military Intelligence, and the Air Ministry celebrated the triumph. Even before the escaped officers left the quarantine camp, brief reports about the tunnel escape were hitting newspapers across Europe and in the United States. The New York Times headlined “British Prisoners Dig Out” but offered few details since the sensational nature of the breakout had yet to be fully revealed.

  On the evening of August 15, the Holzminden escapees boarded a small ship in Rotterdam. They had new clothes, temporary passports, and a pocketful of money for their journey to London. As part of a large convoy escorted by destroyers, the ship pulled out of the Dutch harbor and traveled a circuitous route across the Channel. The following morning the officers were moved beyond words by the sight of the English shoreline. They docked soon after in Gravesend. From the window of their train to London, Gray watched the countryside pass. It all looked as it always had: the rise and fall of fields bordered by hedges, cows lazing in the sun, towns tucked into hollows. Although he and the others had received updates about the war’s progress, including the renewed Allied offensive that began only a week before, they still feared that their homeland had been ground down into a hopeless state—as German propaganda had promised for years now. Arriving at the station, they found the platforms crowded with young men in uniform. Outside, buses and taxis crammed the streets, and pedestrians thronged the sidewalks. Shops were open and restaurants bustling. To their quiet relief, Britain was alive and eager still.

  A telegram from Kennard to his family informing them that he’d escaped to Holland and would be home shortly.

  Dispatched straight to the War Office, the men underwent a series of interviews, mostly run by the Intelligence Department, to learn about their experiences and what they had seen during their captivity in Germany. Gray delivered his report of prisoner abuses from earlier in the war. Then, as one escapee recorded, they were instructed to “take three months’ leave and get fat.” Before there was any meat on their bones, King George V invited them for a private audience at Windsor Palace, then sent a kind personal note to each officer. Blain’s read as follows: “The Queen joins me in welcoming you on your release from the miseries and hardships, which you have endured with so much patience and courage. During these many months of trial, the early rescue of our gallant officers and men from the cruelties of their captivity has been uppermost in our thoughts. We are thankful that this longed for day has arrived, and that back in the old Country you will be able once more to enjoy the happiness of a home and to see good days among those who anxiously look for your return.”

  Gray, Leggatt, Purves, Kennard, Blain, and Tullis after their escape to Holland, together with a Dutch police officer and the hotel owner.

  As the tunnelers reunited with their families, reports of their breakout spread. Now that the details could be revealed, their exploits captivated the nation and the world. “The Tunnel to Freedom: British Officers’ Escape from German Black Hole” said the headline in the Daily Sketch. “Daring Escape” echoed the Evening Express, in bold. With so much sacrifice and horror on every front, the Holzminden escape was a bright banner of hope—not to mention proof of British derring-do. The 10 men were put up for Military Cross medals.

  A congratulatory letter from King George V to Cecil Blain.

  Newspaper coverage of the escape.

  Despite all the attention that the Holzminden breakout artists got, most of them simply wanted to get back into the fight. As soon as their leaves were over, Gray and his fellow pilots Blain and Kennard returned to their duties. They had a war to win.

  In the period after receiving Rathborne’s telegram, Niemeyer seemed to go absolutely mad. Whether it was because of shame over the mass escape or too much drink, he became untethered. He raged at his charges like never before, accusing them of insurrection. He fired off his revolver into the air at the slightest provocation. He stabbed his cane at the laundry the prisoners hung from the wire fences—a sight that one officer likened to Don Quixote tilting his lance at windmills. Continued escape attempts, mostly by cutting the wire, only throttled up his temper even more.

  As he had threatened to do, Niemeyer court-martialed the 19 recaptured prisoners. On September 27, officials from Berlin arrived at Holzminden to hold the trial there. The defendants were charged with mutiny and with “conspiring to destroy Imperial Government Property.” Deciding that the indictment was a farce, some of the officers gave suitably farcical answers to questions about their name, rank, religion, and prewar occupation. One declared himself a shepherd, others a diamond trader, a grammar-school pupil, a pensioner. The judges sentenced the lot to six months’ solitary confinement in a prison fortress for “having made an escape by force with united forces.” But with 250,000 American troops landing in France every month, Allied advances puncturing holes in the trench lines across the Western Front, mass desertions of German soldiers, and civil unrest in Berlin and elsewhere, the war promised to be over long before they had to serve even a fraction of that sentence. Negotiations for an armistice were already in the works.

  Within days of the court-martial, Niemeyer suddenly turned into the prisoners’ friend. He hired a photographer to come into Holzminden and made clumsy attempts to joke with the men and to gather them into happy groups for shots. “They would all be home for Christmas,” he promised. No longer did he bluster around the yard, cock of the walk. He stayed mostly in the Kommandantur, inviting the senior British officer Stokes-Roberts to his office, approving most requests. Fewer roll calls, longer parole walks—whatever the men wanted. Niemeyer was aware that the British authorities knew all about his activities at Holzminden—Lord Newton having once demanded his removal—and he feared being t
ried for war crimes. When some prisoners warned him that justice would come calling, he claimed that he had “always done all he could for the officers and that if there had been any unpleasant orders, they came from above.”

  On November 11, the Armistice was announced, along with the news that Kaiser Wilhelm II had fled to the Netherlands, his rule over Germany at an end. Throughout the camp, portraits of the Kaiser disappeared. The prisoners tossed their caps in the air. They cheered and danced in the Spielplatz and removed the German flag that flew from Block A. They freed those still in the solitary cells and drank and feasted and partied into the wee hours of the night. Neither the guards nor Niemeyer tried to stop them. In fact, Niemeyer immediately shed his uniform for a plain suit and declared to the camp, “You see, I am no longer a Prussian officer, but a Hanoverian gentleman.” He had good reason to be worried: Socialist revolutionaries had already assassinated Hänisch. The following day, while the officers and orderlies at Holzminden wondered how and when they would return home, Niemeyer disappeared, no doubt with the riches he had extorted from them. Most of the guards fled as well. A company of German soldiers was sent to watch over the camp, but they largely allowed the men to do as they liked.

  Dick Cash was one among many who used the new freedom to take walks into town. Holzminden’s residents were in a desperate state, and they nearly rushed him when he presented packages of rice and tins of cocoa for trade. Many were starving, and the Spanish flu—a pandemic that would infect 500 million people worldwide—was beginning to claim lives.

  Weeks passed without word of their fate, and the prisoners’ supply of food soon dwindled down to potatoes and cabbages. The Germans handed out pamphlets sent from Berlin, entitled A Parting Word. They began, “The war is over! A little while—you will see your native land again.” The propaganda promised a new Germany and concluded, “The valiant dead who once fought against each other have long been sleeping as comrades side by side in the same earth. May the living who once fought against each other labour as comrades side by side upon this self-same earth. That is the message with which we bid you farewell.”