1949-04-09 — Page 9

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 1949.

First of a short series of extracts from the BOOK THAT IS THRILLING ALL BRITAIN

THE

GREATEST

ESCAPE

How two brave and ingenious men scratched their way out of a prison camp while the watching sentries thought it was all a bit of fun

F

by... ERIC WILLIAMS

LIGHT-LIEUTENANT base covering an area of five PETER HOWARD feet by three feet,

ply.

stood with his hands. The sides were covered

with two-feet square wood sheets from Rel Cross packing cases.

Shoring plywood

of the prisoners began to vault.

in his pockets in the com- Stalag-Luft III. pound of It was the spring of 1943.

Outside the barbed-wire. fence the sentries watched. Slowly Peter began to walk round the circuit of the bedding and covered with watching wire.

The sides tapered up to the top, which was of solid wood boards padded with

arrived

four

5ft.

Main wire

Trip wire

Vaulting horse with

bags of sand

45 H. to trip wire -

Shoring bodboards

The guards, bored with

"That's 75 feet. the prisoners. The wire itself is

from

of the wire, turned towards the unusual spectacle.

so that makes 83 feet.

white linen material taken walking the endless circuit about eight feet thick His friend Captain John from the bales in which the Clinton, one of the few cigarettes Army officers in the camp. home. walked with him. He had There were been captured in Africa, a four inches long by three year before and brought to inches wide, cut in the ply this grim place in the heart wood sides. of a Silesian pine forest.

slots.

When pieces of rafter six feet long had been

The conversation verged to the subject that all pushed through these holes. prisoners escape,

talk About -

The standard of vaulting was high. The captain of the team fed his men in a complicated series of jumps.

"We should brenk at least 30 feet away from the wire because of the sentries. That gives us 113 feet alto- gether. That's it we go straight.

"Allow s bit for going round rock or tree roots and make it

One man failed

Only one of the men was the horse could be carried not so good. His approach by four men in the manner was clumsy and his vault a round figure of 120 of a sedan chair,

"The only way is to make

ing not up to the standard a tunnel as short us pos- John had posters adver- of the others. sible-start, somewhere out tising gym classes which here, near the trip-wire," would be held every after- said John.

noon.

"But that's impossible," Special prisoners were said Peter. "Every spot of detailed to talk to the Ger- ground near the trip-wire man guards, remarking on is in full view of three this typical English craze guard boxes and two out-

sun.

►

on

aide sentries. Besides, how would you get the away'?"

walked They

in silence. "There must be a way," said Peter.

we

"All

need is some- thing to cover it with some sort of innocent activity."

WOODEN HORSE Like sedan chair SUDDENLY an idea raced

JOIN CLINTON—his real

name is Michael Codner.

feet."

to

EL

That evening Peter made the top section of the shoring for the vertical shaft with four sides of a piy- wood packing case.

Every time he failed clear the horse he drew guffaw from the surround ing prisoners.

John manufactured twelve The more the spectators bags from the bottoms Jaughed the more de-

trouser legs. termined this man appeared

30ft, to main wire

Guard bok

37 ft. lo break-out

8 ft bolwoon wires

Section of tunnel, showing one man

in vortical shaft pulling back basin of sand from man in foremost bulge.

PETER HOWARD-who has written the story under his real

name Eric Williams.

and

surplus

He finished the trench of put a plywood sheet down over Several which he spread the trowel, packing the

to be to clear the obstacle. Prisoners had made them-ramming it down with the

selves

He took a final, desperate leap, and in missing his footing he lurched into the horse and knocked it over.

He knocked it over on lo its side so that the interior

view was in full

ԵՐ the guards.

ahorts by cutting tight. their trousers off above the knee.

DUG TRENCH Sand dispersed

marks,

.

Area

three session taklug

out at a time.

"We'd like you lo

the vaulting and the

of the sand."

"OK." Philip

come in.. But I

twelve

organise

disperant

snld. "IL

clon't think

we've a hope in hell of CVCr #etting out."

Made a 'bulge'

With the new system of dig- ging the tunnel made progress. They enlarged the end to form a "bulge" large enough to allow the man working at the fner to rest on his elbows nnd draw his kwes up under his chest.

For carrying the sand down the tunnel they used n metat basin 10 Inches in diameter and eight Inches deep.

Two holes had been drilled In opposite sides of the rim of the busin to take the rope which they had platted from string off the Red Cross parcels. When the bulge was finish- cd-it took them four days to remove

Uno

extra cand-the tunnel was driven on.

Before the tunnel was Onish-

ed they had to construct three bulges in its length.

was

One mun worked in the tun- shoring

nel extension dragging the sand Finally he sprinkled the grey backwards into the bulge. sand over the whole

in the bulge he Once

pulled coveral

the horse the basin up the tunnel, past his obliterating his foot and finger stomach, where he filled it with feet and over his legs on to his

Calling softly to Peler,

sand he had brought back. he the gave the word that he had

Two pulls on the rope BEN John had sewn the bot- finished.

the signal for the man in the The vaulters W tons together, roughly hem-

the shaft to pull back the basin of staggered sand. and Inserted carrying poles and

bnck: into the canteen with He then tipped the basin over while the sand wis then dispersed in worker in the bulge crawled up

the extension various places around the com-

more sand. pound.

They had been troubled by lack of air in the tunnel.

ined the

tops

inserted

was empty string the trouser legs had be-. John and the bags of sand. The and led his botts

The horse The vaulters righted the box and went on with their sport.

come bugs.

made two sand

Went 5 ft. down

fashioned

from hooks strong wire with which to sus- the Soon they carried

pend the bags Inside the horse.

They

plts. horse hack into the can one at the end of where the teen...where they left it un-horse-was. _standing... They It took them four days to til the following afternoon, served as a mark to ensure that Before they left the can- they always replaced the horse teen they tied pieces of black cotton ACTONY the. doorway and from the edge Some days later the few of the horse to the skirting

walkers afternoon

were board.

through John's mind- the Trojan

The horse. wooden horse of Troy?

**A ̄ ̄ ̄vaulting horse," he --- explained rapidly, "a box horse like we had at school. You know, one of those for exercise and telling square things with a pad them casually, about ded top and sides that go vaulting-horse. right down to the ground. We could carry it out every

the

on the exact spot,

Next afternoon they took the horse out with John insile it. He 100k with him, a eard board box to hold the surface sand, the trouser-leg bags and vertical shoring, and 21 stolen brick- layer's trowel.

surprised to see a team of The following morning hooks, one side of the prisoners dressed in shorts the cotton, march down and form up in During

day and vault over it.

"One of us would be in

side digging while

the

WAN broken. the night the been a line near the trip. wire. vaulting-horse had

They were followed by examined.

others vaulted."

What about the sand?"

men-

"We'll have to take it the four strongest back with us in the horse bers of the team carrying every day. Use a kithag or the box-like vaulting horse something."

slung on wooden poles.

The horse creaked and lurch- ed As the bearers staggered under ihe unaccustomed weight. They got it into post- tlon and began to vault.

120-ft, HOLE Under the wire WEEK, after Peter and face sand, he John

walking

were

"It'll have to be a bloody The box was carried to a A

spot inside the trip wire, strong horse."

the round the circuit, "Oh, we'll manage it all carefully placed on

ground and the poles with- We've got about 45 feet right."

to go to the trip-wire, 30 They built the vaulting drawn.

the across horse. It

four stood

danger The team formed up and foot feet six inches high, the under the direction of one strip.

STOOGE

CONFERENCE

FREE SPEECH & OPEN DISCUSSION

BASIC PRINCIPLE DISTINGUISHING DEKIOCRACY FROM BACKWAED SYSTEMS COMMUNISM FASCISM,ELO

SUSPICIOUS

CHARACTER

Now they found that sufficient air was pushed up the tunnel by the passage of the basin. Yet it was Impossible-to

TCS

main in the extension for more than a few minutes.

If for any reason the basin Win not kept moving the. of air became dan-

sink the four sides of the box. Finally they had hade a hole aft, deep and 2ft. Bins, square. It was possible to stand in the shaft, but not to kneel. To get into the tunnel

they were shortage forced to make a short burrow

in the opposite direction. Into this they thrust their feet while kneeling to enter the tunnel.

The first 7ft. of the tunnel was shored solid with bed- boards.

trous.

A DIVERSION Bend in tunnel

they had progressed to that they calculated the

it

the

After that the tunnel ran on tunnel must be nearing com- without any shoring whatever. pletion, John became convinced The tunnel

Was very small that it was veering to the left. While onc Di them. above Peter was convinced that supervised the vaulting, the was straight. Inside John worked quickly;

the tunnel. other dug in

He After considerable argument scraping up the dark grey sure worked alone, Once he got they decided to put it to

put it into the into the tannet with his hands test.

Peter crawled to the end of cardboard box and started to in front of his head he had to dig a deep trench for one aide stay like that.

the tunnel with the rope of the of the shoring.

He could not get his arms basin tied to his ankle. He behind him again. Nor

could took with in a thin metal doubled poker about four feet long.

John sat in the shafi holding the other end of the rope while above Philip stood gazing out through the wire, hands in poe- kets.

He put the yellow excavated sand into the trouser-leg bags.

It was hot inside the horse, and he began to sweat.

ENTRY TO U.S.A.

· Worte "Copyright.”~By arrangement with Eventag ́standard!

he crawl with them

up.

"It was fingers and toes all the way until he got to the end of the tunnel.

Once he got there he scraped some sand from the face with a trowel and crawled back wards down the tunnel drag ring the sand with him.

Peter, lying in full length at the end of the tunnel, forced the poker slowly upwards through the roof.

By the sudden lack of resis- tance he knew that it was pro- truding above the surface.

When he got back to the ver- tical shaft he had brought enough sand to an half a bag. And there were 12 bags to fill. He gave two tugs on the rope

There was no light in the to tell John that he tunnel and very little alr. Ho, through. worked naked, and as ho

was

John knocked on the Inside messenger

sweated the sand caked on him, of the horse and a

He

got sand in his eyes, in his ears, and in his nose.

was sent across to Philip.

Then Philip saw the poker. It was under the wire, but 15 feet broke to the left of where Peter had

expected it to be.

They grew segs on their elbows and knees and

their finger-nails.

As the tunnel Grew longer the work became more difficult and the air more foul.

THREE WANTED

Another recruit*

Last decisions

The following morning Peler, John and Philip walked round the wire completing their plans, "We shall have to mole the lust ten feet." Poter

said, By the end of August, they "We're under the wire new and had gone 401 And they we've 12 days to go to the end had come to ono conclusion of October. they could not go on alone.

Another man had to be add- ed to the company. They found Philip Rowe standing near, the shower baths.

"We want you to Join us," John Bald.

"What do you wont mo do?"

"If we're lucky we shall do another six feet by then.. That puts us about three feet out- side the wire.

"There's shallow diteb about 12 feet beyond the wira and If we can manage to strike to that it will give us some, tover for the break." (London Ex- press Service.)

f

""We're going to work on new system now, We're both going down together with n toboggan and rope-and we'll dig thirty-six bags in one ses-

lon and then- spend the next.

NEXT WEEK

The break-out

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