Carrying a ladder borrowed from the camp theatre and a bag stuffed with electrical cables he walked casually over to the warning fence, waving a salute to the guard in the watchtower. The guard beckoned him on. He propped his ladder against the fence, climbed up and began a lengthy pantomime, pretending to check the telephone lines. Gradually he worked his way round to a part of the fence which separated the compound from the Kommandantur. There, according to Crawley, he ‘deliberately dropped his test meter among the barbed-wire entanglements but close to the German side of the fence’.3 He cursed his clumsiness and turned in appeal to the guard. Was it all right if he climbed over to retrieve them? The guard nodded. Grimson scrambled over and ambled off to await a suitable moment to brave the main gates. Eventually he made his move. The sentries glanced at his forged identity card and waved him through. Once safely out of sight he removed his workman’s overalls. Underneath he was dressed in a sober suit of the sort worn by the Gestapo, with a swastika lapel badge.
Now, at Schubin railway station, he seemed to have decided to join the prisoners on their journey to the Baltic. He had little difficulty boarding. It emerged later that he had told the officer in charge that he was a security official who would be coming some of the way. He left the train near Stettin, but was picked up four days later while trying to find a neutral ship, and packed off to Heydekrug where he would play a central role in escape activities.
The journey was slow and erratic. The train followed branch lines, apparently to avoid the risk of being bombed if they took main routes. This took them hundreds of miles out of their way, heading westwards towards Berlin before moving north and east. Outside Berlin they were shunted into a marshalling yard and the train stopped. ‘Soon we heard the heavy throb of aircraft engines as Allied bombers rolled over the city,’ wrote Bill. The sky was illuminated by swivelling searchlights and anti-aircraft fire. Many of the men in the carriages had served in Bomber Command and ‘clapped and cheered from this unexpected ringside seat as the German capital took a pasting’.4 It was a small raid by a handful of Mosquitoes but the kriegies revelled in the thump of descending bombs, jeering at the guards who sat in the partition dividing the carriage. Fingers flicked at triggers. One guard cocked his weapon. Just as it seemed the prisoners might have goaded the Germans beyond endurance, the quiet voice of Dixie Deans ordered them to pipe down. The tension subsided, the din faded and the train moved on again.
Stalag Luft VI lay on a flat, sandy peninsula that jutted into the Baltic two miles from Heydekrug, not far from the old Teutonic city of Memel. It was surrounded by swamps and woodland and often covered by mists that rolled in from the sea. A strong northerly wind blew all year round, carrying fine sand that worked its way into every crevice and stung the eyes. It was in the middle of nowhere. The roads around it were mostly cart tracks and its principal link to the outside world was a single-track railway that ran from Memel to Tilsit, today Sovetsk in Russia.
The camp was divided into three compounds, ‘A’, ‘E’ and ‘K’. The new arrivals from Sagan were put into ‘A’. The layout was drearily familiar, with its fences, guard rails and watchtowers. Heydekrug had been in operation since 1939 and held successively Polish, French and Russian POWs. It was now reserved for air-force prisoners and over the next eight months would fill up with 6,000 Allied and American airmen. They were housed in long, single-storey brick buildings, whitewashed on the inside and divided into nine rooms each holding fifty men. One wooden barrack was set aside to accommodate a group of thirteen prisoners who were regarded with particular disfavour by the Germans, for persistent attempts to escape or pronounced anti-German attitudes.
In his new guise as Don Fair, Bill was not identified as one of the bad boys. His decision to swap identities, ranks and places caused puzzlement among some of the NCOs. His record as a determined, if so far unsuccessful, escaper went in his favour, though, and he was soon being consulted for expert advice by the cadre of escape-minded prisoners. The escape committee was known as the Tally-Ho Club, a name that Bill found amusingly redolent of upper-class England. It was headed by Warrant Officer R. J. ‘Jock’ Alexander, who had held the same position at Sagan, and overseen by Dixie Deans. The democratic spirit which prevailed among the NCOs brought its problems. Most of the prisoners were sergeants and did not take easily to being given orders by men of equal rank. There was another problem. The camp history written after the war admitted that the majority of prisoners were ‘generally apathetic to escape matters’.5 Unless the committee could rely on the at least tacit support of a majority of the kriegies, their chances of success were limited.
Before getting down to serious planning they decided to make a direct appeal to the compound. Committee members went around the barracks ‘outlining the ideals of the Escape Organization’ and suggesting ways in which every prisoner could help. They included donating clothing and bed boards, ‘adopting an attitude of wariness towards the Germans and to give a warning if a German was in or near a barrack room’ and to ‘avoid holding conversation or [engaging in] trading activities with Germans as this was to be done on an organised basis with selected individuals.’
The last was particularly important. Unbridled trading between inmates and staff seems to have got underway almost immediately. Heydekrug was run by the Luftwaffe. In all there were about five hundred administrators, ferrets and guards, most of whom had no previous experience of dealing with British and American prisoners. The exception was Major Peschel, the kriegies’ old adversary from Sagan, who had been brought in to command the Abwehr anti-escape department.
The dispiriting news seeping from the Eastern Front had persuaded some guards that there was no harm in cultivating friendly relations with their captives. Others were simply seduced by the merchandise that the kriegies had to barter. In this outpost of the German empire, chocolate and cigarettes were luxuries. When the Red Cross parcels were flowing, the prisoners had plenty of both. But there were also anti-Nazi guards at Heydekrug who saw their charges as kindred spirits. At least two of the ‘contacts’, as the escapers called camp staff who could be useful to them, were acting out of ideological motives. They would eventually pay a high price for cooperating with the prisoners.
The committee wanted to control the camp’s black market in order to lay their hands on the items they most needed for escapes. They authorized about two dozen ‘traders’, all of whom spoke some German, to forge links with guards and camp staff. They sounded them out with friendly approaches, asking for help improving their language skills, then rewarding them with small gifts. Once a degree of trust had been established they made small requests in return, which gradually increased in significance. In this way they were able to amass a wealth of valuable material, including German uniforms, cameras and photographic equipment.
Some of the entrepreneurs who were trading for personal profit resisted the appeal to their better natures. One recent arrival complained to Deans that his rights were being trampled on. Bill recalled that Dixie’s normally placid demeanour dissolved and he ‘turned himself up to full volume’, yelling at the grumbler, ‘Good men are out there getting killed in the air every night and other good men are in here risking their lives trying to escape and you talk about rights? Get out of my sight!’6
The camp history recorded that most of the prisoners came to ‘realize that the ideal of escape was a worthwhile object’ and that ‘bitter complaints and active opposition were expressed by only a few individuals.’7 However unauthorized trading remained a problem, and in the end Deans was forced to issue an order forbidding it.
The committee also had to take the prisoners’ opinion into account when it considered its escape strategy. Initially, most attention was focused on tunnelling. It was decided early on to concentrate on one tunnel at a time rather than multiple projects. The reasons were interesting. The committee cited the usual practical difficulty of disposing of excavated soil. But there was also the social cohesion of the camp to be considered. The camp h
istory noted: ‘It was felt that the discovery by the Germans of one tunnel after another would have hampered the plans of the escape committee regarding other methods of escape by placing the escape organization in a position where its activities could be ridiculed by the majority of [prisoners] who were not interested in escape, but whose cooperation, or at least inactive resistance, was essential to the success of the organization.’
By pressing forward with an escape bid in the face of general apathy the committee was taking a risk. Failure would wipe away what prestige they enjoyed and undermine the structures of authority controlling a robustly independent-minded community. They knew that when they decided on which tunnel they were going to go for, it had better be a good one.
Bill’s experiences in Schubin had earned him the status of tunnelling expert. After surveying the possibilities within ‘A’ Compound, Bill believed that he had found a location which offered a good chance of success. Once again, latrines were involved.
On the west side of the compound was a washhouse which combined toilets, showers and a room equipped with giant copper boilers where the prisoners could do their laundry. An initial exploration revealed that the structure of the latrine was much as it had been at Schubin, the toilet seats suspended over a sewage pit bounded by brick retaining walls. Using the same methods as at Schubin it was surely possible to breach the brick wall, excavate a chamber and begin burrowing.
Together with a sergeant called Paddy Flynn, Bill led an exploratory team to begin work. It was just like old times. They lowered themselves through a hatch made in the toilet seats and inched along a ledge set in the wall to the chamber entrance. Very soon though they made an unpleasant discovery. The water table was only five feet below the surface, much higher than at Schubin. As they shovelled dirt from the tunnel, the water level rose, filling it with diluted sewage. There was no way around the difficulty. Digging was abandoned.
Then a prisoner called Jack Catley came up with a solution, involving the washhouse copper boilers. These sat over metal fireboxes which held the burning coal that heated the water, and were held in place by wooden frames. Here, it seemed, was the perfect cover for a tunnel entrance. It was a simple matter to lift the boilers from their frames. Then they could cut a hole in the bottom of the firebox, break through the concrete floor and sink a vertical shaft to a level just above the water table. From there a chamber could be excavated from where horizontal digging could begin. Disguising the entrance was simple. All that was needed was a concrete lid to fit the hole and a removable piece of metal for the bottom of the firebox. Getting in and out was quick and convenient. It took only a few minutes to remove the boiler, lift the metal and concrete covers and slip into the shaft. Lookouts could warn of approaching Germans and the tunnellers could be out long before they arrived, with time to slip under the showers to wash off any telltale sand. Meanwhile, helpers in the laundry room would transfer a few shovelfuls of coal from one of the other fireboxes to the empty tray and pour water from another boiler into the copper. A quick sluicing of the floor to wash away any traces completed the cover-up.
Initially ventilation was provided by a standard kitbag bellows. Then someone had a better idea. If the boiler was actually lit, it would act as a flue. As the tunnel progressed they poked unobtrusive holes to the surface, so the outside oxygen was sucked back along the shaft, creating what Bill described as ‘the first air-conditioned escape tunnel in the Third Reich’.8
Work began early in July. The labour was hard. The high sand-content in the soil made it treacherous, and cave-ins and floods were frequent. Elaborate shoring was required to prevent collapse, with a box frame made of bed boards every two and a half feet and a complete wooden roof overhead. Because of the high water table they could not burrow too deep. The geography of the camp created extra difficulties. The tunnellers used wooden sledges to haul back the earth from the face. Because there were underground drain pipes between the washhouse and the perimeter fence, the tunnel could not be dug straight. Men had to be stationed at the bends to make sure that the sledges and haulage ropes did not erode the tunnel walls.
The sand itself was piled in the entrance chamber and shovelled into kitbags which were hauled up after the afternoon Appell. The bags were then carried into the latrine area. The floor was made of wooden planks which were easy to lever up. The spoil was poured evenly over a wide area to disappear into the sea of sewage.
While the diggers burrowed, the committee was busy acquiring the material the escapers would need once they broke out. Fifty men were scheduled to take part, all of whom would need identity cards, maps, clothing and food. Keeping a judicious eye on the enterprise was the calm, efficient Deans.
His coolness was extraordinary, as was demonstrated when a display of sangfroid averted a certain tragedy. One day a prisoner received a ‘mespot’ from a woman at home telling him their relationship was over. Just as Flight Lieutenant Edwards had done at Schubin, he ran towards the warning wire, stepped over and began to climb the fence.
The drama was witnessed by Dixie Deans, who was enjoying a stroll around the compound with his deputy and friend Ron Mogg. Deans shouted at the guards not to shoot. Then he stepped over the wire himself, trusting they would recognize him and hold their fire. ‘Arms raised, he walked slowly across to the man, who was now sobbing, clinging to the barbed wire and waiting for the bullet that would put him out of his misery,’ wrote Bill. ‘Instead he heard the quiet, calm Scottish voice of Dixie Deans, who gently disentangled him from the wire and led him back to safety.’9
They had been lucky. For every guard who was willing to chat and trade with the kriegies there were others who would happily shoot them, given the opportunity. A prisoner was fired at for throwing washing-up water from a basin over the guard rail, and hit in the arm. A guard in a watchtower opened up with a machine gun at a kriegie who threw some cigarettes to a Russian POW working nearby, in defiance of German orders. A British sergeant who tried to break out of E Compound was shot dead after he surrendered. An American prisoner making an early trip to the washhouse before the permitted hour was also killed by a guard. As the prisoners had to remind themselves, the Germans might sometimes show a civilized side, but you had to remember that they were capable of anything.10
Though new to the business, the camp authorities were soon alert to any sign of suspicious activity. The ferrets carried out regular searches. They wisely assumed that the fact that they had not discovered any evidence of tunnelling did not mean that there was none going on. Their suspicions were shared by the local Gestapo, who one day turned up at the camp and joined the Abwehr staff in a whirlwind search, rampaging through the huts, ripping up floorboards and turning out cupboards.
By now the Gestapo was playing an increasing role in the running of the camps. ‘During 1943 the Gestapo… interfered more and more in the affairs of the armed forces, including prisoner of war camps,’ wrote Aidan Crawley, ‘interfering not only with the activities of the prisoners but of the Germans who guarded them.’11
The raid was a partial success. A quantity of documents was seized along with escape clothing, maps and compasses. The main objective of the operation was a failure, however. The tunnel entrance under the laundry coppers was undisturbed and once the Gestapo left normal business resumed.
Early one morning Bill was on his way to work in the tunnel when he heard a long, low rumbling, and the earth trembled beneath his feet. For a joyful moment he thought it was the thunder of Soviet artillery, but then the rumble turned into a roar. ‘Out from behind some buildings came one of the most eager ferrets, looking pleased with himself, and mounted on a huge steamroller that belched smoke as it trundled around the perimeter,’ he wrote.12 The driver was a corporal called Heinz, an enthusiastic Nazi who was as unpopular with his comrades as he was with the kriegies.
Heinz steered the five-ton machine back and forth, up and down the length of the compound, with the obvious intention of collapsing any tunnel in his path. But, as A
idan Crawley told the story, ‘after the roller had travelled some distance it became stuck in a patch of soft sand and the smile on Heinz’s face faded. The more he tried to extricate the roller by accelerating the engine, the more deeply it became embedded.’ A crowd soon formed to enjoy his misfortune. ‘The prisoners began to jeer and Heinz, who understood English perfectly, became angry.’ After ‘each fresh effort had been greeted with roars of laughter from hundreds of throats he stalked off in a towering rage and returned with a small army of Germans carrying planks.’13 Eventually the steamroller was freed, but the manoeuvre had failed. When Bill reached the boiler room he found the diggers, who had sat out the ordeal underground, unharmed and the tunnel intact.
The episode made everyone wonder how much longer their luck could last. By now it was late August and the tunnel was 140 feet long and already about 40 feet beyond the perimeter fence. The ground above did not offer much cover and the escape committee’s view was that it should continue for another thirty feet so that the escapers would emerge just inside a patch of woodland, out of sight of the watchtowers and the perimeter sentry patrol. The question of whether to break the tunnel now, even though the chances of detection by the guards was increased, or carry on and risk it being discovered was hotly debated.
A group of escapers was determined to go early, and seemed willing to defy the committee and go ahead without its approval. To calm things down it was decided to hold a meeting to determine the matter. The tunnel was long enough to accommodate fifty men. On the morning of 29 August, those selected to go gathered to weigh the arguments. The committee chairman, Jock Alexander, told the meeting that their intelligence sources suggested there would be no further large-scale searches for some time, and highlighted the dangers of an early exit, where the risk of being spotted – and shot – by the guards was high. He asked them to wait another week until the last section could be dug. Others countered that the tunnel was already far enough from the wire for the escapers to leave it under cover of darkness in reasonable safety.
The Cooler King Page 18
