Great Escapes

by Barbara Bond

  Sheet A1 Schaffhausen Salient (West), printed on silk.

  Sheet A2 Schaffhausen Salient (East) printed on paper and taken from the Bulletin.

  Detail from Sheet A2 showing the Swiss–German border at a crossing point that was used by several escapers including Neave and Luteyn during their escape from Colditz (see page 160).

  According to the War Diary, by 8 May 1940, MI9 was despatching this ‘special map of the Northern Swiss frontier near Schaffhausen with a memorandum on the prevailing conditions in the area obtained from MI sources’. This was clearly sheet Y. It is fascinating to try to discover just how MI9 was able to produce such a detailed map which contained so much local intelligence information, and key to the story is the role played by Johnny Evans.

  His role as a lecturer, user of coded correspondence as a means of escape, and source of ideas for escape aids, has already been discussed, particularly in Chapter 1, but it was really in the production of sheet Y that his contribution appears to have been even more significant. Evans had been a Major in the newly formed Royal Flying Corps in World War I. He had been involved in the Somme offensive in July 1916, overflying the German front line in an attempt to take out their gun batteries. His aircraft engine failed and, although he survived the crash landing, he was immediately captured. Because his brother had been captured at Ypres, and the family had received no news of him for over a year, together with the statistical likelihood of capture as a member of the fledgling Royal Flying Corps, Evans had had the foresight, prior to his deployment, to set up a coded contact system with his mother. His mother was able to maintain contact with him once he had been captured and she succeeded in providing maps and compasses, secreted inside food parcels, to aid his ultimately successful escape.

  A sketch map of the escape route of Johnny Evans from near Nuremburg to Switzerland in 1917, from his account, The Escaping Club, published in 1921.

  Evans, and his colleague, Lieutenant S. E. Buckley, originally with the Northamptonshire Regiment and later with the Royal Flying Corps, escaped from a train whilst being moved from one camp to another. They walked over 200 kilometres (130 miles), south from the point where they jumped from the train close to Nuremburg, all the way to the Swiss border. They had decided not to attempt to board a train but rather rely on walking to the border and staying off the beaten track. It took them eighteen days to reach their objective, the Schaffhausen Salient, and cross safely to freedom in Switzerland. Their biggest challenge was to find enough food to sustain them and they resorted on many days to digging up potatoes from the fields they passed as the meagre rations they carried had run out early in their escape. They did, however, have the ‘excellent maps’ which Evans’ mother had sent him and ‘accurate and detailed knowledge of the whole route . . . to the frontier’ acquired from fellow prisoners who had escaped, been re-captured and had briefed fellow escapers on the detail of the route to freedom. However, Evans clearly recalled the problems they had faced on this particular stretch of the border and, specifically, in knowing precisely when they had reached safety. On such a winding stretch of the border, it was easy to be confused and cross back into Germany by accident. The detailed textual information which appeared on the northern edge of sheet Y clearly reflected his own, first-hand experience, as follows:

  On no account should the railway line Singen–Schaffhausen to the South be crossed, as the course of the frontier then becomes complicated, and it could be possible to cross into Switzerland and then immediately back into Germany through ignorance of the frontier.

  Evans became convinced that his World War I experience might prove of value during a second war which many began to anticipate in the 1930s.

  Evans, however, went further than simply recalling his World War I experience and offering the benefit of it to MI9. As Hutton described his actions, he decided to spend a holiday cycling around the Schaffhausen district in 1937. His objective was to photograph both sides of the section of the German–Swiss frontier across which he had made his ‘memorable march to freedom’. The fact that sheet Y carried detailed textual directions on the nature of the frontier alignment doubtless reflected his own experience. Evans subsequently joined MI9 in 1940. While no record has been found which clearly identifies sheet Y as the product of Evans’ foresight, there is much circumstantial evidence to support such a hypothesis. It is a matter of record that the map covers the same stretch of the German–Swiss frontier across which he had escaped to freedom in World War I; he produced much of the intelligence described in minute detail on the map; he was certainly a committed member of the MI9 staff from the beginning; the map of the Schaffhausen Salient was one to which MI9 attached great significance and Evans was, from the beginning, regarded as one of their best lecturers at the Training School. Hutton reinforced the perception of Evans’ contribution by emphasizing the extent to which Evans’ photographs of the Schaffhausen Salient proved invaluable to MI9’s work. These photographs are likely to be the ones reproduced in the MI9 Bulletin showing detailed views of the topographic and landmark features which would be of most navigational significance to those attempting to escape across this particular stretch of the frontier, including views of river banks and areas patrolled by German border sentries.

  There were many escapes through the Schaffhausen Salient which were documented in the records, almost all of which were initially highly classified. Pryor had asked for maps of the Swiss border in one of his coded letters and he also mentioned in his memoirs the escape attempt by Lieutenant R. F. Jackson on 2 February 1944. Jackson was fluent in French and was furnished with papers indicating he was a French national. Having succeeded in getting clear of Marlag and Milag Nord camp, he travelled south by train to Schaffhausen, a considerable distance from the camp in northern Germany, and then made his way on foot to the border. Unfortunately, in the dark, he stumbled on a trip wire and was caught by guard dogs before he was able to cross into Switzerland. It is notable that he chose to travel south to the Swiss border, which had been the area for which Pryor had originally requested maps in 1942. Whether or not Jackson had access to maps is not mentioned by Pryor. The importance of the route and of the maps produced of the area is shown in the story of the escape of Airey Neave from Colditz.

  The prisoners’ courtyard at Colditz.

  AIREY NEAVE’S ESCAPE FROM COLDITZ

  Airey Middleton Sheffield Neave was born in London on 23 January 1916. Educated at Eton, he went on to read jurisprudence at Merton College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1938. At the outbreak of war, Neave (already in the Territorial Army) became a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. He was sent to France early in 1940 as a Troop Commander in the 1st Searchlight Regiment of the Royal Artillery. On 26 May, whilst trying to defend a forward position to the south of Calais, he was wounded and subsequently captured, as he lay on a stretcher. He was held in various oflags and, after a number of unsuccessful escape attempts, he was eventually imprisoned in Oflag IVC, the castle in Saxony more commonly known as Colditz. The fortress, which stood on the site of an earlier castle, had been largely constructed in the sixteenth century by the Elector of Saxony, and extended further by Augustus the Strong of Saxony in the eighteenth century. It was to Colditz that those who repeatedly attempted to escape were often sent as its construction and location ensured that breaking out of such a fortress was a considerable, if not impossible, challenge. Neave was in fact the first British officer to escape successfully from Colditz, and not Pat Reid who was depicted as such in the film The Colditz Story. Neave told his own story in They Have Their Exits, published in 1953. He insisted that he had written the book without access to official sources, but simply from his own personal recollections. That may well have been the case but it is certain that he would still have needed official sanction at that time to publish such a book, not least since, as a recently elected Member of Parliament, he was very much in the public eye.

  A plan of Colditz, showing the route of Airey Neave’s successful escape (ESCAPE ‘
B’ 1942), from his account, They Have Their Exits.

  In many ways Neave personified the approach to escape which MI9 had sought to inculcate. He mentioned the philosophy of escape a number of times in the published account of his escape in a very telling way, to the extent that it was later quoted by Foot and Langley:

  The real escaper is more than a man equipped with compass, maps, papers, disguise and a plan. He has an inner confidence, a serenity of spirit which makes him a Pilgrim.

  Neave had attempted to escape on two previous occasions from Colditz, on 20 August 1941 and on 23 November 1941. The first attempt saw him try to walk out dressed as a German guard and the second involved crawling through the attics and trying to drop down seventy feet on a knotted sheet over the wall: both attempts failed before he got clear of the camp. He eventually succeeded on 5 January 1942. Dressed as a German Oberleutnant, he was accompanied by his Dutch colleague, Lieutenant Toni Luteyn of the Netherlands East Indies Army. The two nationalities had apparently ‘agreed to pool their resources for escaping’ according to Foot and Langley. Most of the Dutch officers spoke fluent German and were, therefore, ideal travelling companions. The British were able to contribute the aids to escape which had been provided by MI9.

  In plotting the entire route of their escape, as described by Neave in his book, on a small-scale map of Germany and northern Switzerland and also using his subsequently discovered escape report, one aspect of their escape became abundantly clear. While he and Luteyn travelled south towards the Swiss frontier, they did not make for the nearest point of the frontier, i.e. they did not travel due south to the frontier but veered south west at one point in order to reach the Schaffhausen Salient.

  From Colditz, they walked over nine kilometres (six miles) to the small town of Leisnig where they caught a train to Leipzig, a distance of some forty-eight kilometres (thirty miles) further on. From there they travelled south 290 kilometres (180 miles) by train to Regensburg where they changed trains for Ulm. They travelled a further 177 kilometres (110 miles) to Ulm where, on arrival, they again changed trains, trying to get to Singen on the Swiss border. Singen is located some 130 kilometres (80 miles) southwest of Ulm, close to the Swiss border and the Schaffhausen Salient, and to the west of Lake Constance. At Ulm they had almost been recaptured since their attempt to purchase tickets for a destination on the Swiss border had apparently aroused considerable suspicion. Having avoided recapture, they then decided to continue to travel by train to Singen, but to avoid the main line, travelling rather through Laupheim, Biberach, Pfullendorf and Schwachenreuter. From Biberach it would arguably have made more sense for them to travel directly south towards the eastern end of Lake Constance, being less than sixty-five kilometres (forty miles) from the Swiss border, instead of which they chose a much longer route They eventually crossed the frontier south of Singen, reaching Ramsen which was the first settlement inside Switzerland.

  Neave’s successful escape route from Colditz to Switzerland.

  A group of escapers in a flat on Quai Rive Neuve, Marseilles, in 1942: Francis Blanchain, Mario Prassinos, Hugh Woollatt, Airey Neave and Louis Nouveau. This was clearly taken after Neave and Woollatt (who had escaped from Oflag VB (Biberach)) had arrived from Switzerland and before they departed for Spain and the journey home.

  In considering their route to freedom, which Neave eventually described in more detail in his escape report, the virtually inevitable conclusion is that Schaffhausen was always their objective. Why would they choose that route if they had not already been briefed on the most likely point to cross the border successfully and consulted a map which showed detailed coverage of that stretch of the border?

  Such a hypothesis is also supported by independent evidence. While this may never be proved conclusively, it seems highly likely that they had access to sheet Y and the intelligence contained on it, or to sheet A2, since both would have provided them with the detail of the area they needed and demonstrably possessed. It now appears likely that Neave was trying to hide the fact that such a map had actually been sent covertly into Colditz by MI9, since he mentioned it neither in his book nor in the escape report written on arrival safely back in London. Neave’s apparent reticence with regard to the role played by possession of a covertly acquired map reinforces Professor Foot’s insistence, in a conversation in 2012, that ‘maps were never discussed’ as that is what ‘we had been briefed on’. It is also significant that Neave’s account was published in 1953, less than ten years after the end of the war, at which point the protocols and restrictions regarding public disclosure of MI9’s methodology would still have been paramount. The Korean War did not end until the summer of 1953 and it is possible that military maps were still being produced on fabric at that time, although probably intended more for operational use rather than for escape and evasion purposes. A ‘D’ Notice (number 42) had been issued on 19 January 1946 which forbade the public disclosure of escape and evasion methods, including any assistance given to prisoners of war. The Notice also embraced the non-disclosure of information relating to the use of secret methods of communication with the prisoner of war camps and the identities of nationals of European countries who had assisted in the escape programme. The system of ‘D’ notices was introduced in 1912 and still continues. Defence Advisory Notices advise organizations in the UK on which information should not be published or broadcast, since to do so could prove prejudicial to the national defence interest.

  There is, however, quite specific evidence to confirm that MI9 had, in fact, sent advice into Colditz on some declared escape requirements ‘concerning routes and destinations’, and that they had not only made plans to send parcels containing escape materials to selected officers in a number of specified camps, of which Oflag IVC (Colditz) was one, but that many such parcels had already been sent by the time of Neave’s escape. By May 1941, MI9 had received confirmation that escape material had been received in four camps, of which Colditz was one of those listed. During the same month, MI9 had despatched sixty-two parcels under the guise of the Prisoners’ Leisure Hours Fund. By July 1941, parcels had certainly arrived in Colditz, confirmation having been received in MI9: it was noted that they had been despatched in March and April 1941.

  Additional evidence that it was indeed either sheet Y or A2 which Neave and Luteyn used is also to be found in the history of the Colditz camp. After the war had ended, and on the repatriation of the prisoners of war, the Senior British Officer (SBO) in each camp was required by the War Office to produce a written record as an historical review of life in the camp. It is likely that these reviews were produced in order to ensure that any possible war criminals among the German guards, or treasonable behaviour by any of the prisoners of war, could be documented and pursued through proper legal process. In writing the Historical Record of Oflag IVC (Colditz), the rapporteur included, at Chapter X, a review of the successful escapes. The escape report written by Captain P. (Pat) R. Reid of the Royal Army Signals Corps and Flight Lieutenant H. N. Wardle of the RAF was included. Reid and Wardle escaped from Colditz on 16 October 1942, nine months after Neave and Luteyn. Following an identical route, they made for the same crossing point on the Swiss border and, once successfully across, they turned themselves over to the Swiss border guards in the same town, Ramsen, as Neave and Luteyn had done. Their report includes far more detail about the maps they used, including mention of a ‘Swiss frontier map and half inch diameter brass compass, both W.D. issue.’ In this context, W.D. almost certainly referred to the War Department (or Office). It also becomes apparent that they must have received feedback from Neave through the coded letter system since they made very specific mention of beginning reconnaissance in daylight ‘to find Neave’s fork’ in the road leading to the frontier. Many years after the war, in 1974, Neave himself confirmed this in an interview he gave to his local newspaper. He stated unequivocally that he had sent back details of the precise Swiss frontier crossing point to Colditz in a coded letter and that ‘the same route w
as later used successfully by Major Pat Reid’.

  The SBO’s history also made very clear that ‘a comprehensive supply of maps covering the whole of Germany was available to intending escapers’. Those men whose escape plans had been endorsed by the Escape Committee were required to make their own copies of the maps so that they would learn more thoroughly the detail of their planned route. It was also made clear that intending escapers were shown detailed maps of the frontier but were never allowed to copy those particular maps, being required rather to memorize them, for reasons of security.

  Careful reassembly of the various pieces of the story has shed important new light on Neave and Luteyn’s chosen escape route. It can now be reasonably asserted that such parcels as had already been despatched to Colditz prior to January 1942 contained specifically a copy of sheet Y or A2 which aided considerably the first successful escape of a British officer from the camp, that of Neave. It is, moreover, now possible to contend that, although Neave described the route of his escape in considerable detail in his published account and said next to nothing about the maps, he nevertheless made use of them. In They Have Their Exits, he described how he had traced in Indian ink ‘the neighbourhood of the Swiss frontier from a stolen map’, offering no explanation on the apparent theft. To have had an opportunity to steal a map of the Swiss border is, at best, regarded as unlikely, not least since Colditz was located in central Germany, a considerable distance from the Swiss border. He added that the currency they were given for their journey had come from ‘black market deals with the guards’ and that Luteyn had been able to buy ‘a map of the surrounding country in a small shop’ in Ulm during their journey to the border. That again appears to be an unlikely assertion.