The Great Escape: A Canadian Story (24 page)

As he moved northbound through the tunnel, Wings Day helped Ker-Ramsey light the lamps, then completed a hauler shift at the base of the escape shaft before exiting the hole himself. But the anxiousness around the blackout amplified the tension in the tunnel. Most of the first thirty-five men, including Canadians Gordon Kidder, James Wernham, and George Wiley, carried suitcases; while they were only made of cardboard or plywood, some were bulky and difficult to pass through “Harry” without making separate trolley trips. Some of the men and bags caused derailments of the trolley. Others bumped into
shoring and caused small cave-ins. Tom Kirby-Green, thirtieth in
the tunnel, derailed between Piccadilly and Leicester Square and his shoulders bumped a weakened shoring. It broke and sand caved in, burying him from his waist to his shoulders. Canadian digger Hank Birkland, on duty at Leicester Square, realized the problem, crawled
back to Kirby-Green, and freed him from the sand. Birkland then worked feverishly in the darkness to clear the sand and replace the shoring boards. Bob Nelson faced a similar problem a short time
later near Piccadilly.

“Due to the cold weather, people were wearing warmer, thicker clothes, and being hauled through . . . they pulled down some of
the roof support and collapsed the sand,” Nelson said. “When I was hauling [James Long] through, the roof fell on top of him. I had to
pull him out and then when he got past me, I then had to go up the
tunnel on my elbows and toes to repair the roof and clear the sand that fell in.”
[20]

As Birkland completed his repair and dispersal of the sand that
had collapsed on Kirby-Green, above ground the air-raid sirens were
sounding the all-clear across the POW complex and the Germans
restored the electricity to their tower searchlights and consequently to “Harry’s” underground lights. That’s when Birkland, the Canadian who’d spent much of his waking life the past year digging inside Stalag Luft III tunnels, travelled through “Harry” for the last time and got his first taste of life beyond the wire. He moved out of the
tunnel and into the woods, marshalling the next ten men on their
way. Then he joined British air officers Les Brodrick, Denys Street, Edgar Humphreys, and Paul Royle as they made their way westward, away from Stalag Luft III and Sagan.

With the lights back on inside “Harry,” at least those in transit could now see where they were going. However, now the escapers weren’t lugging suitcases through the tunnel, but blanket rolls, addi
tional layers of clothing, and pockets bulging with extra food and
survival supplies. And if, in addition, the hard-arsers happened to be broad-shouldered, passage along the tunnel and through the halfway houses proved just as difficult and sluggish. Word went back up top
to Ker-Ramsey, the above-ground controller, who began inspecting
men as they were about to climb down the first shaft. As diffi
cult a decision as it became, Ker-Ramsey had to relieve some men of
their bulkier bedrolls, extra clothing, and survival supplies. That
meant that hard-arsers such as Canadians Pat Langford, Bill Cameron, Tommy Thompson, George McGill, Keith Ogilvie, and Bob
McBride had to dump some extra clothing or blankets they were carrying for warmth, but they did so sensing a stronger urge to escape than to carry protection against the March cold.

“They hoped for the sake of fellas like myself, going hard-ass, that
. . . our chances of hiding out in the woods or getting something to
eat would be a little better,” Ogilvie said, “but it was really cold and frosty.”
[21]

By four o’clock in the morning, the experienced members of the escape team had been clearing documents, hauling trolleys, rescuing escapers, re-shoring walls and ceilings, re-dispersing sand, and coaxing the system for more than seven hours. About sixty men had been relayed through “Harry” in that time. Dawn was less than two hours
away, so Pengelly and Ker-Ramsey made the decision to call off anyone holding an escape number greater than one hundred. They were all told to
stow their forged documents away, eat their escape
rations, and hide whatever escape clothing they could. The escape committee hoped it could squeeze twenty or twenty-five more men
through “Harry” by 5 a.m. and then close the tunnel down before the Germans learned anyone had escaped.

Meanwhile, there was another holdup at the exit hole. Roy Lan
glois had just relieved Canadian George McGill at the ferret blind
in the woods when he signalled another halt in the flow of escapers;
he’d heard a shout coming from the guard tower. One of the sen
tries pacing along the fence was summoned by the tower guard—the
two had apparently agreed to switch places for some reason. Then
the tower guard climbed down, crossed the snow-covered road, and began walking directly toward the tunnel hole. Langlois, still hiding behind the blind in the woods, thought for sure the goon had spotted
the steam rising from the tunnel hole. He was coming straight for it. Then, suddenly, the guard stopped, took down his trousers, and
squatted to relieve himself. Five minutes later, the guard departed,
Langlois tugged on the rope, and escapers began moving again.

It was close to 4:50 a.m. when the controllers in Hut 104 decided it was time to shut things down. They needed to determine who the final escapers would be and give the trolley haulers—Shag Rees, Red
Noble, and Tim Newman—enough time to haul them to the exit hole and then get themselves up the escape ladder and out as well.
Then, the trap over “Harry” back in Room
23
of Hut
104
could be
resealed and rooms around the stove returned to normal. It appeared
the last group of escapers would include Lawrence Reavell-Carter,
Keith Ogilvie, Michael Shand, Len Trent, Bob McBride, Roger Maw,
Michael Ormond, Ian Muir, Clive Saxelby, Jack Moul, and Frank Sorensen. Mac Reilley had taken Tony Pengelly’s number, ninety-
three, but just missed the cut-off.

“There I sat in Hut 104, waiting the night away,” Reilley wrote. “Frank Sorensen . . . was sitting with his legs reaching for the ladder to descend into the tunnel when it all ended.”
[22]

Langlois was still positioned at the blind just inside the pine forest, marshalling his group of ten men to safety. He directed Spitfire pilot Ogilvie and burly air-gunner Reavell-Carter to his position just hidden by the pines. Next, Michael Shand, another Spitfire pilot, emerged from the tunnel exit and began crawling through the snow toward Langlois at the end of the signal rope. Right behind him was Len Trent, the Victoria Cross winner from New Zealand. Suddenly, Shand and Trent felt the rope guiding them to the blind jerk again; it was Langlois, trying to get them to stop. A guard, formerly pacing
close to the fence, had deviated from his sentry’s path and was step
ping through the snow right toward the escape hole, as if something
had attracted his attention. Shand and Trent stopped dead in the path. The guard kept coming, nearly stepping into the hole; he still hadn’t
seen the two air officers prostrate on the snow. Then, recognizing
Shand’s human shape in the slush path to the woods, the guard lifted and aimed his rifle.

“
Nicht schiessen!
[Don’t shoot!]” Reavell-Carter shouted as he
jumped from behind the brush pile in the woods.

Startled by the kriegie shouting and leaping into the open, the
guard pulled the trigger on his rifle, but the bullet didn’t hit anybody. Reavell-Carter had no choice but to surrender. Trent did the same.
When the guard finally shone his flashlight down at the exit hole, next to where he was standing, there was Bob McBride, perched on
the top rung of the ladder and waiting his turn to crawl out; with no other option available, he also surrendered. To add to the alarm, the guard began blowing his warning whistle.

That night, Don Edy had slept fitfully in Hut
123
, where tunnel “Tom” had originated. He remembered the eerie stillness of the dawn broken with that single rifle shot at the north end of the
compound.
He and his roommates didn’t dare go to the windows to see the Germans’ reaction. They just stayed in bed and listened.
[23]
George Sweanor had gone to bed fully clothed, wearing socks, boots; he’d
even stuck food in his pockets
[24]
because he figured when the Germans got wind of the escape there would likely be an all-day appell
and probably ration cuts. When he and his roommates heard the gunfire and whistle blowing, they pried open the shutters covering a window at Hut
119
and saw some of the escapers in Hut
104
attempting to race back to their home huts. More gunfire and the
hundführer
racing into the compound soon stopped that.
[25]
Inside
Hut 104 the secretive quiet was suddenly broken.

“All hell broke loose,” said Gordon King, who’d been at the base of the entry shaft pumping air through the bellows much of the night. “Some of [the kriegies] stupidly ran out of the hut. They could have been shot doing it.”
[26]

Tunnel controller Ker-Ramsey and forgery chief Pengelly reacted
to the rifle shot
in an instant. They passed along the order throughout Hut
104
for all forged papers and escape kits to be destroyed. Within
minutes there were small fires burning up and down the halls and in every room of the hut. The next order was a full retreat from
the tunnel. In moments, Tim Newman was thundering back from
Piccadilly halfway house to the entry shaft, Ian Muir right behind
him. Michael Ormond wasn’t long after. Finally, the trolley haulers—Red Noble, Roger Maw, and Shag Rees—began to withdraw. As he turned to
retreat from Piccadilly, Rees was squeezed out of the way by the two escapers who’d been at the base of the exit shaft—Jack Moul and Clive Saxelby. With the tunnel mouth discovered, Rees felt for sure there’d be a ferret on his tail in seconds. And yet each time he looked ahead all he saw was “Sax’s bum blocking the way.”
[27]

With the last man up the shaft and out of “Harry,” the trap was sealed as quickly as it ever had been over the previous year. The stove
was replaced. And blankets that had been used to muffle the sound
and hide any excess sand quickly disappeared into nearby bunks. By
the time a
hundführer
entered the block, a few minutes later, much
of the obviously incriminating evidence had vanished. The German guard gathered a few greatcoats lying around in the halls and waited. His dog curled up on the coats and went to sleep.

“Our mad haste was really unnecessary,” John R. Harris said. “A German guard coming on duty had accidentally sighted [escapee Michael Shand] leaving the tunnel exit and fired a shot, more to attract attention . . . than in hopes of hitting the fleeing prisoner. By the time he succeeded in summoning support and the Germans realized what was going on, we could have burned half the camp down.”
[28]

For the moment, the real action was happening at the exit end of the tunnel. The sentries were marching Bob McBride, Len Trent, Roy Langlois, and Lawrence Reavell-Carter to the guardhouse. In
spite of the rifle shot, most of the compound guards inside were still asleep. As the guards were roused by the sentries, the escapers took
advantage of a nearby stove and jettisoned their forged papers into
the fire. When he arrived,
Kommandant
von Lindeiner was livid. He demanded to know the number that had escaped, which kriegies had led the escape, and where the tunnel had originated. Finally, he told the four foiled escapers the Gestapo would soon be involved.

“They will shoot you,” he predicted, “get rid of the lot of you.”
[29]

On the involvement of forces outside the camp he was right.
Within an hour of the discovery of the tunnel, seventy German troops equipped
with helmets, machine guns, and Schmeisser automatic pistols arrived at the compound and surrounded Hut
104
. Even von
Lindeiner, Hans Pieber, and Broili had their revolvers drawn. Over a hundred kriegies began to emerge from the barracks building to face an armed force that didn’t seem the least bit interested in upholding
the Geneva Conventions. Outside Hut
104
, snow began to fall. The
ferrets forced many of the men to strip to their skin. Every man was searched. All the civilian clothes accumulated or altered by Tommy Guest’s tailoring crew were thrown into a pile, leaving most of the kriegies in little more than their underwear against the cold. John R. Harris was wearing clothes that looked more like his uniform, not
civilian clothing, so he didn’t have to strip. He tossed a blanket that
hadn’t been confiscated to a fellow kriegie without any clothes. Harris had forgotten, however, that he and his partner still possessed an obvious connection to the escape.

“Did you burn the maps?”
[30]
Johnny Crozier, his escape buddy,
suddenly asked.

“What maps?”

“The ones I gave you inside,” Crozier reminded him.

Des Plunkett’s mapmakers had given most of the hard-arser kriegies maps that would guide them away from Stalag Luft III. Since Crozier and Harris would be travelling together outside the wire, the pair had been given a set of nine stencilled maps showing them the country from Sagan south to the Czech border. But in the confusion following the rifle shot and the closing of “Harry” an hour earlier, both men had forgotten to destroy the evidence.