"POP" GOES PRISONER AFTER CHAMPAGNE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 205, 28 August 1940, Page 2

"POP" GOES PRISONER AFTER CHAMPAGNE

A sensational story of a double escape from the Germans, during which he narrowly avoided a firing .squad, is told by Lance-Corporal John Lee Warner, of the British Army, who has reached England from Portugal, after journeying thro ugh France and Spain. While serving with the Queen's Royal Regiment, Warner was taken prisoner near Abbeville, six weeks ago, whenh is section was surrounded by enemy tanks. He persuaded a Frenchman to exchange clothes and then buried himself in a haystack. When the other prisoners were moved on, Warner was left behind. Having made his way to Boulogne, •and then to Calais, seeking a boat, he was sleeping in an empty when he was recaptured by the Germans and accused of housebreaking. ■"A guard was placed over me, but lie knocked off the tops of two bottles of champagne with a bayonet and forced me to drink both," Warner said. •"I was so helplessly drunk that the guard did note onsider it necessary to watch me. "I was told that later I would be shot as a spy, but I escaped through a small window, posed as a refugee and C3 T ded southward across France" Warner reached Lisbon after travelling across Spain and was flnown back to England. He reached England on August 1, the eve of his 21st birthday. He had been reported missing, believed killed. Before enlisting last year, Warner worked on a sheep farm in Western Australia, stowed away on a vessel plying between Fremantle and Adelaide, became deck boy in a Norwegian tanker, and thexj worked his passage to England.