HIS FIVE ESCAPES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 05, Issue 86, 3 August 1942, Page 6

HIS FIVE ESCAPES

SUCCESS IN THE LAST A FIGHTING DUTCHMAN ./ Fives times he escaped ITum German prison camps. The fifth time he escaped from Germany. And today T can tell you his story, says a Daily Express reporter. He is a Dutchman —Etienne Henri Larive. He was a lieutenant in the Royal Netherlands Navy—and now, after 20 months, he is going to sea again. He is 2fi, slim and dark, modest, humorous and brave. In peace days, when he was vis-( iting Weymouth, he saved a child from th'e sea. In war days, in the battle outside Rotterdam, he tried to save his destroyer as she was attacked by Stuka dive-bombers. The- ship sank—but for four days he and other officers fought alongside Dutch marines. Near Hamm —- Then came the '"Cense fire" order. And a ''.correct" German officer advised him to sign n declaration that he would stop lighting. He refused —and was taken to a prison camp near Hamm. "We had • great fun when the R.A.F. bombed Hamm," he recalls, "Jerry sentries had to rush round putting out the spotlights trained on the barbed wire. We used to cheer. Escape No. 1 was made from this camp. "M}- plan," he explained, "was based on a shed outside the barbed wire used for parcel distributions. "I joined the usual queue. While my comrades crowdcd round I changed from my officer's j,acket into a blue sweater and an oilskin. "I liad a basket full of straw. Instead of going back through the barbed Mire I held .the basket on my shoulder, covering my face, and then walked Forward through four other rooms —and out to the edge of the camp." That morning at a hank in the town of Soc.st a workman, littered with pieces of straw, called to change some Dutch money. The counter clerk paid out about 30s. And that night the lieuteant, without a ticket, boarded a train going to Munich. He dodged the ticket inspectors, but at Ulm, where he left the train, he Avas hauled before the station-" master. He had left his ticket in the train, he explained in German, and the stationmaster retorted: "Get out ! Mind you pay for your ticket Avhen you leave here." He did leave Ulm—walking. But in the wrong direction. After getting on the right way again he was challenged by an armed forest keeper. He hid under a train until it moved. Then he clung to the steps at the end of a coach. He was seen by a frontier guard, and tfiere was a chase through the train. Guard and railway officials pulled out guns. And he was caught. As> a "Civvy" Escapes 2, li and 4 Mere from a camp for 400 Belgians and Dutch near Breslau. Larive was there for eight months—months of plotting with other Dutchmen. First be got outside the camp with a Belgian exercise party by wearing a Belgian soldiers' uniform. But iie had to .scurry inside the camp because a Belgian prisoner lost his nerve. Then he helped in the escape of two Dutch colonial soldiers. ■'They got away, and the next day he put on a "civvy" suit belonging to one of the prisoners, and a pair of spectacles, and walked out of the camp. But he was stopped. Later he planned to get through a Avail into a nunnery adjoining the barracks, but he v. as discovered as he escaped. E>eape Nil. r> "was from Sold it/ camp at an old castle between Leipzig and Dresden (••■.'here hlO prisoners who had tried escaping before had 380 guards. He got rway- - But this story I cannot lei! now. because other men may use Ihe same track—other Dutchmen who want to s'aud with the young lieutenant who refused to stop fighting and is now g o, "ng lighting again.