BRITISH PRISONERS IN GERMANY

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2674, 21 January 1916, Page 4

BRITISH PRISONERS IN GERMANY

AN ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE. The following narrative is taken from the letters of a British, officer prisoner of war in Germany, v/ho, in company vafh two French oiheors, attempted unsuccessfully to escape a little while ago. The letters were written from the fortress in which, alter recapture, this oiiicer was awaiting iiis trial. We got past both lines of wire fences and the sentries on the afternoon of Sunday, August 29, and concealed ourselves in the reeds on the banks of the Weser until nightfall. We then marched till 1 a.m. the next day, halted till 4 a.m., and moved en again till 7 a.m., when we hid in a forest. This was continued throughout 25 days, marching during the hours of darkness by compass, and concealing ourselves during daylight in forests and woods. The weather for the first five days was terribly wet, and we were never dry. The last three nights wore frosty, and as we had only one blanket between the three of us wo felt tlie cold much. In spite of cold and rain I only had fever once, but one of my comrades was delirious one night. We carried all our food with us, so you may imagine it was not much —a little sugar, a small piece of chocolate, and a soup tablet (divided between us) was our daily ration, and every second day we divided a tin of meat or .chicken. Unfortuntely, the rain of the first five 'days destroyed a lot of our chocolate and sugar, and all my biscuits. We were a bit weak after two weeks of it, and towards the end marching was a real trial. Water also was a difficulty, aiia on two days we had nono.On the night of September 22 there was a bright moon, but we could not delay our attempt to pass the frontier, as we had only one tin of food, a small piece of chocolate,, and about' Jib. of sugar remaining. ■ We avoided all villages and houses, and when wo used roads at ni"ht we hid on the approach of people or, vehicles. This continual hiding from all human beings was a great mental strain. ' During the last march wo avoided every road ami track and dwelling, but in spite of this we were surprised by a patrol out on a moorland and recaptured September 22. We thought when recaptured that we were four kilometres frcm the frontier, but the guard told us wqre only about 200 yards! Our mistake was due to our map, which' was practically, useless, being of so small a scale. The distance between our starting-place and the frontier in a straight line was about 220 kilometres, but with detours, etc., we must have covered well over 300 kilometres. Sometimes wo only moved at the rate of less than one kilometre' an hour. This was especially the case during our march on the night of September 21, when we only covered seven kilometres in eight hours, the march being in deep sand, swamp, and forest.

The frontier guard treated us with ©very consideration, as also the governor of tie civil prison at the frontier town, ivhere we spent twenty-four hours. We wero allowed into the restaurant at the railway station at Bentheim on our return, and I don't think I have ever been so ravenously hungry. It is impossible to sit down here and do nothing when one's country is fighting for existence. We made our effort —the utmost possible—and failed.