A FAMOUS ESCAPE

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 307, 29 December 1939, Page 10

A FAMOUS ESCAPE

Men of Holzminden JTnnnel fo Freedom

I'jpHE twenty-first anniversary of a remarkable episode at the German prison camp of Holzminden, where some of the British officers who were captured on the Western front during the Great War were imprisoned, was : celebrated in London by a dinner ati tended by the survivors of those who f participated in the episode, says a 0 writer in the Melbourne Age. On the y night of July 24-25, 1918, twenty-nine 0 prisoners escaped from this camp e through a tunnel nearly sixty yards long which had taken nine months to y dig. t Holzminden is a small town on the Weiser near Hanover. There were a c number of prison camps in Germany v in which British, French, and Russian " ; officers and men captured in the war ' were imprisoned. The rank and file = were employed in manual tasks on * farms, in coal mines, and other places, but officers were not compelled to j work, and therefore many of them 5 devoted their time to devising means ; of escape. I Prisoners were not confined to cells. ; They were free to move about the . prison camp during the day, and theret fore could select the most suitable spot » in camp for an attempt to escape. Some very ingenious attempts were , made, but only in a few camps was [ tunnelling restorted to. This was s mainly because digging a tunnel was , a laborious work, in which a great deal ’ of luck was necessary to avoid detection during the comparatively long period while the tunnel was being made. Hiding the Earth. , There was also the difficulty of hiding the earth and stones taken from the tunnel, a difficulty that increased as the work progressed. The Holz- ’ minden tunnel is the outstanding episode in the escape of British prisoners of war from German camps, because of the length of the tunnel, the time taken to dig it, and the large number 1 of prisoners who escaped through it. ; There were about 550 British officers imprisoned at Holzminden in July, 1918, and about 160 Tommies, the latter being employed as orderlies. The fact that a tunnel was being dug was not generally known among the prisoners, for those engaged in the enterprise endeavoured to keep it a secret. It was the custom in all prison camps for prisoners who were planning escapes to keep their plans to themselves. This was not from fear of treachery from their brother officers, but because the more closely a secret was kept the less likely were the German guards to pick up information about it by overhearing talk among the prisoners. The story of the escape is told at length by Mr. H. G. Durnford in a book entitled “The Tunnellers of Holzminden.” Mr. Durnford was one of the prisoners in the camp, but he played no active part in the digging the tunnel, nor did he attempt to escape by it. But as the camp adjutant it fell to his lot to supervise the final arrangements in connection with the escape. The working party on the tunnel consisted of thirteen officers, but the I secret was known to at a dozen ' others, and to a number of orderlies who helped the tunnellers by keeping watch over the hidden entrance (which was reached through the quarters of the orderlies), and by warning them when any of the German guards were about. The omy tools used by the tunnellers was a “mumptee” (an instrument with a spike at one end and an excavating blade at the other) and a cold chisel which was used for levering apart smooth, heavy stones in the tunnel. The 1 tunnel was very narrow, being little more than sufficient to allow a man 1 to wriggle along it while lying at full ( length. A wider tunnel would have , added greatly to the laborious work of . digging with inadequate tools, and \ would have increased the difficulty of , j disposing of the earth extracted. This r earth was put into sacks made from l mattresses stolen from prison beds, and was hidden in a dark unused compartment under a staircase close to the mouth of the tunnel. Many difficulties and disappoint- ( ments - were encountered by the tun- j nellers, but perseverance enabled them } to be overcome, and after nine months’ = work the tunnel was completed, all but the last foot or so to the exit, which t was to be behind a row of beans grow- , ing outside the camp. This spot had \ been selected for the exit because of i the cover the beans provided to prison, j ers emerging from the tunnel. There . were sentries stationed close to the j exit, and the camp was lighted with j large arc lights. £ The frpntier of Holland was about J 100 miles from Holzminden. Some of , the tunnellers intended to travel alone in their attempt to cross the frontier; e others intended to go in parties of two j or three. They had all provided themselves with civilian clothes for disguise, j and with supplies of food and chocolate, as well as maps and compasses ( smuggled into the camp in food parcels sent by their relatives in Eng- c land. The First Thirteen. By this time a comparatively large number of the officers in camp had 1 become aware that an attempt to s escape was to be made by means of a tunnel (whose secret entrance was un- i known to them), and they pleaded for ( a chance to escape. It was arranged < that the thirteen members of the J working party should be the first to 1 crawl through the tunnel, and that 1 after the last of them had entered it, ! an hour should elapse to enable them j i to get clear before anyone else was < j allowed to enter. The next batch was 1 j to consist of six officers, who through- s I out the tunnel operations, had given i

• valuable assistance to the scheme, i After the last member of this batch » entered the thnnel, an hour was to i elapse before any of the other prison- : ers who wanted to escape were to be allowed to make the attempt. Only the working party of thirteen and the supplementary party of six knew be. forehand on which night the escape was to be attempted. *The others were told that they would be warned in time. On the day preceding that fixed for the escape, Mr. Durnford, who was supervising the arrangements, was handed a list of the names of six prisoners who wanted to try to escape by means of the tunnel after the working party and the supplementary party had got clear. “The list had been arranged in order of priority of exit,” writes Mr. Durnford, “and in order to prevent heartburning—as well as to provide maximum of secrecy—it was arranged that those on the list should be warned in the first instance after the evening appel (roll call at 6 p.m.) on the night of the actual escape. Moreover, no one was to be told his place on the list, but only that he was to lie in bed fully dressed until he was actually warned to go, upon which he was to get up at once and to repair to the rendezvous on the attic floor.” It was after 10 p.m. on July 24, 1918, that the escape began. The thirteen members of the working party were all through the tunnel before 11.30, and an hour later the supplementary party went to the mouth of the tunnel, one by one, at regular intervals. The last of this party of six was through the tunnel about 1.15 a.m. Ten of the ruck were sent away one by one, and then a hitch occurred. “About half a dozen more had followed at regular intervals and it was geting on for 4.30 a.m. when the last (Captain Gardiner, of the A.1.F.) came back to report that the tunnel was blocked and passage was impossible,” states Mr. Durnford. “According to his report the tunnel was reverberating with groans, curses, and expressions of encouragement. Someone apparently was stuck in front, and was urging those behind to get back in order to let him out. Those behind, on the other hand, like the Tuscans in the famous play, were crying ‘Forward’ in no uncertain tones, and urging him to get out and on with it. It had clearly become a hopeless impasse. It seemed best, therefore, at this juncture, to call a halt and clear the course before daylight, so as to defer the chance of discovery till the last possible moment. “But here arose another difficulty. Those now labouring m the tunnel were not used to its ways. It was hard enough to wriggle along in a forward direction, but withdrawal with a heavy pack in tow was an even more strenuous proposition. And to get the packs out was an absolute necessity, for otherwise there would be a complete block, both before and behind, which would result in the foremost unfortunate being entombed until the timnel was discovered ana they were dug out.” Day of Triumph Some of the men stuck in the tunnel had to be pulled out by the heels. Eventually the six men whose exit had been blocked were got out before daylight. The block had been caused by the tunnel caving in at the bottom of the upward slope to the exit. This was the lowest part of the tunnel, and the stones loosened by the crawlers who had passed along gathered there and flocked further progress. Altogether twenty-nine prisoners got through the tunnel before the block occurred. The escape of such a large number was an unprecedented thing in any camp, and when their absence was discovered consternation reigned among the German staff and . the sentries. The camp commandant was Hauptmann Karl Niemeyer, who had boasted that he had made the camp escapeproof, and that no one could possibly get out of it. He stormed and raged when he discovered that twenty-nine of his prisoners were missing, and he imposed severe restrictions on the movements of the rest of the prisoners in camp. “Twenty-nine! The magic number flitted from mouth to mouth, and was shouted across from B house to A, who cheered heartily on hearing the figures,” writes Mr. Durnford. “It was indeed a good number and constituted an easy record for Germany, if not for all time. Long ere now it had permeated to the town, and the road outside the camp was peopled with figures of both sexes and all ages, anxious to view the scene of the occurrence. Always the camp had been the diversion of a Sunday evening stroll for the burghers of Holzminden; now we played daily to crowded houses, until the camp commandant in his exasperation put the confines of the camp out of bounds for civilians.” Immediate steps were taken to pursue the fugitives. Eventually nineteen were recaptured, some of them after being at liberty for ten days without being able to get across the Dutch frontier. Colonel Rathbone, the senior British officer of the camp, who > was one of the escapees, got across the frontier three days after crawling out of the tunnel. He was able to speak German, and was equipped with a forged passport, and therefore was able to travel some of the way by train, booking a seat in the ordinary way. Some of the others who had walked and had to go into hiding during the daytime were a fortnight in reaching the frontier, and most of them had some exciting experiences in escaping recapture.