WARTIME ESCAPES

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 617, 23 August 1933, Page 7

WARTIME ESCAPES

AMUSING INGIDENTS GERMAN GIJARDS OUTWITTED WITH COMPARATIYE EASE. ' .. VICTIMS OP THE BRITISH. j Before the war we used to hear a lot about German thoroughness. The word was used as a testimony to the organising ahility of the Germans, ' and to the remarkable development of the manufacturing industries of Germany, which were challenging British manufactures in the markets of the world, says a writer in the Milbourne Age. It would be foolish to attempt to minimise the success which enabled them to wage a colossal war for four years and at times to come almost within sight of victory. But in reading the many ac"counts of British prisoners of war in "Germany reeording th'eir attempts t0 escape from prison camps, one is struck with the comparative ease with which they outwitted their guards, and the ingenuity they dis'played in making the German repu"tation for thoroughness seem an absurdity. It is true that only about thirty British' officers were successful 'in getting across the German frontiers after escaping from prison camps, but the main difficulty was not in escaping from their prisons, ' but in avoiding capture after they had ' done so. Most of the prison camps were a long way from any frontier, and as few of the escaping officers had sufficient knowledge of the German language to enable them to mix with the people when disguised, or 'to risk travelling by trains, th'e others' had to walk generally hy night, distances up to two hundred or three hundred miles to reach the nearest frontier, and to find a fresh hiding place each day in which to lie con-

cealed. Some of the escapees were captured within a few hundred yards of the frontier (which was always closely guarded) after being at liberty for several weeks, enduring many hardships and avoiding fresh dangers almost daily. Some of those who •eventually got across the frontier had escaped from prison camps half a dozen times before achievfng success, and many others who escaped again and again were always recaptured before reaching the frontier. Making a Search. •Of the dozen .books about German prison camps written by British officers who sueceeded in getting across the frontier the most entertaining in its record of the various ways in which the German soldiers in charge of the camps were outwitted by their prisoners is "Within Four Walls," the joint work of Major M. C. C. Harrison and Captain H. A. Cartwright. In descrihing the ineffieiency of the Germans in searching among the belong'ings of British prisoners for escaping kit, i.e., clothes for disguises, food, maps, compasses, torches, and other things necessary for the journey- to the frontier, Captain Cartwright states: "I have hinted that the Germans were not always very clever searehers, but perhaps it is only fair to say that a crowd of British officers, herded together in a very small space, was not the easiest thing to search. For one thing, they simply would not stay put, but insisted on circulating in spite of every kind of ahuse, and the oftrepeated and sometimes executed, threat of instant arrest. Thus I have h seen a really keen officer searched three times in the course of a single visit, while a more retiring, and bash- ' ful hrother officer was not searched at all, but the number of Herren searched apparently tallied with th'e number of beds in the room, so what could be wrong ? Again, they were ' apt to be insistent, not to say officious, in their efforts to help the searehers in their disagreeable and difficult joh. For instanee, when a German had made a heap," on the table perhaps, of properties from one corner 'of the room, and was about to go ■through them, an 'over-zealous British help er' would add twice the volume of

already searched properties . from an'other corner — and vice-versa — and in the' ensuing dash to separate the two lots, possibly the whole huneh', and the table would collapse on the floor. It was all difficult and confusing to the German who was really doing his best, and sometimes he got quite irritable. . 'Then the German is a, shoekingly had counter, and he cannot live without lists and the checking of lists, and the lists are hardly ever quite right. At Krustin once he searched a room, j and at the first dart unearthed a forbidden felt hat. One of his assistants plaeed the hat on the table while another lieked the pencil and wrole 'Ein Hut in a note hook. The search continued. Missing. "Presently the hat vanished from the'table unnoticed hy the searehers, hut the same one was discovere-i soon afterwards stuffed into someone's mattress, whence it was dragged in triumph and again placed on the table with the rest of the bag. (We always provided a lot of useless but forbidden trash, hidden in the most obvious places; this prevented the searehers from becoming despondent, and ga.ve the tally clerk a job to keep him quiet.) Again 'Ein Hut' was written in the notebook and the work proceeded. Again the hait, unnoticed, vanished from the table, and again it 'was found, this time hanging hy a string outside the window. For the third time 'Ein Hut' was written in ihe hook, and still the good work went on. Finally, when all was over, 'the bag was laid out to be checked, and each article was ticked off hy the tally clerk as it was dropped into a basket for removal. There remained three items unticked in the note hook, each of them reading 'Ein Hut,' and this by simple addition makes 'Drei Hute' but not a single hat could be found in the bag. One caii imagine what would have happened had ihis

. game ibeen tried by German prisoners ^ i in an English camp, but it was just | the sort of situation with which the j | German — )at all events the second- j rate kind which was found in and \ about prison camps — could not com- 1 pete. They pretended there was no- j j thing wrong, withdrew noisily, and left that room severely alone in the i next search." ! Major A. J. Evans, who holds the j remarkable record of having escaped { as a prisoner of war from Germany, and subsequently from the Turks in Palestine, wfites as follows in his hook, "The lEseaping Club". "Of all the unusual happenings in Fort 9, Ingoldstadt, that which I am about to describe is the most remarkable. To steal a large iron-hound box from the commandmant's bureau would be at t any time a difficult feat, but when it is considered that the only opportunity for the theft occurred in the middle of the day, and also that the box con- ' tained compasses and maps by the j dozen, several cameras, solidified al- ! cohol, consored books, in fact, all i thpse things which we were most strictly forbidden to possess, it must be owned that it was an extraordinary performance. How It Was Done. "The th'eft of this box was carried out in the following manner: — Just ' before mid-day a party of Frenchmen, I believe, went into the bureau, and. had a violent row with the commandant — not an unusual oceurrence. And as the row became more and more heated other Frenchmen and Russians crowded into the bureau. A fearful serimmage and a great deal of shouting ensued, in th'e midst of which a party speeially detailed for the purpose carried the box unobserved out of the bureau • and into our 'reading1 room,' which was only a few doors away. There men were waiting with Tia.niimp.Ts and other instruments. 'The lid was wrenched open, and the contents turned out on to the floor. Some then f ell on the box and broke and tore it into small pieces, which others carried to the different rooms and burnt immediately in the stoves. Others again distributed to their owners, or hid in previously prepared places, the contents of the box, so that within five minutes the box itself had utterly disappeared, and iall its incriminating contents were in safe hiding places. The row, which had gradually been dying down, now dissolved, and very soon afterwards the Germans discovered their loss. The bells went, and we were all ordered to our rooms. Then, amid shouts of laughter from every room, two rather sullen and shame-faced Germans searched vainly .

for an enormous box, which had been stolen only five minutes before, and for which there was no possible hiding place in any of the rooms," Captain Duncan Grinnell-Milne, another British officer who toki in "An EsCaper's Log" the story of his experiences as a prisoner of war in Germany, and his successful escape across the frontier, refers to the ineffieiency of tRe periodical searches made in prison camps for forbidden articles concealed hy those who intended. to attempt to escape. "Not long afterwards, when -numerous attempts to escape had driven the commandant to the vei'ge of insanity aj properly organised search for escaping kit was made with the help of detectives from Berlin. We all felt sorry for these poor detectives. From th'e time they entered the camp to the time they left the unfortunate men were given no peace. Impeded at every turn, they were harried from one room to ianother;,contraband captured in one hut was reeaptured by the prisoners in the next. On leaving, surrounded by a band of cheering British officers, several of them complained that their pockets had been picked, their identity cards and police papers stolen. And one wretehed man walked out with a notice pinned to his coat tail: 'You know my methods, Watson'!"