The Drawings On These Pages

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 326, 21 September 1945, Page 10

The Drawings On These Pages

. EALISM is added to this account of the escape from Stalag Luft. II. by the reproduction of some original drawings of the escape-tunnel ‘by an R.A.F. officer, Flight-Lieutenant Ley Kenyon, D.F.C., made on the spot. Here is his story of the making of the drawings, of their loss and subsequent recovery: « "Prepare yourself to be down for four hours-and make your drawing-board a small one," were the orders I received from Squadron Leader B, Chief of the escape organisation at Stalag Luft III. I had been asked by the committee, several weeks before the prearranged date for the big break, to carry out a series of drawings, which would permanently record the masterpiece of tunnel engineering that had taken hundreds of R.A.F. officers 15 months to complete. The sketches were made under extremely _ difficult conditions. Sometimes I lay on my back, and I used the roof of the tunnel as a drawing desk. The heat was intense, though the air-conditioning pumps were operated throughout. I worked 30 feet underground. The flame from a wick floating in a sardine tin fed by German margarine is not the ideal illumination for drawing, but the Germans had cut off the electric supply, making it impossible to use the unique lighting system we had installed. Immediately after the drawings were completed they were packed away into an airtight canister made of milk tins, and hidden away in an underground dispersal chamber elsewhere in the camp, for recovery when required. . Months later — one night in January of this year-we were ordered by the Germans to quit the camp, and were given only one hour’s notice; the Russians were 30 miles away. There was insufficient time to rescue the drawings and other escape material from the chamber, which we immediately flooded as a precaution against the Germans finding the documents hidden away there. So they remained there for another five months, surviving the occupation of the camp by the Germans. They used it as an advanced military depot until forced to withdraw by the Russian advance south of the Oder. The drawings were eventually found unscathed by a British officer who was too sick to leave the camp with the main body of prisoners and remained in the hospital. After his release, he descended with other officers into the dispersal chamber. He found that the flood water had seeped away and had not damaged the escape material, which had been stored above the water’ level. .