Escapes

By D. O. W. Hall

Merriam Press World War 2 History Series. Second eBook Edition 2016. Details Allied escape attempts from German, Italian and Japanese prison camps. Particular emphasis on New Zealanders. Contents: Foreword. (1) To Escape. (2) Escape Organization. (3) Escape Equipment. (4) Outside Help. (5) Types of Escape. (6) Escapes in Crete. (7) Escapes in Greece. (8) The Italian Armistice. (9) Escapers in Switzerland. (10) Escapes in Germany. (11) The Luft III Tunnel. (12) Escapers in Yugoslavia. (13) Escapes to China. (14) Reprisals and Punishments. 17 photos.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Merriam Press
• Release date: Jun 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781576382370

Book preview

Escapes

Escapes

D. O. W. Hall

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World War II History No. 18

Bennington, Vermont

2015

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Second eBook Edition

Copyright © 2000 by Merriam Press

First published by Merriam Press in 2000

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

The views expressed are solely those of the author.

ISBN 9781576382370

This work was designed, produced, and published in the United States of America by the Merriam Press, 133 Elm Street, Suite 3R, Bennington VT 05201.

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On the Cover

A digger at work in the escape tunnel of Stalag Luft III.

Drawing by Ley Kenyon.

Foreword

During World War II over 9,000 New Zealanders became prisoners of war. Of these 718 made successful escapes, 236 from German hands, 480 from the Italians and two from the Japanese. Several have recounted their experiences in published books. Many equally remarkable exploits are recorded only in the reports held by the War History Branch.

This final number of the Episodes and Studies series is a survey of the whole field. It could have been a work of immense length and yet of very great interest.

The author has asked me to acknowledge, on his behalf, his indebtedness to W. Wynne Mason, the author of Prisoners of War, a volume of the Official History series, whose research was my primary source.

H. K. Kippenberger, Major-General

Editor-in-Chief, New Zealand War Histories

Chapter 1: To Escape

Prisoners of war are exhorted to escape.[1] That advice is perhaps too categorical as circum­stances alter cases. Who would recommend the prisoner in Japan to escape? Yet even in Japan the prisoner needed to be guarded. The vigilance that had to be maintained to guard prisoners caused a perceptible drain on the enemy’s manpower, and every successful escape from camp in Italy or Germany harassed the enemy, obliging him to keep up a wasteful system of guards, special police, and the constant checking of personal papers that helped to diminish his own war potential. Of an unsuccessful escape a prisoner wrote consolingly, The principle was to provide annoyance to the enemy and occupy his garrison reserves.

The principle was also to occupy the minds of the prisoners themselves, for few had settled down willingly to the dreary occupation of being a prisoner of war, and all found the humiliation and boredom of prison life oppressive. Many men dallied with the idea of escaping. Escapes—successful, failed, or future—had the strongest moral effect on everybody inside a prison camp. The idea that they could at some time escape was a great enhancement of prisoners’ self-esteem. It was the principal means open to them (apart from direct sabotage and going slow on working parties, the former a matter of opportunity, the latter a routine) of actively returning to the struggle against the enemy. With any man who got away went the thoughts and aspirations of the much larger number who had to stay behind. Successful escapes bolstered morale.

Some men were persistent and determined escapers. Prowess in this field of action did not always coincide with outstanding fighting ability, but often the two qualities were closely associ­ated in the same person. An astonishing number of men escaped several times; these prisoners gave their whole minds to the problems of organizing escapes, were alert to seize every oppor­tunity and, if necessary, to create them. Some men escaped for negative reasons: their over­whelming hatred of prison life. Others escaped from a sense of adventure, some from a sense of duty.

The enemy, too, had to spend a great deal of thought and energy in dealing with escapes and minimizing the possibility of their occurrence. The German camps were surrounded by formid­able barriers of barbed wire, with sentries in observation towers equipped with searchlights. In Italy some camps were located in fortresses or old and massive buildings eminently suitable for use as prisons; the camps in the open were all as well defended as those in Germany. Fences, guards, sentries, roll calls, unannounced searches of prisoners’ quarters and property were all used by the stronger side against the weaker in a never-ending battle of wits in which the race did not invariably go to the swift, nor the battle automatically to the strong. For it was the prisoners who held the initiative, and no amount of clairvoyance or thoroughness on the part of the captors could prevent the captives from finding out the weaknesses in the system designed to keep them securely incarcerated. They accepted the challenge presented to them by the fact of their captivity.

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[1] Section 53 of the Army Act makes it a military offense not to rejoin HM Forces if it is in one’s power to do so.

Chapter 2: