The Great Escape - Remembering the Fifty

[buffnut453]

Last weekend, I had the great good fortune to visit Dresden, and I took the opportunity to drive over the border to visit Zagan, Poland. One of my relatives was a POW at Stalag VIII-C there in the winter of 1944-45. WW2 aviation buffs will recognize Zagan (or Sagan as it was spelled during WW2) as the site of Stalag Luft III, the camp where both the Wooden Horse and Great Escape took place.

This WW2 recce image shows both Stalag VIII-C and Stalag Luft III.

The map below helps differentiate the 2 POW camps, and also shows the location of the tunnel "Harry" shown by the red line on the map:

There is a Great Escape Museum on the site today, which is actually sits on land where Stalag VIII-C was located. Most of Stalag VIII-C is overgrown with trees but some remains of the POW camp are still visible, notably isolated brick structures including supports for camp huts as shown in the photo below. Most of the brick structures have been moved, probably due to pretty continual logging in the area since the end of WW2:

The site of Harry is marked by a striking above-ground memorial, showing both the entrance and exit locations with the path of the tunnel depicted by a concrete structure.

Other famous locations near the tunnel are also identifiable, including the concrete floor of the "cooler":

Across the tunnel path from the cooler is the location of the camp hospital, with the supporting brick blocks still in place:

Near Harry's exit point, the Museum has excavated the footings for one of the camp guard towers. Seeing the site in-person really brought home how close the tunnel exit was to the wire. It was barely 30 feet from the guard tower to the tunnel exit. The image below shows the tower footings nearest the camera, just to the left of the tree, with the exit of Harry visible on the far side of the dirt road.

The courage of the escapees to keep pushing forward when the chances of discovery as they exited the tunnel were so strong:

Finally, near the entrance to Harry, the top of the tunnel has concrete plinths with the names of all the escapees. The green text denotes those who made "home runs." Blue text denotes survivors. Black text is for the 50 who were executed.

Despite primarily visiting the site of Stalag VIII-C, I found the area around Harry and the memorial to those brave airmen to be most moving.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Airframes]

Excellent.
Lest we forget ..........................

 

[Crimea_River]

Very interesting and moving. Thanks for posting your pictures.

 

[buffnut453]

One of the things that struck me was the multi-national make-up of the escape. We're all familiar with a number of inaccuracies in the movie "The Great Escape" but I fear that the English-speaking world has forgotten the airmen of other nations who participated in the event. Yes, there was a token Polish airman (played by Charles Bronson) in the movie, and it's also pretty certain almost all the other prisoners were likely serving in RAF uniform...but that doesn't excuse the underlying assumption that they were all English-speaking.

In case anyone's interested, here's the nationality breakdown (Executed / Returned to Camp / Home Run / Total). Note that these names are drawn from the memorial at Zagan and they differ from the numbers given in Wikipedia and elsewhere. Also of note is that Wikipedia lists 20 British prisoners executed, and one Argentinian POW, although the latter's name was John Gifford Stower who was of British parentage and so was a British national.

Australia: 5 / 0 / 0 / 5
Belgium: 1 / 0 / 0 / 1
Britain: 21 / 20 / 0 / 41
Canada: 6 / 3 / 0 / 9
Czechoslovakia: 1 / 2 / 0 /3
France: 1 / 0 / 0 / 1
Greece: 1 / 0 / 0 / 1
Lithuania: 1 / 0 / 0 / 1
Netherlands: 0 / 0 / 1 / 1
New Zealand: 2 / 2 / 0 / 4
Norway: 2 / 0 / 2 / 4
Poland: 6 / 0 / 0 / 6
South Africa: 3 / 0 / 0 / 3


There are some mistakes in the above listings. For example, Wymeersch is listed in the British tablet but he was actually French.

While in Dresden, I also took the opportunity to visit Colditz and had a wonderful guided tour. They've done an incredible job commemorating the various escape attempts from that infamous castle. One of the most striking was a 40m tunnel, mostly through solid rock, that was dug by French prisoners in about 8 months. The ingenuity and determination of Allied POWs of all nations truly is remarkable. Of the successful British escapes from Colditz, most involved at least one participant from a different nation, often the Netherlands.

So, when we remember The Fifty, let's not forget that 14 (13 in the above list but, as noted, Wymeersch was French) of them were from occupied countries. They were carrying on the fight in hopes that, one day, their home nations could be liberated.

One of the South Africans, Johannes Gouws, spoke Afrikaans rather than English as his primary language. All told, more than 25% of the escapees were non-English-speakers, and it's noteworthy that the 3 Home Runs were all completed by airmen from that group.

 

[buffnut453]

Also, to clarify the discrepancies in the numbers, the Zagan memorial lists 80 escapees but Wikipedia only lists 76. The additional 4 names on the Zagan memorial are all British:

A. Armstrong
H. Marshall
R. McBride
L. Reavell-Carter

These men were captured at the exit of Harry and never made it into the woods. They were marched straight back into the camp. However, since they were captured outside the wire, they can logically be considered to have "escaped".

Laurence Reavell-Carter had participated in the 1936 Olympics in the discus. During the Great Escape, he was one of the men who distracted the German guards by identifying his own position (the famous "don't shoot" scene in the movie when the tunnel exit is discovered). He was made OBE in 1946 for his selfless actions during the escape attempt, and for his many other efforts to escape, or support other POW escape attempts.

 

[SaparotRob]

Thanks for posting this.

 

[Kyushuj7w]

Great post thanks for all the pics. A place to visit if one ever gets to go over.

 

[rochie]

to them all

 

[Marcel]

Nice post buffnut453 ! I've got Bram (Bob) van der Stock's memoirs on my bookshelf. He was also the greatest Dutch ace and died sometimes in the'90ies.
Colditz is really great. I documented my visit there in a thread on the forum. When I visited in 2014, they had just found the end of the famous french tunnel. Do you have pictures of what it looks now?

 

[buffnut453]

Nice post buffnut453 ! I've got Bram (Bob) van der Stock's memoirs on my bookshelf. He was also the greatest Dutch ace and died sometimes in the'90ies.
Colditz is really great. I documented my visit there in a thread on the forum. When I visited in 2014, they had just found the end of the famous french tunnel. Do you have pictures of what it looks now?

I hadn't realized Bram van der Stok had written a memoir. Thanks for the heads-up. Is this the book you have?

Regarding the French tunnel in Colditz, your wish is my command. The guided tour of the castle takes you into the win cellar where the tunnel was started, as shown by the red box in the sectional view below. The tunnel veers upwards and then runs beneath the floorboards of the chapel before descending almost 9m. It's around 40m in length and is a truly impressive effort. The rock was split using wooden wedges which were soaked in water to make the wood expand, thus breaking off sections of rock:

Here's are a couple of views of the tunnel start point in the wine cellar. The original tunnel went all the way down to the floor level, thus it was possible for prisoners to almost stand up straight in the tunnel. After it was discovered, the Germans filled in the tunnel. It is displayed today in a partially excavated state:

Here's the reverse view showing a display of artifacts related to the tunnel, including actual candle holders and tools made out of food tins:

Here's a close-up of the actual tunnel:

The rock was removed via an air shaft that ran up to the courtyard from the wall to the right of the tunnel in the wine cellar:

The view below shows the vertical shaft leading up underneath the chapel. The grey illuminated section shows the crawl space under the chapel's wooden floor:

Here's the under-floor crawl space in the chapel. The prisoners had to cut through a large number of supporting joists that ran perpendicular to the path of the tunnel:

And here's the top of the 9m drop at the altar end of the chapel:

Hope these suffice!

 

[Marcel]

Yeah, looks great. When I was there, the whole chapel floor was open and there were no glass plates. Thanks for the pictures.

If you are interested, my thread (from 2014) is here

 

[Marcel]

BTW, the book I have is in Dutch and called 'Oorlogsvlieger van Oranje'. I found mine at a bootsale and was apparently given as a present to an old resistance hero back in the day (the '80ies). He wrote a 'thank you' letter to the ones who gave it to him with comments about the book. Someone put the letter in the book that I have. He apparently knew Bram personally and has some not-so-nice words to say about him. He also pointed out inaccuracies in the tekst, especially about the pilot escape line that ran through France. Really brilliant to have that addition to the book.

 

[buffnut453]

BTW, the book I have is in Dutch and called 'Oorlogsvlieger van Oranje'. I found mine at a bootsale and was apparently given as a present to an old resistance hero back in the day (the '80ies). He wrote a 'thank you' letter to the ones who geve it to him with comments about the book. Someone put the letter in the book that I have. He apparently knew Bram personally and has some not-so-nice words to say about him. He also pointed out inaccuacies in the tekst, especially about the pilot escape line that ran through France. Really brilliant to have that addition to the book.

From what I can find online, it seems the book I queried is the same as 'Oorlogsvlieger van Oranje'. However, any copy I find will certainly lack the marvelous additions that you possess. I'm insanely jealous of you!

 

[Marcel]

My book and the letter, dated December 1980.

 

[buffnut453]

Now you're just rubbing salt in the wounds!

 

[Marcel]

I could try to translate

 

[Snautzer01]

Please do.

 

[buffnut453]

Just to wrap up the Colditz trip, they have a superb display in the loft where the "Colditz Cock" glider was built, together with two replicas of the glider, one of which was actually flown from the roof of the castle to demonstrate that the design was sound and would have flown.

Here's a view of the loft space where the glider was constructed during WW2. A false wall was built and fixed to the wooden roof support beams, with all glider construction taking place in the small space behind:

Here are a couple of views of the non-flyable replica they have on display in that loft space:

A display case in that area shows a few components from the flyable version that was successfully launched from the roof a few years ago:

The rest of the flyable replica is displayed lower down, under the roof from which it was launched using a concrete-filled iron bath tub:

Sharing in case it's of interest....

 

[Marcel]

Great, I missed that part as it was closed. Thanks!