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The Escapers Get Away
As night fell, those allocated a place on the tunnel moved
to Hut 104. Prisoners, nerves at cracking-point, were terrified to see a German soldier
enter the hut. It was F/O Pawel Tobolski, (301 Sqdn, shot down over Bremen, 25/26-Jun-42,
Wellington IV, Z1479 GR:A) dressed for his escape as a German soldier, travelling in
company with W/C Day. (I was very pleased to receive emails from and subsequently meet F/O
Tobolski's son, Paul, who had seen this page.) On
opening the far end at 2215, F/L Johnny Bull discovered that the tunnel mouth was well
short of the tree line and within 30 yards of the nearest watch tower. But guards were
watchful towards the compound and did not shine their searchlights outside. The first
escaper went onto the trolley railway at 2230.
Prowling sentries circled outside the wire, passing at
intervals between the tree line and the camp compound. Snow lay on the ground and it was
impossible for the escapers not to leave a trail as they hastily crawled out of the exit
and into the cover of the trees. This greatly slowed the passage of escapers, a situation
worsened by an air raid which made the Germans switch off the power, forcing the use of
fat lamps inside the tunnel.
It was soon apparent in Hut 104 that things were going
badly wrong, but little news filtered back from the far end of the tunnel. A request for a
long length of rope was fulfilled, but the passage of men stalled. Although the briefing
had called for each man to ride the tiny railway trolley, being pulled by the previous
man, once the tunnel had swallowed the first couple of dozen, no more were being called.
The dispatcher, waiting at the tunnel entrance, had no more idea what was wrong than did
the long queue of impatient and highly-strung men.
The necessity to wait until the circuiting sentries were
not close to the tunnel exit, and the need to exercise great discretion in sending the
next man out, considerably slowed the throughput. Instead of one man every minute, the
escape was reduced to a dozen per hour. Word was sent back that those men with escape
numbers higher than 100 had no chance of escaping. Since exiting Hut 104 during the curfew
to return to their own huts would entail being shot at by the guards, they lay down where
they could to await daylight. By dawn, only 76 men had made their escape into the darkness
beyond the trees.
At 04:55, by which time 87 escapers had left Hut 104, F/L
Shand at the mouth of the tunnel was awaiting the signal to go. In the woods was F/L
Langlois (12 Sqdn, shot down 5-Aug-41, Wellington II, W5421 PH:G) who could see that a
patrolling sentry had deviated from his beat and would tread within a few feet of the
tunnel. He tugged at the signal rope, meaning "stay put." Shand, thinking this
was the opposite signal, emerged from the tunnel right under the feet of the guard, who
until then had passed by. For some seconds he did not see the tracks in the snow and
body-heat steam drifting upwards from the tunnel mouth. Finally noticing the signs, he
raised his rifle, fired a wild shot at Langlois (which missed) and blew his whistle. S/L
Laurence Revell-Carter and F/L Ogilvie, waiting in the woods, ran for it and so did Shand.
The next man in the tunnel, S/L McBride, was apprehended at rifle point, and S/L Len Trent
(a holder of the VC and DSO), lying face down just inside the tree line, stood up and
surrendered.
Ken "Shag" Rees (150 Sqdn, shot down
23/24-Oct-42, Wellington III BK309, JN:N) and S/L Clive Saxelby (103 Sqdn, shot down 7/8
Sep-42, Halifax W1219 PM:S) were in the tunnel close to the foot of the final ladder,
awaiting their turns to exit. On hearing the shots, Sax hared at top speed back the way he
had come, closely followed by Rees, who believing a ferret might jump down the escape end
and shoot along the tunnel, tried to kick out the shoring, with little success. Ken said
"As I was haring up the tunnel, all I could see was Sax's bum blocking the way and I
expected a bayonet or a bullet up my arse at any moment!"
After a few minutes, all the men who had been waiting in
the tunnel managed to return to Hut 104, where the shots were also heard. The escapers
remaining, and those scrambling out of the tunnel entrance, burned their false papers and
began to eat their carefully-saved rations, as the Germans would be sure to confiscate
them. The ferrets could not find the entrance; their dog crawled into a pile of coats and
fell asleep. Finally, the ferret Charlie Pilz crawled down from the far end. By this time
the Germans were in Hut 104 and noises could be heard from underneath as Charlie shouted
for help. Taking pity on him, the prisoners opened the trap and Charlie emerged, full of
praise for the superb tunnel.
In the darkness, many of the escapers had not found the
railway station entrance, which was unusually positioned in a dark recessed tunnel, right
under the actual platforms. Consequently, many of them missed their trains and were very
unhappily hanging round the platforms at first light, trying to ignore each other.
Eventually they caught the first trains out of Sagan, or having given up the wait,
footslogged it over the horizon. They were nearly all caught in the Sagan area.
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