The 1963 film The Great Escape was considered a classic war film. It featured a stella Hollywood cast, none more famous than Steve McQueen. The film ostensibly told the story of the escape from Luft III of dozens of Allied Prisoners-of-War (POWs), most of whom were members of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). The cinema depiction of the ‘Great Escape’ had more to do with fiction than fact. Five members of the RAAF lost their lives and many more were doomed to further deprivation as POWs.
From 1940 Australian airmen fought in the skies against Germany and Italy. Of any Australian military unit in WWII, the highest fatality rate occurred within Bomber Command. Of the 125,000 aircrew who served with the RAF Bomber Command, Europe, 57,205 were killed. A further 8,403 were wounded and 9,838 became POWs – 60% of operational airmen. Although RAAF aircrew numbered fewer than 2% of Australia’s WWII enlistments, the 3,486 killed in Bomber Command accounted for almost 20% of all Australian combat deaths. At the peak of the air war 5% of bomber crews did not return from any operation and there was little chance of surviving a 30 operational tour. An estimated 1,500 RAAF airmen shot out of the sky spent the remainder of the war in prison camps.
The statement: ‘It is every POWs duty to try to escape’ was made by desk-bound English authorities. Allied aircrew were the most closely guarded, because the enemy realized the value of these men in blue battle dress. The desire to return to England was strong and the efforts to escape were commendable; but the reprisals against those who remained were harsh, the punishment for escape attempts was severe and recapture invariably led to murder.
Although tunnels were not favoured by POW escape committees, it was accepted that tunnels kept the more impatient POWs occupied and diverted German attention away from the more complex and productive escape strategies. Secrecy was paramount. Strict control was needed over scarce cigarettes, chocolate, and other goods that could be bartered with German guards for vital escape material, such as passes, badges, some uniform items and intelligence was essential.
Warrant Officer Jack Garland (AWM)
A unanimous decision by the escape committee was needed for an escape plan to proceed. Aircrew with specific abilities were welcomed. Only those directly involved were told the plan. Forging documents, such as passports, travel and leave passes, ration tickets, rail warrants and even currency, became an art form, as did maps, civilian clothing and German uniforms.
Australian, RAAF Warrant Officer Jack Garland, proved most adept in ‘acquiring’ essential items, particularly through German guards. He wrote:
The camp was a beehive of escape activities and Goons enriched themselves through bribes. The lowest ranks were easy to bribe. A photo was taken of them accepting a cigarette and then they were had. They were also struggling to survive.
Original documents or the copy of an original, procured from the most corrupt guards, allowed for 30 or 35 copies. The workmanship and creativity were masterful. POWs who had been tailors in civilian life were put to work assembling civilian outfits or uniforms out of other garments, and these were enhanced with badges and trimmings, traded for cigarettes. German Air Force (Luftwaffe) uniform badges were made from melted silver cigarette linings, while cloth badges were manufactured from the linings of flying boots. Compasses, hacksaws, files, and wire cutters were secreted in from Britain in personal parcels. The Americans began to smuggle passport photographs in packets of Camel cigarettes, but this was discovered, and all Camel cigarettes were confiscated.
RAAF Warrant Officer, William Frank Redding, had enlisted in Sydney, NSW, in June 1941 and trained as a Wireless Operator/Air Gunner. His Wellington bomber was shot down during an attack on the German hinterland in April 1943, on just his 11th operation. He quickly became a valued member of the escape committee. Introduced to forged and counterfeit documents he was in awe of the ‘really brilliant work’ of his fellows. Other committee members were no less impressed with Redding. By trade Redding was a cabinet maker and joiner and now found himself tasked with building phony weapons. ‘One of the most successful schemes was the two rifles I made.’ Finding a suitable piece within the highly prized camp wood supply proved the first obstacle. He then needed to model them on the real thing without of course ever being given access to a German rifle. Day after day he walked as closely to guards as he dared, ‘trying to notice and retain every dimension … one needed a retentive memory’. The butt of each rifle he stained brown. Redding then honed metal pieces which he attached, painted black and worked to a high polish. Both rifles enabled successful escapes, as POWs dressed as guards simply walked through the front gate.
WO Redding was also kept busy building dummy parcels and false bottoms in boxes. He heard that the Germans intended to move the fence inside the washhouse and that a large wooden barrel used for storing hot water would form part of it. Redding built a false bottom in the barrel into which a POW crawled and successfully escaped. Redding was inspired and began to create dummy panels in ceilings and walls to hide escape paraphernalia. He scrounged timber and three-ply from Red Cross parcels to build small gadgets and holders.
Australians were commonly held in high regard by other POWs.
The morale of the Australian boys was of a high standard, they adapted themselves so easily to strange conditions and were always to be relied upon whenever the occasion arose.
Curbing their enthusiasm sometimes proved taxing. West Australian, WO George Thomas William Farrell was sent to solitary confinement for attempting to sabotage a German truck, testing the theory that if you peed into a petrol tank of a truck you could ‘stuff’ the engine.
Such exploits and attempted escapes could have dire consequences for all POWs. Rations, Red Cross parcels and mail would be withheld, the two daily parade roll calls could annoyingly increase in number and POWs left standing for extended periods of time, regardless of the weather. When Red Cross parcels were distributed the Germans punctured all the tins and emptied them into one mess of meat, sardines, cheese, margarine – they said it was to prevent the storage of food to enable escape. Solitary confinement was extended to 28 days and guards turned increasingly abusive. Feared most were the visits and searches conducted by the Gestapo. The Gestapo arrived with little warning and were none to gentle with hut leaders. Huts were thrown into totally disarray. Well-hidden valuable escape equipment and documents were discovered.
One Australian airman wrote in his diary:
They were an evil crew and ever in their comic opera uniforms of long coats with the collars turned up, their gloves and black hats with the brim turned down they evoked an aura of dread and foreboding. A sudden shout of ‘RAUS’ they were bundled out of the barracks regardless of weather, didn’t mean a thing to the inhuman bastards of the Gestapo.
F/L Peter Kingsford-Smith DFC (left), with PO John Ulm, son of Charles Ulm. (AWM)
Peter Kingsford-Smith bore that famous name. He was the nephew of pioneering aviator, Sir Charles ‘Smithy’ Kingsford-Smith.
It was no surprise that Peter Kingsford-Smith along with his brothers Rollo and John, enlisted in the RAAF in WWII. ‘Rollo’ was the Commanding Officer of Bomber Command RAAF 463 Squadron. Peter arrived in England in May 1941. He soon earned a reputation for, ‘his cheerfulness and willingness for operational flying in any circumstance’. Peter was a Pilot Officer on a special duties’ operation, when this Kingsford-Smith too, disappeared. His Halifax bomber had taken off on 19 February 1943, with eight onboard. His co-pilot was another Australian, Flying Officer Robert Charles Hogg. The Halifax was struck by anti-aircraft fire. Kingsford-Smith wrestled the aircraft to the ground near Tours, France. He joined other Australians in Luft III.
Luft III model.
Established in March 1942 and run by the Luftwaffe, Luft III was huge and as the war endured housed 11,000 Allied air force officers. The camp was situated in the German province of Lower Silesia near the town of Sagan (now Żagań, Poland), 100 miles (161k) south-east of Berlin. The site was selected because of its thick sandy soil which it was believed, should deter tunnelling escapes. Compounds consisted of fifteen single storey huts, each 10 ft x 12 ft (3 x 3.7m) containing five triple deck bunks for fifteen POWs.
Aircrew preferred Luftwaffe controlled camps rather than German army camps as respect was awarded air force to air force.
Peter Kingsford Smith illustration. (AWM)
Peter Kingsford-Smith was a man of the air and found captivity not to his taste. He joined the escape committee, but he was unable to join the tunnellers due to ‘claustrophobia’. He could but watch as tunnellers beat the odds. Two, build a vaulting horse from plywood from Canadian Red Cross parcels. Each day POWs carried the vaulting horse close to the perimeter fence and conducted noisy gymnastics. Unbeknown to the watching guards, the horse contained men and tools. In two man shifts the prisoners with metal rods, bowls, and shovels, dug a 100 feet (30 m) tunnel. When the entrance was carefully covered by a board and sand, their fellow POWs carried the horse back to outside a hut. On the night of 19 October 1943, three made their escape.
At Luft III, after a year of patient, hard work, an ambitious but meticulously planned break-out, came to fruition. No fewer than 200 POWs, dressed in civilian clothes with forged papers and some food waited impatiently to escape into the dark night. More than 600 British and Commonwealth air force officers had dug tunnels, assembled clothing and produced in excess of 4,000 maps and 500 compasses. Three tunnels named ‘Tom’, ‘Dick’ and ‘Harry’ were commenced. By September 1943, the Germans had discovered ‘Tom’. Beneath the stove in room 23 of Hut 104, the tunnel codenamed ‘Harry’, had proven the most effective.
Chief carpenter of ‘Harry’ was an Australian with a decorated WWII history. Squadron Leader John Edwin Ashley ‘Willy’ Williams was a proven air ace whilst serving in the Middle East and North Africa flying P-40 Kittyhawks. He had won a Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and was commanding RAAF 450 Sqn during the second Battle of El Alamein when accidentally shot down on 31 October 1942 by a member of his own squadron. ‘Delighted’ may not have been an appropriate word but ‘Willy’ was ‘delighted’ to see his good mate Flight Lieutenant Reginald Victor ‘Rusty’ Kierath walk through the Luft III gates. Kierath had been born in the NSW country town of Narromine. He was educated at Sydney’s Shore School with John Williams. Unfortunately, the day he sewed on his pilot’s wings in April 1941 he heard that his brother, Captain Greg Kierath, serving with an Australian Anti-Tank company at Tobruk had been killed. By August 1941 he too was serving in the Middle East. Whilst flying Kittyhawks with RAAF 450, Kierath was shot down on 23 April 1943.
‘Willy’ Williams arranged for ‘Rusty’ to be assigned to his Luft III hut and quickly gave him responsibilities within the escape committee as a ‘hide specialist’, constructing small hide spaces within the compound for forged papers and other escape essentials. It seemed that within their compound, every POW bunk, lost bed boards, to prop tunnel ceiling and walls. ‘Harry’ was equipped with electric lighting, an ingenious air-pump, and an underground railway with trolleys for men and dirt, the tunnel was an extraordinary engineering feat.
The engineering marvel of ‘Harry’ tunnel at Luft III.
POWs were broken into three escape tiers. The first group numbered 30. These with foreign language experts or those in the escape committee who had undertaken the largest preparation work. Deemed the most likely to escape, they were dressed in the most presentable suits. The second group was the tunnellers.
The third group was made up of the ‘penguins’ and the ‘stooges’. The ‘penguins’ were POWs who had filled their tied trousers with dirt and walked around the camp slowly releasing the dirt. Those nicknamed, ‘stooges’, stood sentry whilst clandestine activities were underway. One camp group called themselves the ‘Cooee Club’, employing the Australian call of ‘Cooee’, should a German guard approach too closely. If a surprise search caught POWs unawares, diversionary tactics were employed, even to the point of POWs staging a fight, until escape material was concealed. In one incident a German guard suspecting something, marched quickly towards a hut only to be intercepted and sent tumbling by a prisoner being chased by another POW. Profuse apologies and frightened expressions followed, but the delay was all that was needed. For the latter groups their civilian clothes were not as convincing, and they carried fewer documents.
On the night of 24 March 1944, John ‘Willy’ Williams and ‘Rusty’ Kierath were crouched with other Australians in the long tunnel awaiting their turn. Squadron Leader James Catanach from Melbourne believed he had a better than most chance to travelling through enemy territory because he spoke fluent German. He had been only 18 when enlisted in the RAAF in August 1940. His Hampden bomber was shot out of the sky on 5 September 1942. Another two Aussies were Warrant Officer Albert Horace Hake and Sydney-born Flight Lieutenant Thomas Barker Leigh. Leigh was anxious for freedom – he had been shot down the night of 5 August 1941. Nearly three years as a POW meant crowding into a stuffy tunnel caused little discomfort.
At 2130 on 24 March 1944 the outer end of the tunnel was breached. All the planning and hard labour had not prevented miscalculations. Freezing temperatures had hardened the ground meaning the final dig took over an hour, an unexpected delay causing those crammed in the tunnel discomfort and concern. Then, as they burst through it was found ‘Harry’ was around 20 feet (6m) short of the woods, meaning prisoners had the added risk of crawling across exposed ground. The escape had to proceed. Men hurried across the snowy ground to the shelter of the woods, each having to pause long enough for the movement of searchlights and sentries.
Progress was brisk until bombers such as they had once crewed, released bomb loads in an attack on the region. Immediately all camp lights were extinguished, and the number of guards doubled. The raid continued for an hour before the escape could proceed. Precious time had been lost and just before dawn it was decided the 87th man in the tunnel must be the last. In a terrible twist of fate, a sentry patrolling the perimeter decided to move to the edge of the woods to relieve himself. He noticed steam rising from the ground and then, three POWs emerged with their hands raised. The guard fired into the air and his armed compatriots ran in support. There was no alternative but for the remaining men in the tunnel to withdraw and to hastily throw months of precious escape material into furnaces. Peter Kingsford-Smith observed, ‘the huts were surrounded by guards … heavily armed with machine pistols, grenades and appeared panic stricken.’
German Guard enters the exit point of ‘Harry’.
The camp commandant, Freidrich-Wilhelm von Lindeiner Wildau, arrived, his face livid. Searchlights flooded the compound and German soldiers ran into huts screaming ‘Raus! Raus!’ With much pushing and shoving, POWs were removed and ordered to strip. ‘If we weren’t quick enough shirts and vests were torn off us.’ Aircrew stood naked in the snow and icy wind with the guards in no hurry to process each POW. Once allowed to dress in basic coverings they were ordered into two lines. One by one, the prisoners moved forward, to be identified by way of their POW cards. Delays and confusion were attempted through false names, but the mood of their gaolers was dangerous. Inspections and searches increased and, more guards were posted. A fortnight later Luft III POWs were paraded and the Commandant, sternly, delivered terrible news.
On 29 March 1944, the 22-year-old Australian Squadron Leader, James Catanach, was sitting in a Nazi prison with three fellow airmen escapees. They had almost made it to the Danish border, almost. After two years as a POW for Catanach, freedom, whilst fraught with danger, had tasted wonderful. He and 21-year-old New Zealander, Flight Lieutenant Arnold Christensen had caught an express train from Sagan to Berlin. After hiding overnight, they continued their quest to reach neutral Sweden and succeeded in avoiding detection to board a train for the northern German port city of Flensburg. It was in this city on the Baltic coast that they were noticed and taken into custody. Keeping company with them in the jail were fellow Luft III escapees, Lieutenants Nils Fuglesang and Hallada Espelid, Norwegians, who had served with the RAF. The men attempted to remain cheerful, they had managed to escape far, and now at least they would be reunited with mates at Luft III, after weeks in solitary. Photographs were taken on their capture before members of the Gestapo arrived.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/stalag-luft-III–the-great-escape-1944/zmjsmfr
SS Major, Johannes Post, accompanied by Oskar Schmidt interrogated each airman. Post was an ardent Nazi who enjoyed intimidating others. The POWs were handcuffed and pushed into waiting cars, Catanach, in the custody of Post. They were driven into the countryside before Post instructed his driver to stop by the side of the road. Catanach was ordered to get out and cross the road towards a meadow gate. Post pulled a Luger 7.65mm pistol from his holster and shot the Australian, killing him instantly.
Adolph Hitler had been enraged by such a blatant mass escape of Allied aircrew. He summoned Luftwaffe Reichsmarschall, Herman Goring and Reichsführer SS, Heinrich Himmler, and ordered them to execute all 76 escapees on recapture. Goring whose responsibility Luft III was, cautioned that Allied reprisals could result to such murder and violation of the Geneva Convention. Heinrich Himmler suggested that 50 be executed. This was agreed, and extensive manpower directed to recapture the POWs.
By 29 March 1944, dozens of escapees languished in Nazi gaols, all unaware of that which awaited. Australians, ‘Willy’ Williams and ‘Rusty’ Kierath had stuck together but the weather had proved unrelenting. A blizzard had dropped heavy snow and the aviators were exhausted trudging through knee high snow. Locals did not venture out in such weather, so the two Australians were observed and taken into custody. They were consoled by the fact that mates from Sydney Shore School, had escaped from a German POW camp and were still together. Photographs were taken and they awaited their return to Luft III.
Left: Squadron Leader John ‘Willy’ Williams; Right: F/L Reginald ‘Rusty’ Kierath.
At Luft III only six had been returned and thrown into solitary confinement and camp morale was high, buoyed by the belief so many had made it to safety. Two weeks later the remaining POWs at Stalag Luft III received news that 50 of the recaptured escapees had been shot for, ‘resisting arrest or making further escape attempts after arrest’. Among the list of the murdered were the names of five Australians: Williams, Kierath, Catanach, Hake, and Leigh. Their RAAF records were simply marked ‘Died while POW’, and families received no details.