Before North Compound was constructed, kriegies volunteered to help clear away tree stumps. Their labour was not, however, altruistic. Justin O’Byrne was one of those ‘busy studying the layout and pacing off distances with the idea of eventually constructing tunnels for escape’. O’Byrne, who had a long history of joining escape enterprises – he contacted the escape organisation almost as soon as he arrived at his first camp – ‘was transferred over into the north compound’ in 1944, ‘and then became associated with the tunnel called “The Great Escape”’. After months of digging, ‘eventually it was time to go. And we were allocated by drawing lots, and where we’d be in the line. It was like a giant crocodile’. The grand scheme, he assessed, was ‘a classic of perseverance, of ingenuity, of bravery and everything combined’.
Stalag Luft III is renowned for two
escapes. Some, like O’Byrne, participated in both. The first, in October 1943,
was the so-called Wooden Horse effort where three men from East Compound made a
‘home run’ to Britain. When O’Byrne wasn’t playing the harmonica to
distract the guards, he disposed of spoil. John
‘Jock’ McKechnie’s hands were scarred from the
‘crude tools’ he used when helping to fabricate the vaulting horse. Richard
Winn took turns jumping over it while tunnellers worked underneath. Winn also
joined the digging roster and took his turn removing the soil. Some of it ended
up in bunkers on the golf course they had constructed
themselves. If the escape route hadn’t been discovered,
George Archer (one of those who enjoyed a good game of golf) was in the next
batch of prisoners hoping to use it. ‘You
do get disheartened’, Archer stated after the escape was blown. Reflecting his
own sense of community however, he conceded that ‘it was a great thing’ that three
airmen got out.
The second, more notorious scheme, was the mass
attempt which has come to be known as the Great Escape. Organised by Roger
Bushell, plans were implemented shortly after North Compound opened in April
1942. The kriegies dug three tunnels known as ‘Tom’, ‘Dick’, and ‘Harry’. One
was discovered by the Germans, another was decommissioned, and ‘Harry’ remained
the focus of the tunnellers’ attention. Two hundred men tried to exit the camp on
the night of 24–25 March 1944. Six Australians were among the 76 who escaped. Bill
Fordyce was still in the tunnel when the attempt was discovered. Only three
airmen made it back to Britain. Seventy-three were recaptured.
When the sirens went off, Fordyce and the others still
in the tunnel made their way back to the hut. Those awaiting their turn,
including Justin O’Byrne and Albert Comber, ‘sneaked back to our bunks’. For
Comber, it was another foiled escape attempt. ‘Failure again!’ Alan
Righetti, who had been one of the ‘X’ Organisation’s ‘stooges’ logging German movements in and
around the huts, remembered hearing
shots fired. It ‘was pandemonium’. All traces of the escape were covered up or
destroyed as the Germans searched for signs of a tunnel. Righetti recalled that
‘we were bitterly disappointed’ that all the men had not escaped ‘but at the
same time, very proud of the fact that we had the whole of the area and the
German Army rushing all over the place looking for our fellas’, including Paul
Royle who was fifteenth out of the tunnel.
Royle was what the airmen termed a ‘hard-arser’ – he
had to travel on foot. Captured within 24 hours, he
was later sent
back to Stalag Luft III. James Catanach, who had
been assailed by the ‘the futility of the
existence’, was 23rd out of the tunnel.
Travelling by train, he had put about 530 kilometres between him and the camp
before he was captured at Flensburg on Germany’s border with Denmark. He had
been on the run for 45 hours. John Williams, number 32 from the tunnel and Reg Kierath,
the 35th, travelled some of the way together by train, and partly by foot. They
covered about 80 kilometres and had been out for maybe 16 hours before they
were recaptured. Albert Hake was number 70. Following close behind was Thomas
‘Tom’ Leigh, who was 73rd. Hake and Leigh, like Royle were hard-arsers; they
knew they had no chance of success. It is thought that Hake, who suffered
excruciating frost bite, travelled perhaps less than 65 kilometres and had been
free for about 72 hours before he was captured. No one knows for sure, but it
seems Leigh had trudged no more than 24 kilometres from the camp, and that he
had been free for less than 48 hours. Along with 45 other airmen, including the
escape’s instigator, Roger Bushell, the five young Australians were
shot on Hitler’s order. They were all in their twenties. Kierath, the oldest,
was 29. The youngest at 22 was Catanach; he had been only 20 when captured in
September 1942.
*****
The ‘X’ organisation contributed to some men’s
psychological problems. A handful discovered they had claustrophobia.
Albert Comber found underground work ‘terrifying’; he, like others continually
battled the ‘panicky feeling that accompanied fears of being entrapped by a
cave-in in the confined space’. Robin
Sumner traded-in tunnelling for other tasks because of his claustrophobia.
No matter how important they were, he felt ashamed. Returning time and again to
captivity in memory and nightmare, he experienced serious late-life anxieties. ‘I
am back in a POW camp somewhere in Europe’, Robin
Sumner explained. ‘Sometimes I’ll be taking part in an escape attempt under
enemy fire the circumstances are always hopeless and consequently frightening.
In another dream I’m being buried alive in a collapsing escape tunnel (equally
hopeless and frightening).’ The tension of escape work may also have
contributed to a collective mental strain.
Protecting Powers’ delegates had visited Stalag Luft
III a month before the Great Escape. They reported that George Matthews and his
fellow medical staff were concerned about the airmen. ‘An increasing number of
prisoners and particularly among those who have been in captivity for a long
time, (3 or 4 years) are gradually losing their peace of mind, becoming more
and more mentally unbalanced.’ ‘Psychosis cases’ were also increasing, perhaps
emanating from fear of possible discovery after the ‘“blitz” campaign’ to
finish off tunnel ‘Harry’ began in early 1944. The situation was ‘extremely
grave’ and the ‘effect on some of the prisoners may be a lasting one unless
some serious steps [are] taken soon’. Rather than transfer the complex cases to
a specialist facility, such as at Stalag VIII-B, Lamsdorf,
because it ‘might do more harm than good’, several men were moved to the
Belaria compound ‘as this would secure a change of surroundings for them’. This
helped some ‘in a very small way’.
The airmen did not know why some of their complement
had been relocated. Perhaps reflecting the social stigma of mental illness,
their medical and senior officers failed to tell them. The airmen, however,
constructed their own narrative which reflected their continuing status as
elite airmen on duty behind barbed wire. While some of them, Paul Brickhill
recounted, ‘were completely harmless types who had nothing to do with “X”’, a
group of critical operatives in the escape organisation and ‘fairly important
workers’ numbered among the transfers. Accordingly, the airmen inferred that
the Germans were aware that something big was afoot, especially as it followed
an upsurge in camp security checks. As time passed, the ‘harmless types’ were
elided from the story to emphasise the purge’s connection to escape work.
Author and journalist Guy Walters, for example, states that all the Belaria
transferees were part of the escape organisation. Shifting the focus from
mental strain reinforced the airmen’s wellness and near-universal escape
narratives. There was no place for mental disturbance in their expressions of
martial masculinity.
Given the increase in escape work in the early months
of 1944 and the collective strain of keeping it secret, it is likely that the
advancing plans for a mass escape underpinned the medical staff’s concerns. But
how did the lead-up to the Great Escape affect the mental well-being of those
preparing to escape? Reg Kierath’s last letter to his mother indicates nothing
other than his usual high spirits, tiredness of the domestic regime, and
annoyance at the continual blaring of the camp loudspeaker. When he wrote ‘I
fear I shall be doing the goose step, or else going crazy in the near future’,
Ada Kierath would have held no doubts about her lively son’s sanity, or
entertained any suspicion that he was planning to escape. It seems, however,
that James Catanach could barely suppress his excitement. ‘Get my suit pressed’, he told his friend Malcolm
McEachern.
Albert Hake’s correspondence indicates a build-up of
emotional turmoil. The tone of his earlier letters had been bright and
positive, and despite his separation from Noela, he continued to look to the
future: ‘tomorrow is another day [where] one’s spirit rises with the sun’.
Reading between the lines, Hake’s letters indicate he was busy with his work
for the ‘X’ organisation as a compass-maker, as well as his pride in it. As
time passed, Hake became more morose. He continually expressed how much he
missed Noela, his desperation to return to her, his fears that she was in love
with someone else, his regret about not starting a family, and his sense that
he would be too old by the time he returned home. He was shocked by the news of
Mrs Rob’s death. His grief was acute. ‘She was a great friend and mother to me.
Her kindness and understanding sympathy helped me through many a physical and
mental hurt. I have lost my adopted mother.’ Hake’s psychological state was exacerbated
by the breakup of his close-knit room when two of the members were transferred
to Belaria. ‘Well after almost two years together our old room (called “Anzac
Cove”) has finally split.’ Close relations were not established with the
non-Australian new arrivals. ‘The list of names on our door now contains five
names under “Anzac Cove” with the latters under the heading of “Some Other
Cove”’. By his third wedding anniversary – his second in captivity – Hake’s
mental state had deteriorated further. ‘Living
through that happy day of three years ago’ appeared to galvanise him towards
participation in the ill-fated escape attempted. ‘Well
damn it all I’ll be home for our next anniversary darling’, he wrote on 1 March
1944. His last letter, written four days before the mass breakout, concluded,
‘I hope I can justify your faith in me dearest one of these days. Remember me’.
*****
The names of the dead were announced a few days after the
escape. Their comrades felt ‘deep personal loss’. ‘We
were stunned’, Justin O’Byrne recalled, ‘so grieved at such a tragedy happening
to people who were young, virile lads in the prime of life, and to be shot
down, murdered like dogs, it was beyond our comprehension.’ It could just as
easily have happened to him if he had made it through the tunnel. In addition
to deep grief, the escape emotionally and psychologically affected the airmen. The
Protecting Powers’ observers detected ‘a great nervousness in the whole camp’
after the Great Escape. Both British and American senior officers were
concerned ‘about the deplorable effect’ on ‘the mental state of the prisoners’
of the ensuing reprisals on the recaptured escapers. The situation did not
improve. ‘The state of mind of the prisoners at this Camp
is, naturally, very bad as a result of the death of the 50 officers who were
shot’, observed the Protecting Powers’
representatives after their 22 May 1944 inspection. The
prevailing feeling of ‘insecurity felt by the prisoners of war’, lingered.
Indeed, the memory of that time stayed with Julian
Macpherson for many decades, detracting from his long-term well-being. ‘We
were not treated well after that episode.’
Even as the airmen personally dealt with their shock
and grief, they altruistically looked outwards. Many of ‘the Fifty’ were
married; some, like Albert Hake, had paid allotments to their wives or mothers.
Recognising that the deceased airmen’s next of kin might need financial
assistance, North Compound personnel each subscribed an average of £5 to a
special fund. A ‘committee of adjustment’ was formed to gather the men’s
personal effects which were then auctioned off. ‘Some of the camp leading
lights were invited to act as “guest auctioneers”’, Laurie Simpson reported. Although
the men were still grieving, ‘the whole thing was carried out … in a very light
hearted spirit’. The ‘bidding was generally very high, some prices being
fantastic’. As a result, ‘a substantial sum’ was raised. Noela Hake received
two payments totalling £283. 4. 11d. After the war, profits of £450 from the
ex-prisoner produced book, Spotlight on
Stalag Luft III, were donated to the RAF Benevolent fund.
Not all personal possessions were auctioned and two
examples illustrate the extent of the kriegies’ altruistic impulses. Personal
parcels arriving after the men’s deaths were considered communal property and
divided up. RAF airman Vivian Kelly, ‘one of the few who have suffered a
particular dearth of clothes’, benefited from Ada Kierath’s last parcel.
Despite the charitable efforts of his friends in camp who shared what they
could spare, Kelly ‘was beginning to feel very much in need’. He was touchingly
grateful to Ada: ‘I may tell you that the contents were never more welcome
because it has been over two years since any clothing parcel had come my way’.
Before exiting the escape tunnel, Alan Righetti’s roommate, George Wiley had
charged him with returning his wristwatch and personal photos to his family in
Canada if anything happened to him. After liberation, Righetti displayed ‘an
intimate chivalry’ by taking the long way home via America and Canada to fulfil
his promise. ‘That was a very hard thing to do’,
he recalled, as he encountered the Wiley family’s stark, uncomprehending grief.
Their fears for his safely had subsided when they heard he had been captured, ‘so relieved to
hear that he was safe in prison camp, only then to have the news that he was
murdered’. Their anguish was so profound that they had little comprehension
that Righetti had delayed his return to Australia, and driven to Ontario from
Washington DC (a trip which would take over 13 hours today) to deliver his
friend’s belongings, and that he had been fulfilling Wiley’s final, personal
request.
*****
‘I shall never forget the day when our SBO … gathered us
together in the camp and told us the tragic news’, Reg Giddey told a reporter
seven years later. The memory of the camp’s collective grief was still vivid.
‘Some of the hot-heads wanted to charge the barbed wire and guard boxes, but
reason prevailed...’ Individually and as a community the airmen tried to give
the deaths greater meaning as they ‘went
into mourning’. North
Compound held a
commemorative service on Good Friday – one of the most significant days in the
liturgical calendar, commemorating Christ’s sacrifice. ‘Every
prisoner wore a black diamond … on his sleeve for the remainder of our term in
prison’, recalled O’Byrne, including on Anzac Day. Wearing full uniform, the Australian airmen gathered
for photographs. Taken on the day of Australia’s most significant commemoration
of the war dead, their group portrait declares more than national and service
solidarity. It is a visual record of air force pride and communal grief.
The kriegies’ mourning signalled a departure
from the usual air force practice of marking death and rapidly moving on. Air
force culture distanced them from contemplating their own deaths or those of
their fellows; they did not die but ‘went west’ or ‘for a
Burton’. Those on operational squadrons
climbed back into air craft and continued operating. The airmen pragmatically
accepted death as a fact of service life and simply carried on with their work.
In captivity, however, they had the ‘space’ to
contemplate the deaths of the Fifty and find a way to make them meaningful.
Some wrote lists of those killed in wartime
log books. They annotated the pages, drawings, and photos with a cross, the
traditional symbol denoting the dead as well as a pre-eminent symbol of a
shared Christian faith. Personal remembrances and photographic records of
collective grief, however, were not enough. Graves and memorials provide a
tangible connection between the dead and living, a focus for grief, a trigger
for remembrance, and a place of pilgrimage. They allow the grieving to keep
faith with the dead. Just as many Great War memorials in Britain and Australia
had been voluntarily built by families and communities, North Compound’s air
force family similarly kept faith with their dead.
Under the Geneva Convention, officers
were not obliged to work but, with the
commandant’s permission, and using stone provided by the Germans, a working
party of prisoners constructed a memorial in the nearby cemetery where other
prisoners had been buried. There they could inter their friends’ ashes. Designed by Australian-born architect and theatrical designer, Wemyss Wylton Todd, the prisoners’ memorial resembles an altar, a pagan and Christian artefact of sacrifice – the
sacrificial table. Todd’s design included an eagle. Mounted below the
inscription, its spreading wings symbolise both the brotherhood of airmen and
their wings insignia. The names of the dead are engraved on three granite
tablets, divided into columns by crosses which recall Sir Reginald Blomfield’s
Cross of Sacrifice. Featuring in Imperial War Graves Commission cemeteries,
Blomfield’s cross, encompassing a battle broadsword, emphasises both the
military service and religious backgrounds of the majority of the dead. The
broadsword’s links to medieval knights and their code of chivalry has deeper
resonance for members of an air force which aspired to chivalrous values at
heart, if not on operations. By incorporating the cross into the memorial, Todd
signalled that he and Stalag Luft III’s airmen perceived the Fifty’s deaths as
sacrifices. So too does the inscription underneath their names: ‘In memory of
the officers who gave their lives’. (My
emphasis.) From this, the airmen composed a
lasting narrative of sacrifice.
The memorial was built in the nearby cemetery.
There, 50 urns containing the dead men’s ashes were interred on 4 December
1944. Thirty prisoners along with members of the Swiss Legation attended the funeral.
The airmen laid wreathes, and the Catholic and Protestant chaplains said
prayers and blessed the monument and ashes. After
the way, the ashes were removed to the British Military Cemetery at Poznan and
buried there. The Imperial War Graves Commission erected headstones to mark the
graves, inscribed with the airmen’s names, service details, and epitaphs chosen
by their families.
By helping to erect a memorial to the ‘gallant men who gave up their lives’, the
Australians provided a focus for their grief and
an opportunity to come to terms with and make sense of their
friends’ death. So too did the narrative of sacrifice which later merged
with one of duty: the Fifty had died as active airmen, fulfilling their service
and captivity obligations as outlined in Air
Publication 1548. A late-life emphasis on compliance with air force
abrogated any sense of guilt the survivors may have felt in participating in
the escape work which had led to the deaths of their comrades. While Justin
O’Byrne recognised personal desire to regain his freedom along with motivations,
he stated that his ‘first duty was to escape, to try to rejoin his lines’. Lionel
Jeffries, one
of the Great Escape ‘stooges’, also cited service obligation:
‘we were duty bound to escape if we could’. Some
framed the Great Escape as a worthwhile endeavour based on the highest motives.
Reinforcing that they remained active participants in the war behind barbed
wire, many highlighted the ‘nuisance value’ of escape. They believed they were
tying up German manpower and matériel. Bill
Fordyce and Bill Jeffries considered the breakout ‘successful, even if it was
so tragic’ because of the ‘massive amount of disruption’ it caused. ‘There
were tens of thousands of German troops whose sole job was to look for those
that escaped’, Fordyce said. ‘The escape was such an embarrassment to German authorities as to
involve Hitler himself,’ asserted Jeffries. ‘This was our war contribution, to
create maximum disruption to Germany in its then failing condition’ he insisted. To
otherwise couch the Fifty’s deaths would diminish them. It would make a mockery
of the camp’s ‘deep mourning’. It would also risk highlighting real or
vicarious personal or collective culpability in the escapers’ deaths.
Because of decades of lionisation of the participants,
there are very few latter day criticisms of either the escape organisation or
its main proponents, particularly Roger Bushell. Indeed, most of Stalag Luft
III’s prisoners forgot or ignored Bushell’s escape autocracy; some acclaimed
him a hero. Sixteen months after Bushell’s death, Malcolm Jones, who had worked
in the carpentry department with Reg Kierath, claimed that ‘the escape was
brilliantly planned’ by Bushell. Sixty years after Bushell’s death, Geoff
Cornish, who was active in the ‘X’ organisation until he transferred to the
Belaria compound to work in the sick quarters, still considered the South
African to be ‘a very great friend’. He
‘was brave and he was cunning. He was the ideal type’. Justin O’Byrne’s
assessment is also typical: ‘he was an inspiration for morale building and
determination, a very great man’. There were only a handful of dissenters, such
as Len Netherway thought Bushell was ‘mad. Crazy’.
The Great Escape failed to achieve its aim of creating great havoc. It had little effect on the allied war effort. The narratives of sacrifice and duty, however, gave meaning to the mass break-out, as well as the deaths of the 50 airmen. The glee with which former kriegies such as O’Byrne later told stories ‘of prisoners under a big handicap but often coming out on top’ highlights their believed success in winning the ‘battle of wits’ against the Germans. The great cost, however, was lost lives, and the men grieved deeply for them. Some mourned a life-time.
