N.C.O CAMP
POW ESCAPE 1943
HOHENFELS BAVARIA
After our
unsuccessful attempt to escape over the wire, our next attempt on the
night of October the 9th (successful) 1943 took us, Sgt.
A. W. Brough A&SH [Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders] and W.O.
J. Quinn RAF through the camp wire and after many interesting
experiences, on an adventure of one week to unfortunate arrest at
Trier on the Luxembourg borders in Koblenz area.
(Method of ESCAPE).
After much thought and
frustrating attempts, a very simple and effective solution came to
our aid, namely (CLOUDS).
Our camp was on high
ground in Bavaria, near the village is of HOHENFELS, and in October
1943, low CLOUDS at times covered the hilltops. On this particular
Sunday night (I believe) I was sitting at the end of the block of
camp huts, contemplating how we would ever beat the 10' high by 10'
thick barbed wire fences and the German sentries. When I heard to my
right a few Australian and British POWs bartering with the German
sentries through the wire. I suddenly realised that the low clouds
over the camp was going to be our method of escape.
Some weeks before
October we had stolen from a FRENCH working party, a large pair of
wire cutters, these we had hidden under the floor of our hut, wrapped
in grease in a sandbag. I dashed into the hut and said to Jimmy “Get
the wire cutters quick” tonight we are going!
I realise that if I
could enlist the help of some of the lads on the wire, to puff away
at cigarettes, while talking to and also following these two German
sentries on their beats, Jimmy and I could cut through the inner and
outer wire, when no cigarettes could be seen. The wire would not be
observed by the sentries, and we would only have the inner Rolled
'DANERT' wire to press down. We would also cut the wire near the
large wooden fence posts, which threw a shadow from the perimeter
lights across a track and part of the approach to dead ground that
led to a small hill a quarter of a mile from the camp, our first
target.
This plan succeeded
and we cut through the wire at right angles Ex
THEN pulled it back
into place after to avoid detection. Both inner and outer fences.
(We beat fences and A.R.C and roving searchlights).
We wore old overalls
over our army and RAF tunics plus Sgt stripes and identification
discs. We got clean away and sat near breathless but full of success
on the small wooded hills and watched and heard the German troops,
military dogs, and motor transport & lights round the area of our
escape.
We then headed for our
next important target, which was the railway and station at
Paarsburge [Parsburge?] around 15 km across very hilly terrain, and
across the river Regen [not sure about this name/location] (We
crossed this river around dawn among a herd of cattle, unobserved,
along with the cattle bells, and the young cow herder, also German
sentry on the bridge).
At Paarsberge station
we slept for an hour or so under the hedge lining the rail track
soaked in the morning dew and was woken by an empty Horse Transport
Troop Train that pulled in. The destination tickets or it's
carriages mentioned Belgium, we decided this one was for us so we
cancelled all other thoughts of Switzerland or Russia or every other
possible borders, and climbed into an empty horse stall carriage,
left the doors ajar and retired to its darkest corner. Shortly after
this rail workers were tapping on the wheels with hammers, a good
sign that this train was going somewhere. Lo and behold in about 10
minutes, we were off on our way.
First Nuremberg next
Amsbach, here at night we stopped for a couple of hours on the next
line and watched a whole German regiment of troops and equipment
entraining for possibly France, a few feet away. We stayed on the
train the whole of our journey through the whole Siegfried line,
airfields and defence lines, manned by troops at all roads and
railway junctions and bridges, even waving at the troops as we passed
through looking like, we hoped German railway workers.
Our unfortunate
downfall however was (WATER). We had at the camp, hidden away 3
haversacks of concentrated rations and one of water bottles. Sadly
in our hast to get through the wire Jimmy grabbed 2 haversacks of
rations, none of water, our last good drink had been from the River
Regan and our rations were only biscuits, raisins, prunes, tin of
spam, old bread, emergency Choc army.
We crossed the R.Rhine
at Heidelberg to the Kaiserslautern, then Saarbrücken, here I wanted
to cross the E. Saar and try for METZ in France but Jimmy had
frostbitten feet from when he had been shot down in the N. Sea on
Coastal Command and was not up to possible long marches. However, we
got back into our wagon, the next stop TRIER. Here whilst searching
for water on the main Station we were taken at gunpoint, by a German
guard into the main station for water, we believed he was not aware
of our identities however after going a short distance through the
corridors and blackout curtains, we were confronted with a
brilliantly lit waiting room full of German troops sleeping and awake
waiting for a troop train. I believe the way we drank our water, the
game was up. One young officer spotted the one RAF button on Jimmy's
tunic and shouted “those men are Fallschirmspringers
(“parachutists”). We were arrested at bayonet point and
'Schmeissers'.
Eventually taken to a
German H.Q. Chateau near KOBLENZ, interrogation, then to a number of
prisons at Kaiserslautern, FORBACH and LIMBURG. Escorted by German
troops and eventually by a German (Feldwebel) to whom we refused our
parole then without our feet in French Sabot (wooden shoes) no socks.
Taken through numerous adventures back to Hohenfels.
3 weeks (bunker arrest)
(Made another ATTEMPT
by cutting a small tunnel under the floorboards of the cell (at
Hohenfels) BUT CAUGHT) HARDLINES) (AGAIN)
