When I first got to Luft VI, Hydekrug, I was over in
"E" barracks. Later, I ended up in Barracks 15,which was a little hut
at the near end of the compound( fairly close to the gate and cookhouse).The
Krauts decided to put us troublemakers in there(about 8-10 of us).
The way things were set
up,"E" compound was American,” A" compound was English and
"K" compound was Canadian. The Brits were right next to us in
"A" and "K" was across the lane, about fourteen feet wide with
barbed wire on both sides. The lane led out between their compounds into the
Vorlager. This area held five small buildings; the hospital, the cooler and the
Red Cross stores. The main gate out of the camp was in the center of the fence,
along the Vorlager. The whole space was flat, sandy and sparsely covered with
tundra grass.
I'd been shot down on
the March 6 raid to
The various committees
we had, in the camp, were supposed to be secret, as far as escapes and security
was concerned. Plans were submitted and approved, disapproved or changed.
As I remember it, George
approached me first. I was a barracks leader. We’d meet, to get away from the
rest of the crowd, on the edge of the “playing" field. Sitting there in
the scrub grass and looking out over the field, we started talking about
escapes; How...When...Where?
I spoke some Russian and
some French, so we decided to head up north through
The plan was really
brilliant... genius up to a point. When parcels came in, a group of American
prisoners were permitted to go through the gates, from the American lager into
the Vorlager, and over to the Red Cross supply building. They would pack a
wooden, flatbed cart and pull it out, loaded with big, empty Red Cross boxes. Six P.O.W.'s were
authorized to pull this wagon out and dump the empty boxes in the area behind
the Red Cross supply house. They could return with fresh supplies. A deliberate
accumulation of empty boxes was staked up.
It seemed that six guys
went out, but there were actually, seven. A little guy by the name of Robinson,
who was a ball turret gunner, got into one of the boxes inside the camp. When
they arrived at the Red-Cross shack, the Guards were deliberately distracted.
While their attention was on this commotion, Walker, who was a big guy, jumped
away at the moment of distraction. He hid down between the boxes. Robinson was
back on the wagon in a box, so he leapt off, and took
On the second run out
from camp, I was up front, pulling the wagon. Robinson was back in a box. We
went over to the shed, created another distraction... and I hopped behind the
empty crates. Again, Robinson leapt off the wagon, and he took my place. The
Krauts counted six prisoners and they returned to the compound.
That left George Walker
and me hidden in the Vorlager. We wore what was left over from our G.I. issue;
a leather jacket and some pants, a sweater and homemade cap, some kriegie had
knit. We were P.O.W.’s, so civilian clothes weren't allowed. In fact there was
a big, black market in A-2 jackets. The Red Cross hadn't come through with much
clothing yet.
Now there's one thing
that was fantastic... the Red Cross would send in balls of yarn and Knitting
needles. Then our guys would knit like crazy, making sweaters and hats. What a
thing, to see tough G.I.'s sitting around talking and watching a ball game,
while they made scarves.
George and I were not
really covered... just standing behind the shed, surrounded by those empty
boxes; neither of us were small guys, either. The back of the shed was quite
broad; at least twenty feet wide. The boxes had been piled up to one side of
the building, deliberately, to help us out.
Waiting for nightfall,
we had spoken seldom, and in hushed quiet tones. There were guards all around
us in the Vorlager and occasionally I would nudge him and point at them. During
the afternoon, we stayed in absolute stillness. It was devastating to feel each
minute go by, and be trapped within your own thoughts. Late in the afternoon,
it started to grow chilly and the sun slipped away. As the searchlights came
on, the guys in camp returned to their barracks for evening meals...then we
really felt alone out there.
I'd say we were behind
that shed from two or three in the afternoon, until late that night... well
after midnight. We were bidding our time, but you couldn't sleep under those
conditions. It’s not so much the cold, but the fact that you're alert to a
point where it's painful. Every sound is a nerve-wracking, horrifying
possibility of being discovered, and maybe being shot.
When the time finally
came for us to make our move, away from the boxes,
By this time, I was all
tensed up and ready. Any change in plans would have been disasterous. There was
no way to get back into the compound. We would have to wait there until the
morning to surrender in broad daylight... and hope the German's would take us
back in. I wouldn't hear of it. "We're here, we can't go back...We have
the wire cutters with us and the maps, it’s all right. We can make it!"
The fellows in the
compound thought it was a done deed and they were all set to cover for us. The
escape committee had thought that, psychologically, this plan had a good chance
for success. They figured the Germans would never expect an escape attempt
through the barbed wire... ten feet from their barracks. That was the key to
the whole thing.
It had come down to one
guard in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was the only flaw in the plan.
The theory was that our guard was to go around the camp. He should have passed
a certain station and kept going around the perimeter... maybe a total of five
or six city blocks. This particular guard kept going back and forth in front of
the gate. With all the tower lights on, he was getting adapted to, and could
see everything.
There were rather
marvelous, but complicated arrangements made inside our lager, to cover the
escape. Every morning at appell, we were strictly counted... and I mean
strictly counted, by our guards. Now here was a situation where the Germans
would know that American prisoners had been caught trying to escape, yet the
next morning, everyone would be present and accounted for. Fantastic! How could
they do it?
In order to confuse the
Krauts on the count, they arranged a very clever way to fool them. As each
group was counted, a distraction was made. POW's were standing in groups of
four rows, with maybe 60 or 70 guys in each group. One guy would slip away from
the back of the ranks and run into the front of the barracks. Then they'd slip
out and get back on line again. It’s unbelievable, but that's what they did, on
several occasions.
The boxes were piled up
some six or seven feet high, so we pushed them aside, got down and started
crawling. I went out and George was right behind me. We headed towards the
first line of barbed wire, beyond which lay more coiled barbed wire and a
ditch. Then came another fence. It was going to be a hell of a time, once we
cut the first wire, because we had to go through those obstacles and up the
other side. That would put us in the flats by the front gate and the German
barracks. It was grueling work to have to inch forward and stop; but we kept
going until we were about 25 feet from the trench.
About that time, George
was behind me and we were down on our bellies. We had no camouflage... no paint
on our faces... nothing. Inside the Vorlager, the Red Cross sheds, the hospital
and a confinement cell, were just dark shapes behind us. A guard was pacing
back and forth, just outside the fence, and the lights were sweeping the area.
My face was so close to the ground that every gust of wind, whipped dust at me
and I had to turn my head away.
We waited until the
light was shining away from us and then moved a few feet forward. The search
light swept back across the Vorlager. By this time, the sentry was very
familiar with and attuned to the rhythm of the night.
He went out about sixty
yards from the main entrance, not quite as far as the corner tower, and then
turned back again. You could see those German barracks clearly from where we
were huddled; it was just outside those gates. The escape committee had said:
"They'll never dream that we would try to escape right through their back
yard! “ It was a gamble.
The guard passed by; He
looked in. He looked right at us. It was a sandy area... the soil in that part
of
So, the Kraut guard was
walking forward, when suddenly he tensed and spun around. As if to say: "
ah ha!!” We just froze. He got upset, the way all Krauts did, screaming and
shouting: “Raus... Raus...Raus!!! “The minute he started to scream, I told
That son of a bitch
fires. Shot right at us, not over our heads. At that point, I got up on my
knees and in mixed German I said:
Schiesen nichts !! Kamerraden... Don't shoot...Don't shoot!".
The bastard shot again,
so we hugged the ground. I got up and shouted, and then the lights went on all
over. In the commotion, I lost track of the first guard, but he fired again.
"Where can we go...
what's he shooting for? " we asked ourselves. It was pure panic. I told
George was behind me,
laying flat. Sure enough, the main gate opens up and the dogs come in. They're the
one's who really found us. Behind them came the hund- posterns, the dog guards.
Those dogs were vicious and dedicated to one guy; if he got sick or something,
the dogs had to be shot. So, they found us and started tearing at us. After
some time, a guard comes up on us - I
could only see his boots and legs standing beside us... nothing more. All
around were screaming and barking and more soldiers coming into the Vorlager.
The guys in the Canadian
barracks were hollering in English behind us, but they were separated from us
by the barbed wire; they could see every thing happening to us, because the
lights from the towers had us pinpointed.
Someone pulled the dogs
away, and
He fell over on me. By
this time there were fourteen to sixteen other guards who'd come in. The one,
who first came in with the dogs, was the guy who shot
We were caught; there
was nothing we could do...here we are still inside the prison, and he's
shooting at us.
The camp was being run
by this Col. Von Hoermann, who was very strict. It was not controlled by the
Abwhere, who ran the second camp we went to. They were deadly! This Von
Hoermann was a by-the-rules officer, but he had no control over certain real
serious Nazi influences in the camp.
They took me to solitary
confinement, and then I was shuffled back and forth between the little prison
and the officers Quarters, where they interrogated me. They could not figure
out how we got from the American compound through all the checkpoints, into the
Vorlager. They had a German officer who spoke very good English, and he did the
interpreting. It was a serious breach of their security, and he kept hammering
away at me.
Obviously, I wasn't
going to tell them our ideas. It had taken two trips to get George and me in
there, and a lot of fellows had risked their lives for us. The Krauts
interrogated me, but they did not abuse me. I made up some Mickey Mouse story
for them, but the interrogating officer could see through this. He dismissed me
and I was sent back with two guards, along this dirt road just outside the
camp. Those two bastards wanted me to try to escape, but after what I'd been
through, I didn't want any part of their "help".
They put me into solitary, on bread and water
for days. I had a tiny window to watch things going on, and I remember looking
out on a Monday, thinking, "Wow, this is May Day, and here I am in this
cell!” That would have been May 1, 1944.
There was an old man, a
guard we later nicknamed “Pop”
who kept me alive. One day, he opens the door a crack, gives me some
bread and rations, and then closes the door again. When I got out, they put me
in Barracks 15 for the " bad boys ".Pop used to come and visit and
he'd say : I come to see my boy's. He
brings us things... whatever he could. Then we'd grab hold of him, take his gun
and he'd begin to scream: " Nein... nein..nein!" We'd throw his stuff
all around the room; I don't know why, but he loved us.
Finally they took me out
and showed me George Walker's grave. From there, I went to the hospital, where
I met incredible British guys who were creating amazing escape materials and
sending them out. The British actually had men leaving the camp on a regular
basis. One of their famous escapees was named Townsend-Coles; he went out of
the camp and never came back.
Another chap was a real
pistol, named Lehman. This S.O.B. was in and out of the compounds like water;
once he even showed up dressed as a goon, blue cover-alls and all. We had guys
called "readers”, who came periodically to the barracks. Immediately,
someone was posted to the doors and windows to see that the Germans wouldn't
disturb us. The reader would have the latest news from the secret radio (a
receiver, not a transmitter). On this particular day, no sooner was he in the
room, than the door opens with a bang! Our guys didn't even have a chance to
get to the windows; this Kraut walks in and slams the door behind him. A moment
passed before someone shouted: "its O.K. Don't worry about him." It
was Lehman, in disguise, wearing a German uniform.
A couple of us
recognized him, but that's the way he operated. It seemed he could go in and
out of that place whenever he wanted to. I always wondered what happened to
him. He and Townsend -Coles were memorable characters.
All sorts of escape
techniques were attempted... but they were all hollow. There were few real
successes. Some of them were brilliantly devised, but impractical .The process
was too difficult to handle. We had a tunnel that was attempted under the
shithouse. That was a devastating thing, because, the latrine was nothing more
than a concrete trench. In order to get into that trench, you had to wade into
it; but the Kriegies did it. They smashed their way through the wall of the trench,
working in teams... a half hour at a time. They were headed towards the barbed
wire right behind it. The distance to cover was quite short, so they were well
on their way to succeeding. One problem was, of course, what do you do with the
dirt? Between the barracks, we were permitted to build a basketball court. As
the dirt was dug, a guy would come over to the area and dump it; the ball
players would run over and stamp it down, right away. That court was getting
higher and higher all the time.
Another problem is the
engineering; how do you shore the tunnel up? We only had six slats under our
straw sacks. Each of us would donate one to the escape committee, who’d split
them up for use as shoring. In this case, another engineering problem was,
maintaining a correct heading and depth. At some point, as they neared the
fence, they were only a foot or two from the surface. One day, a Russian
prisoner was walking around back there behind the latrine, cleaning up. It had
rained the night before and he fell through. That Russian was paralyzed with
fear! As he went down, he started crying and screaming and carrying on. The
place was full of Krauts in no time at all. It's a shame, all that work done
for nothing.
The only real mass break
I know of, from the American compound at Hydekrug, involved Harvey Elwood Gann.
He went out with a guy named Stapleton and a POW named Lamarcha. I know of this
because Gann and I escaped later, when they evacuated Kiefeheide. On this
particular incident, they got out for 3 or 4 days. They went into a deep woods,
and set up camp for the night. They built a tiny fire, so nobody could see it.
Guess where they were? Right over a German High Tech underground installation.
The Germans came up and grabbed them all. They guys landed back at barracks 15.
That attempt happened in
the early spring of 1944, but after March, escape was no longer a sport, as I
found out. After the Great Escape took place down at Sagan, the Germans called
us all together. At Appell they counted us. The Commandant of Hydekrug was an
elegant S.O.B.; he was always dressed in these long leather coats. He shouted
out in German and Bill Krebs translated into English as he told about the
escape.” That’s not going to happen here! Henceforth everyone will be
shot."
The British compound was
run by Dixie Deans. One time he invited our band to come over and play for
them; we had a terrific jazz band. I used to play the double base and I
remember another fellow, Vince Romano...he was the sax man. Anyway, they wanted
us to make a lot of noise... and we were a noisy outfit.
The guys were stomping
and the audience was stomping... but what
was really going on was that the doggone Brits were building a tunnel under the
stage! Here again, the tunnel was later discovered.
I went out on the
"Black March" of February 1945, but I escaped from that almost as
soon as it began. They stuck us in barns overnight. Harvey Gann and I made our
minds up to escape. The first night out from the camp, we took off and slept in
the woods, out in the snow. The next morning, we met some British POW's who
were working on a farm there. They said the American prisoners had all left and
were heading towards Belgard. We hit the road in broad daylight.
We were actually
hitch-hiking. When a German truck gave us a lift, we told him, "The war is
over. You guys have won the War!" They said, "Ja Ja Ja, come on,
Where are you going?"
They dropped us off at a
railway station near Belgard and we tried to figure out what to do next.
When soldiers were on
leave, they were allowed to go to this YMCA like place. The Germans kept us in
that place, and we had a hell of a time. The Krauts treated us very well. It
was early February of 1945.I went to see the Commandant and told him: "We
are under the impression that our people were back in our camp. We’d like to
join them." It was pure bull, but you know.... they sent us back to the
station, under guard, and we took the train back to the Luft IV. When we got
off at Kiefeheide, we had to walk right back up that famous trail.
Gann and I were sure the
Russians were in our camp. It was a temptation to try to knock off the guards
with us, but we figured that the Russians would nail them when we got there.
What a surprise we had comming. We broke out into the clearing, and the Nazi
flag was still flying; the place was full of Germans. There were Russians there
alright, but they weren't running the camp!
The following day, we
marched out again with a bunch of wounded Polish and Russian kriegies. That was
a bad march, and a lot of them went down; our leg and thigh muscles were
swollen and hurt from walking. That night, the Krauts stuck us in some barns
again, so Harvey and I decided to give it another try.
We kicked out a slat in
the back of the barn, and went off into the woods. This time, we were afraid to
make a fire, or do anything to
draw attention to us. It was bitter cold that night. The next day, we
were alone in the woods, trying to figure out where we would go next.
Here comes this guy,
walking through the woods... careless as can be... whistling a tune, as he went
down the path. He’s wearing a French beret, so we take a chance and whistle at
him. He turns around to check us out, and stares. We freeze! I figured:
"oh my God Did we blow it?"
It turned out that he
was one of nine French prisoners, who worked in a beautiful German hospital.
The place was not far from Treptow, secreted in a deep, wooded area. The
buildings were in a rectangle, with a park in the middle and built two stories
high. The
Frenchman leads us right through a group of wounded officers, who were
sitting around outside. We walked right between them, but they paid no
attention to us. We’ve got this crummy tattered clothing on, and they know
we're with this other French POW.
He takes us to one of
the buildings, opens the door, but instead of going on the first or second
floor... he opens a door going down to the cellar. We go down two stories, into
a dungeon. That damn place was home to eleven Frenchmen. They had radio
receivers hidden behind the stone walls of the foundation. There was food,
wine, whatever.
Just imagine, there are
guards and officers all around us, and were living the life of Riley down
there. Of course, most of the guards are “shit-kickers" who were
orderlies. Their job was to clean up after these wounded officers, and we were
invisible to them.
Every night these
Frenchmen would listen for messages from the BBC or Free French Radio. Gann and
I knew exactly what was going on in the war. We ate very well, and we knew that
one day soon, the Russians would be there. Up above, the Germans were preparing
to abandon the place.
We heard a tremendous
racket going on upstairs; evacuation had begun. Ambulance wagons were taking
out wounded; trucks were being loaded with supplies and personnell. The word
was that Russians had surrounded the area. Next thing you know, the place was
empty.
Gann and I and the
Frenchmen, spread out to see what we could find. There was and underground
room, where they repaired the officers uniforms. Behind it there was a massive
door with those huge antique hinges. I couldn't figure out what was behind it.
We scrounged up a grenade, and blew off the doors. Behind was a wine cellar
that you wouldn’t believe;
We found a couple of
English POW'S in one of the wards, and began comparing notes with them. We’d
hardly got to know each other before there was a great rumble outside. I ran to
find out what it was, and there's this Russian tank...wow!
The turret opens up...
and a bimbo pops up with boots and a skirt, up to here! With a machine-gun
yet! COMRAD!.... she was tough, too.
Those Russian woman had been M.P.'s on the front lines and there was no fooling
around with them. She introduced us to the other guys in the tank, who wanted
us to join them and go up to the front. I said " Screw that!"