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 Berlin, and got to Hydekrug with several of my crew, about mid-March of 1944. At this time, all sorts of escape activities were in progress at the camp. There were tunnels being dug, and both the British and Americans, had made successful break-outs above ground. 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 : "It's O.K. Don't worry about him." It was Lehman, in disguise, wearing a German uniform. 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 success's. Some of them were brilliantly devised, but impractical. 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 we evacuated Kiefeheide. They got out for 3 or 4 weeks. At the end, the guys were in 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 Krauts came up and grabbed them all.
The various committees we had were supposed to be secret, as far as escapes and security was concerned. Plans were submitted and approved, disapproved or changed. George Walker may have been involved with them, as a mapmaker, but I'm not sure about that I had met him in camp, just as I had many other people. He was a big, heavy set guy; tall, with dark hair. Walker's home town was Spartansburg, South Carolina, and he spoke with a real southern drawl.
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 Estonia and Latvia, into Russia. My family was from there, and in fact, my dad was a Russian translator and liaison officer for the Air Corps up in Fairbanks, Alaska (At the same time I was in prison camp, half way around the world!). It was decided that we would make the attempt on April 29, 1944.
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 thecamp. 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 of, and took Walker's place. Six guys pulled the wagon out and six guys pulled the wagon in.
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 myself hidden in the Vorlager. We wore what was left overfrom 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. Walker was getting jumpy.
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, Walker wanted to blow. He didn't want to go. "Let's not do it. Look at those guards walking outside the perimeter! This is crazy...We haven't got a chance!"
By this time, I was all tensed up and ready. Any change in plans would have been disastrous. 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 gothrough those obstacles and up the other side. That would put us in the flats by the front gate and the German barracks. It was gruelling 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, 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 inthat part of Prussia, just had marsh grass on it, so we had very little cover. The whole idea was to do this quietly. As we crept along, we just had to time our movements to the guard and the lights. If he'd have gone around the perimeter, the way he was supposed to... we would have had twenty minutes or more to move. 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 Walker: "Don't F___ing move! Otherwise we're dead. Just lie still... Don't Move!!!"
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, 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 Walker : " Lay down, don't move,George." To this day, in my mind, in my memories, my nightmares come alive, because I said " DON'T MOVE!".
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 was 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 Walker made a move. I didn't know what was happening; I was trying to understand. Walker moved and got up. And ...HE WAS KILLED... on the spot! 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 Walker. I'll tell you why he did it, too. That Kraut thought I was dead. He must have figured: My God, look what we've got here! These prisoners are trying to escape, now one of them is shot." He wouldn't have done it out of malice, but I think he was trying to cover up. He thought I was killed by shots from the perimeter guard and figured :" This one's dead and maybe there's going to be an investigation!" It was cold blooded murder. They took me to solitary confinement, 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. In my cell, I had a tiny window. 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, then closes the door again. When I got out, Pop used to come and visit and he'd say:" I come to see my boy's." He'd bring us things... whatever he could. I don't know why, but he took care us.
