大象传媒

I was a Prisoner of War (PoW) at the Luftwaffe's main camp, Stalag Luft III. The 'Goons', as we called the Germans, treated us well and observed the Geneva Convention, an international treaty on the treatment of PoWs. But of course we wanted to go home, so escaping was popular.

Getting out was hard enough, but once out you faced a journey of several hundred miles to neutral territory: a long walk or a train ride. My friend Lorne Welch and I argued that despite the perils, it would be better to borrow an aircraft from the Luftwaffe and fly to Sweden. There was an airfield just down the road.

When at last we got out, dressed as Luftwaffe ground staff, we had many adventures, including the humiliation of being ordered by the rightful crew of our chosen aircraft to start it up for them and watch it fly away. In the end we were recaptured and returned to the camp where we expected the usual penalty of a couple of weeks in the cooler (solitary confinement). Not so.

We had broken the rules of escaping: don't wear German uniform, don't use violence, and don鈥檛 engage in espionage or sabotage. Arguably wandering about on Luftwaffe airfields was espionage and I suppose nicking an aircraft would be sabotage. Fortunately we hadn't broken the other rule: don't use violence. Instead of a short rest in the cooler, we were threatened with Court Martial, even sentence of death. But in the end, they just sent us to Colditz.

Colditz is a small town on the banks of the river Mulde, some 25 miles from Leipzig, and has a magnificent medieval Schloss, used as a prison for persistent escapers and for the deutschfeindlich, or otherwise troublesome PoWs. Not surprisingly they were a lively lot.

When Lorne and I arrived in 1943 it held some 300 British and Allied officers. Some unreliable reports had led to it being described in a British newspaper as 'The Nazi Hell Camp'. Untrue, but the reputation stuck. In fact it was one of the most comfortable PoW camps in Germany.

Over the centuries the defences of the Schloss had been developed with the object of keeping the enemy out, but now the purpose was to keep us in, which is a different problem altogether. This crew of experienced escapers joyfully set to work to exploit the weaknesses so that Colditz had an outstanding record of escape, not only out of the camp, but also in getting home.

Escaping was what maintained morale in an environment where our open space was a courtyard some 30 x 20 metres. There were plenty of other pastimes, but escaping was a serious purpose.

It was technically demanding, exciting, sometimes a little dangerous; a sport really. But as 1944 wore on it became increasingly certain that the Allies would win and there seemed less and less point in the hard work and risks of escaping. Moreover, most of the ways out had been blocked. The Goons, who had more to worry about than playing games with PoWs, had published a notice 'To all Prisoners of War' and headed 'To escape from prison camps is no longer a sport'.

It advised us to stay safe in our camps and outlined the dire consequences if we didn't, and they meant it. We learned with horror that 50 RAF officers who had escaped from Stalag Luft III had been shot (as later featured in the film 'The Great Escape'). This was no longer cricket. Not, I hasten to add that the Luftwaffe was to blame. This atrocity was perpetrated on the direct order of Hitler.

Without the incentive of escaping, morale was sinking, not surprisingly when there was little to do except wonder how it would all end. In a country where public order and military discipline would be falling apart, anything might happen and there was the worry that we might be caught in a chaotic no-man's land between the Russians in the east and the Anglo-Americans to the west.

To add to the discomfort, the supply of Red Cross food parcels almost dried up and we grew hungry. Then someone who was related to the Danish Royal Family got word through to Copenhagen and a very welcome food lorry arrived.

The doctors, we had three of them, had accumulated a stock of tea and when they sensed that the mood was getting too edgy, they would issue a special ration. They said that numbers at their surgery the next day was noticeably reduced.

However, one major escape project continued: the glider. Believe it or not, high in the roof of the north wing, where there were two unoccupied floors, a hidden workshop had been contrived. In it Jack Best, Bill Goldfinch and Tony Rolt were building a glider, with a view to being catapulted off the roof. Impossible? Not so. It was completed, but the end came before it was launched. It was a properly designed and constructed aircraft. After the war a precise replica was built and it flew perfectly.

When the first V1 and V2 weapons were launched against London, the German papers announced a great victory, but we knew better. We had a radio and could receive 大象传媒 broadcasts. This radio was crucial to our morale and indeed to our safety and was a closely guarded secret.

The V stood for vergeltung, or revenge, and it was about this time that I was chatting to Willi Pohnert, a German civilian electrician who maintained the supply in the Schloss. 'Well Willi,' I said, 'what will you do when the war is over?'

'Ah Herr Morison, I think I shall become vergeltungemittel (material for reprisals).' Willi was a realist and a man born to be the mat on which the rest of the world wiped its feet, but happily he survived and prospered.

At the end of March 1945 we knew that the Allied armies were only 150 miles away and advancing rapidly. Morale began to revive, but there remained the nagging doubt: how would it all end? Then on 11 April the radio reported the fighting to be close.

Now began the end game. Colonel Willy Tod, the senior British officer, went to the Kommandant and demanded to know his intentions. The reply was ominous: he awaited orders from Himmler, the notorious head of the SS.

Remember that at Colditz there were several special prisoners (Prominente) with relations in high places, including relations of the Queen. They were hostages for Hitler, although the Germans would never admit it. But the Kommandant was a worried man. He knew that if he failed to deliver the prisoners safely to the Allied forces he would be in trouble, but if he disobeyed orders he would likely be shot out of hand. Delicate negotiations continued.

In the town below we could see SS troops preparing defences and it looked as though there would be a battle, but for what? Hauptman Eggers, one of the camp officers, wrote in his diary, 'What do they think they are still fighting for?'

On 14 April we could hear gunfire. The SS demanded reinforcements from the prison guards, but the Kommandant maintained that they were all old and had few weapons. Later the same day the Kommandant received orders to destroy all records and evacuate the prisoners towards the east, ie the advancing Russians. Now was the crunch. If we stayed in the Schloss, under the protection of the German officers who knew on which side their bread was buttered, we should be safe. Outside, in the area between the advancing Allies and the Russians, anything might happen.

Willy Tod, with the senior French and American officers, refused to budge and threatened violence. The Kommandant phoned his HQ and finally they agreed that we stay put. Then, with impeccable timing, Willy Tod demanded, and received, the keys to the Schloss. Outside in the camp we knew nothing of these tense negotiations, but we now know that without question Willy Tod's courage had saved all our lives.

But all was not yet over. We did not know it, but an American force moving on Leipzig had learned that there were VIP prisoners at a place called Colditz, and sent a detachment to investigate.

The next day they arrived and battle was joined with the SS, now on the hill behind. There was much shooting. Some shells hit the Schloss. Douglas Bader was knocked off his tin legs, but no-one was hurt. For the many army officers the fighting was a matter of professional interest, but for this timid RAF pilot it was time to try and ensure survival of the last few minutes of the war.

I retreated into what seemed a safe place under some stairs, feeling rather ashamed, only to find that I shared it with Douglas Bader and Tommy Catlow. If it was OK for a legless fighter ace and a submarine commander I reckoned it was OK for me and I felt a little better.

Soon it was all over. The great wooden doors of which for so long we had seen only the wrong side swung open and the Yanks were in the courtyard. Their tanks seemed to be dripping with Grand Marnier. 'Hey fella, take a swig of this.' Everything was a whirl, a dream.

The glider was brought out and rigged for all to see; the parts fitted together perfectly. The French, who had a sense of occasion, were called out on parade and were addressed by their Senior officer: 'Les Messieurs Francais, Prisoniers de Geurre pas encore.' Did they play the Marseillaise? I forget.

The next day we were loaded into lorries and taken to a Luftwaffe airfield where a fleet of Dakotas was waiting to take us home - VIP treatment indeed. As we headed west the Third and Last Reich slipped slowly away astern, forever. We landed briefly at Liege, then Brussels, and finally at Westcott in Oxfordshire.

It was late in the day and we had come a long way from the sleepy little town on the banks of the Mulde, whose now no-doubt bewildered people had been friendly enough whenever we met and where our guards had discharged their duties honourably.

But our journey was not yet over. The RAF were put on a train which rattled its way north to Cosford where once again I found myself in an RAF mess eating eggs and bacon in the small hours, for all the world as though I had made it safely back from Essen three long years before.

-- A full account of Walter Morison's life in the RAF from 1939 to 1945 can be found in his book, Flak and Ferrets.

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