A friend just sent me a "text-only" version of this, which she had been sent by someone, who got it from, etc.... But no links! (grrrrrrr!) However I looked it up and it goes back a few years and has appeared on numerous websites.
This one (a PDF from Cornell Publications) also has reminiscences of a 91-year old who was there, although he just missed out on the escape.
This one (a PDF from Cornell Publications) also has reminiscences of a 91-year old who was there, although he just missed out on the escape.
...‘You have to admire these men,’ said chief archaeologist Dr Tony Pollard. ‘The Germans believed that the deaths of those 50 men would have acted as a deterrent for future escapees. But these men were even more determined.’
With us at the site are two of them: Gordie King, 91, an RAF pilot who operated the pump providing the tunnel with fresh air on the night of the Great Escape, and Frank Stone, 89, a gunner who shared a room with the ‘tunnel king’ Wally Floody, an ex-miner in charge of the digging. They stand, heads bowed, reminiscing about their former colleagues. It is the first time Gordie, who was shot down on his first mission to Bremen in 1942, has returned to thecamp since he and the remaining prisoners of war were marched out on January 27, 1945, as Russian forces approached.
‘It has been very emotional,’ he said. ‘It brings back such bittersweet memories. I am amazed by everything they havefound.’
A widower with six children, he has vivid memories of working on tunnel Harry, performing guard duty and acting as a ‘penguin’ to disperse the sand excavated from the tunnels, whose entrances were hidden by the huts’ stoves. They were called penguins because they waddled when they walked.
‘We would put bags around our neck and down our trousers, fill them with excavated sand, then pull a string to release it on to the field where we played soccer, all in a very nonchalant way,’ Gordie said.
‘One of my jobs was to look out of the window at the main gate 24 hours a day and write down how many guards went in and out,’ he recalled. ‘Another was warning watch. If the Germans came into the compound, we would pull the laundry line down and everyone would stop what they were doing and resume normal duties. The guards were not
exactly brilliant. They were taken from what we called 4F – not fit for frontline fighting...
Hollywood notwithstanding, there were no Americans involved; most were British, and all the tunnellers were Canadian miners.With us at the site are two of them: Gordie King, 91, an RAF pilot who operated the pump providing the tunnel with fresh air on the night of the Great Escape, and Frank Stone, 89, a gunner who shared a room with the ‘tunnel king’ Wally Floody, an ex-miner in charge of the digging. They stand, heads bowed, reminiscing about their former colleagues. It is the first time Gordie, who was shot down on his first mission to Bremen in 1942, has returned to thecamp since he and the remaining prisoners of war were marched out on January 27, 1945, as Russian forces approached.
‘It has been very emotional,’ he said. ‘It brings back such bittersweet memories. I am amazed by everything they havefound.’
A widower with six children, he has vivid memories of working on tunnel Harry, performing guard duty and acting as a ‘penguin’ to disperse the sand excavated from the tunnels, whose entrances were hidden by the huts’ stoves. They were called penguins because they waddled when they walked.
‘We would put bags around our neck and down our trousers, fill them with excavated sand, then pull a string to release it on to the field where we played soccer, all in a very nonchalant way,’ Gordie said.
‘One of my jobs was to look out of the window at the main gate 24 hours a day and write down how many guards went in and out,’ he recalled. ‘Another was warning watch. If the Germans came into the compound, we would pull the laundry line down and everyone would stop what they were doing and resume normal duties. The guards were not
exactly brilliant. They were taken from what we called 4F – not fit for frontline fighting...
