The following was provied by Gabe Thomas from his book about Milag.

ESCAPE FROM MILAG

Milag was situated in a difficult position for escape, lying between two rivers, both difficult to cross and guarded on both banks. As Westertimke was fairly near the coast and on a British bomber lane leading into the heart of Germany, the German Home Guard were out every night looking for any airmen who might bail out. Even the German population had to show identity documents when travelling from one district to another which made travel difficult. Every railway station had soldiers on guard at ticket barriers and checks were made onboard every train. These restrictions made rail travel impossible except for the best equipped escapee especially since the nearest railway nearby was at Tarmstadt, three Kilometres away, where trains on a narrow gauge railway line took one and a half hours to cover the twenty nine kilometres to Bremen. This route was considered too risky for escapers to use.

Prisoners trying to escape were without a chance of success unless a carefully planned route was followed to the letter. One PoW managed to steal a bicycle from the farm where he worked and pedalled off. After Twenty-four hours pedalling along he found himself outside the camp not far from where he started!

Tony Caro, the Orama's Australian second purser, tried to escape by hiding himself in a sack of waste paper. The first time he tried this the soup gong went whilst Tony was still in his sack on the ground. Not wanting to miss their meal his accomplices left him. Before they could return, the Germans completed loading and his presence was discovered. Not undeterred he tried again This time the loading went according to plan and, in his sack, he was hoisted onto the lorry that took the camp waste to the incinerator. Unfortunately, he found that his assistants had packed the rubbish in too tightly to allow him to cut his way out of the sack and only luck saved him from being incinerated with the rubbish!

After a spell in the punishment cells at Marlag he was sent to the Colditz-like camp at Kreuzberg. In January 1944 he tried to escape again but this attempt also ended in failure when the rope he was using to descend from the walls, broke. He fell a considerable height and as a result had his left knee cap removed. As a result of this injury he achieved repatriation, but not until February 1945, only two months before everyone else.

Another PoW went "wire crazy" and climbed over the barbed wire in front of hundreds watching a football match. Luckily for him, one of the more humane guards was on duty. Seeing one of his charges running away from the camp, the guard deliberately fired over the would-be escapee's head until he stopped. The PoW got three weeks in the bunkers for this escapade.

Despite the difficulties, there were several well organised

escape attempts.

THE TUNNELS

Drawing by George Glossop: from camp diary of David Morgan.

In March 1943, the inhabitants of Barrack 16, situated on the East side of the camp, started digging an escape tunnel. The tunnel eventually ran some 160 feet, from underneath the hut, to emerge in a farmer's field, thirty-five feet beyond the guard wire.

The idea of digging a tunnel was the brainchild of John Morris, captured while serving as Second Engineer on the Silver Fir. He had been previously employed as an engineer in a West African gold mine, and had re-joined the Merchant Service for the war. Since he had worked in a gold mine he was regarded by the others as an expert on mining and although this was far from the truth he deliberately did not disabuse them in order to encourage recruitment of labourers willing to trust in his supposed skills. David Morgan, Third Mate of the Royal Crown, was his chief assistant and together they planned and supervised the construction.

The entry to their tunnel was under the southern end of the barrack. The hut floors had been constructed some two and a half feet above the ground, and the sides had been partly earthed up to reduce the underfloor drafts. Wooden access flaps were provided at intervals in these earth banks. It was through these flaps, some four feet wide and two feet high, that the tunnellers gained access to their work. Entry and exit had to be carefully timed to avoid detection. The sandy earth excavated from the tunnel was piled up under the hut, unnoticed by the German authorities. It was then taken out and added to gardens. All this activity took place under the Germans' noses with a carefully worked out system of lookouts to warn of the approach of any guard.

The tunnelling crew of officers from Barrack 16, worked in shifts throughout the day for the whole five months of construction, night working being considered too likely to be discovered by light escaping through cracks in the cladding boards. For the first three weeks, until wire ran out, the tunnellers had the assistance of electric lighting having tapped into the electricity supply to the hut, but for most of the time, lamps burning fat provided the only light for the work. The tunnel was about four and a half feet high and about two feet wide. The roof lay some six feet below the ground surface for its whole length. Side boards from bunks and the under layer of the double floor boards of the huts were used for vertical props and places where the roof needed shoring up. The tunnel had no air vents and as digging progressed the lack of fresh air was a severe handicap until the fence line was reached. Once there, a pipe could be pushed up between the wires in the space occupied by weeds and old barbed wire.

Outside the camp fence the tunnel ended in a potato field. A sloping shaft led to the surface of the field where a square board, covered with sand and earth from the field, formed the exit door. This was secured with a strong vertical prop to keep it in position. John Morris, the mining engineer, was responsible for setting-out and ensuring the tunnel ran straight and level. It was his skill that overcame the problem of drainage by constructing a channel sloping to a sump which could be bailed out daily.

The tunnel was finished by early August, with neither the Germans nor most of the other prisoners ever suspecting its existence. By the time the tunnel was complete the field sported a fine crop of potatoes, the tall rows of haulms giving perfect cover to anyone crawling away from the entrance. It was intended that ten prisoners would escape through the tunnel the first night followed by more on successive nights.

Captain Monkton's account of life in camp, gives details of a group called "The Thugs", trustworthy prisoners, under Captain (King John) Smith, who assisted the potential escapees in every way possible. Morris and Morgan, the chief tunnellers, knew nothing of this assistance although other accounts, notably by Captain Marrie, confirm the Thugs existence.

According to accounts by Captains Monkton and Marrie, Captain Smith's Thugs gathered information on the countryside around the camp, made compasses and joined together to make escapees as physically fit as possible. The Thugs coached those planning to escape with information on towns and villages to be avoided; the type of country to be passed through en-route and the German phrases most likely to be used if questioned. Civilian clothing had to be stolen from farms and other places outside so that escapees would appear to be German workmen. Red Cross food was collected for them, particularly condensed milk, raisins, and biscuits. Miniature compasses were made using the Bakelite measures from the American KLIM dried milk tins. Needles for the compasses were magnetised by PoWs working at a garage and a watchmaker's shop in the nearby village of Tarmstadt. Maps, were made in small sections so that after passing through the area of any section, the sheet could be torn into fragments and destroyed. Camouflaged tents, capable of being rolled into a very small volume, were made for the escapees from mattress coverings dyed green and waterproofed with a wax pencil.

The Camp Hospital contributed anti-typhoid tablets for use with any suspect drinking water, and vitamin tablets for the escapees. The Thugs put the escapees into training by walking and running around the camp and sports ground, by taking part in the football games and by physical exercises in a hut commandeered for such exercise at night. A prisoner, expert in massage, allegedly completed the efforts to bring these potential escapees to the best physical condition.

On the night of August 6th, after checking on the positions of the guards patrolling both the wire, and the outside of the camp in the vicinity of the tunnel exit, the escapees were sent out one at a time. The two-foot furrow between the rows of potatoes fortuitously provided a hidden passageway eastward away from the camp almost to the farmhouse. There, leaving the safety of the furrow, they made their way along a country track that led southwards into a wood of fir trees, well clear of the camp.

The escape party consisted of six officers - John Morris, David Morgan, Wallace, J.A.E Birtwhistle, Ernest Condry and Barnes; four ratings - Juniper (an Australian), B. Sneddon (Maimoa steward) and two others. Heavy rain and a thunderstorm covered their exit. The last man out replaced the lid and scraped earth to cover and camouflage the board.

The next day, the usual musters took place on the two parade grounds, officers at the north end of the camp and the ratings on the Platz just inside the main gates. All went well at the 8 a.m. muster, the missing prisoners being covered by friends slipping from row to row. Unfortunately, at the 1 p.m. appel, a hitch occurred in the cover-up, W.G. Smith, the master of the Zamzam, arrived late for the count and the Germans, found themselves with one too many! Unable to reconcile the numbers of officers and ratings on parade with those known to be on outside working parties a full roll-call was held. As Captain Eric Monkton wrote;

They counted and re-counted us, and we were kept on the parade ground nearly all day while they tried to find the names of those missing. The Gestapo were called in and they went around the camp boundary time and again but could find no break in the wire.

The prisoners were dismissed towards teatime and shortly afterwards the Gestapo found the tunnel exit in the field. Those left in Milag thought it likely that the last man out had become nervous and had skimped the task of covering up the exit, although the freshly disturbed earth and the tracks of 10 men crawling through the potato rows would surely have been easily seen in any daylight search.

For some reason, the Gestapo, having exposed the exit shaft, did not explore the tunnel until the following day. During the night, teams of prisoners filled in the end of the tunnel nearest the barrack and rammed the earth hard, so that the Germans never managed to follow the tunnel to its end and identify any particular hut. Next morning, the prisoners living in the huts closest to the field, were made to dig up the area around the run of the tunnel inside the camp fence, until the tunnel was exposed, then fill it again.

The escapees however, had got off to a good start thanks to the bad weather, and were well away by the time their escape was discovered. They were all caught within two weeks, most having got no further than 10 miles from the camp. They had all suffered from the wet weather that had continued for a week after their escape.

John Morris and David Morgan, planning to smuggle themselves on a coal train heading for the Ruhr, had been hiding by day and moving at night. They kept themselves reasonably dry whilst resting by using one of the home made shelters.They were nevertheless cold and soaked through, as a result of falling into water filled ditches in the dark, by the time they reached the village of Hemslingen some thirty miles from Milag, at midnight in the middle of a thunderstorm.72 As they walked through the blacked-out village, a figure stepped out of a doorway and pushed a pistol into David Morgan's stomach. Home Guard Meyer spoke some English and soon his questioning established their identities. Meyer took Morris and Morgan to the small Gasthof where reinforcements were summoned and the villagers turned out in force to see who had been caught, having already heard of the escape from Westertimke. The two escapees spent the night in the local lock-up before being returned to Milag.

Recaptured escapees were interrogated and sentenced to a three week spell in solitary on "Festestrafe" in the small barbed wire prison enclosure at Marlag. Festestrafe consisted of only one proper meal every third day, black bread and water only on the other two days. They were only provided with a blanket and pillow one day out of three. After serving their sentences in the bunkers, half the party, including John Morris, were returned to Milag, while David Morgan and the rest were posted to a security lager at Kreuzberg in Silesia, in the south of Germany bordering Poland and Czechoslovakia. David Morgan returned to Milag nine months later, when the Russian advance forced the evacuation of the eastern-most camps and, once reunited with John Morris, they soon got busy on a second tunnel.73

Cross sections by John Morris: from camp diary of David Morgan

THE SECOND TUNNEL

Not deterred by the failure of any of the previous escapees to get away, another tunnel was soon started, this time on the east side of the camp. This tunnel started in a rabbit hutch the prisoners had been allowed to build. The hutch, made from plywood from Canadian Red Cross parcels was set into the ground and covered with soil and flowers. A sliding panel in the back wall of the hutch gave access to a small chamber that was the start of the tunnel proper.

This second tunnel was 120 feet long and again work could only take place during the day. The work started in April and was finished on August 18th, an average rate of progress of some two feet a day. This time the tunnel was somewhat smaller, only two and a half feet wide and one and three-quarters foot high. With such a narrow tunnel, they could work within four feet of the surface without risk of collapse.

Though this tunnel was much smaller, its construction meant that some thirty-seven tons of earth had to be removed in buckets and jam tins and distributed around the camp. John Morris solved the problem of providing the tunnellers with an air supply by using the bellows from an old Church organ, which the occupants of one hut had stolem, as an air pump and conduit for piping, until the guard wire was reached and pipes could be pushed up to the surface. After that point, air pipes every five feet supplied fresh air to the tunnel. As before, a carefully worked out slope allowed water to drain to a sump from which it could be bailed out. During the final phase the spoil from the excavation was spread in layers on the tunnel floor reducing even further the already low headroom.

Five ratings used the tunnel to escape but, as before, the tunnel was discovered before it could be used a second time. Strong suspicion remains that someone in the camp tipped off the Germans about the existence of the tunnel, although no proof was ever forthcoming. All escapees were recaptured within a short time.

One escapee, having got as far as Cologne, passed through the city as an air raid was in progress. So impressed was he with the intensity of the raid that he rode his stolen bicycle back into the city to see the damage. Whilst riding through the city for the second time he was stopped, questioned and soon found himself in custody.

Two other escapees were passing through a town in the Ruhr and feeling very tired they took advantage of the sight of an open church door. Going inside and seeing no-one there they stretched out on the pews and went to sleep. When they awoke they found a police machine gun covering them and that was the end of their bid for freedom.

THE NORWEGIAN TUNNEL

In an effort to escape from the fate that would await them when moved from Milag, the Norwegians, captured during Operation Performance, and sentenced as War Criminals, attempted to dig an escape tunnel. Sadly for these men, the tunnel entrance was discovered during a search, but whether its existence had been disclosed by an informer was never known. Its existence had been known to at least one of the Germans since the day that Urben Peters, ex-Mopan was caught by a German Unterofficer whilst being shown the tunnel entrance. Urben immediately threatened him with exposure for black market dealings if he said anything and nothing seemed to happen as a result of this incident but the tunnel entrance was found eventually.

Discovery of Norwegian tunnel?

THE "OTHER" TUNNEL

"More of a rabbit run" 74 best describes a small, shallow covered-over trench that held an endless rope running from the camp to just outside the wire fence. This was used to bring contraband in by those on working parties, avoiding the obligatory search at the camp gates. Various ex-PoWs make reference to this smuggling route but further details are unavailable.

THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY!

As far as most PoW's were aware there was only one successful escape from Milag, that of Arthur (Dickie) Bird, but records in the Registry of Shipping, reveal that Haakon Einar Soerensen, a Norwegian captured on the Buccaneer on April 1st 1942, escaped near Berlin from a transport taking him to a high security camp in East Germany. He reached England and was writing letters from London by the 15th September.

Soerensen had already escaped once. Held with others from Operation Performance, he was amongst a party being taken from Milag for interrogation in Willhelmshaven. Still dressed in civilian clothes he took advantage of an opportunity to slip away from the party in the crowded Bremen railway station, but bad luck and hunger forced him to give himself up in Hamburg. As a recaptured escapee, Soerensen spent some time in the Marlag camp gaol, where he met Robert Graydon, an engineer from the Simnia, who had apparently also been caught trying to escape from Milag in May.

Once safe in England, Soerensen honoured promises made in camp to relay messages on behalf of friends. He was, for example, able to tell the parents and girlfriend of Graydon, that Robert was safe and in good spirits.

Since the news relayed to Graydon's parents included the information that Robert had been transferred to the prison camp at Tost on the 25th July, it is presumed that Soerensen made his escape after that date.

In August 1943, Arthur H. Bird, Third Mate of the Australind, made his successful bid for freedom, the only man known to have escaped from Milag itself. Arthur, known to most of his fellow inmates as Dick or Dickie, dreamt of escaping and he was on the point of asking his Norwegian friends to join them in their attempted escape, when their tunnel was discovered.

Not put off by this setback, Dick made other plans and gradually acquired a compass, a map, clothes and other items necessary for a successful escape. Although an officer, and not expected to work, he volunteered to work on a neighbouring farm. Not realising that Dick was planning an escape, this caused many fellow PoWs to label him a collaborator, but, realising that this was inevitable, he endured the stigma in silence. The farm work gave him not only the opportunity to get out of the camp every day, but the hard physical work and the more wholesome food provided by the farmer built up his strength.

The following morning Arthur signed out from camp as normal but instead of heading for the farm, he rendezvoued with a friend who was in his confidence, and kitted himself out for his planned walk- the fifty miles from Milag to Harburg, a small port on the west bank of the Elbe. One good reason for chosing Harburg was its location on the same side of the river as Milag, thus avoiding the need to cross the well-guarded bridge to Hamburg, on the other side of the river.

After walking for two or three days, Bird reached Harburg where, speaking fluent Swedish, he placed his trust in some Swedish sailors whom he met in the Kap Horn bar and confessed his true identity. Erik Solberg and several other of these brave neutral seamen, agreed to smuggle Dick onto their ship, where he was hidden under a pile of dunnage. Before being concealed, Dick smeared dirt over himself and put a couple of Red Cross biscuits in a satchel so that if his hiding place were discovered, he could claim to have stowed away and not implicate his Swedish benefactors.

Bird spent the next few days hidden on the ship, retreating to his hiding place whenever there was a likelihood of a search by the Germans. On reaching Swedish waters, the crew clubbed together and donated sufficient clothing and money to enable Arthur to travel by train to Stockholm where he reported to the British Legation. Bird was taken into the home of E.J. Wright, Secretary to the Legation, renowned for their hospitality to PoW escapees. Once safe in Sweden, Dick managed to get word of his escape to his Norwegian fiancée. Thanks to the Norwegian Underground, Edel was smuggled over the border to Stockholm where the pair were re-united.

The romantic story of the two lovers, reunited after being separated by war, touched the hearts of the British colony in Stockholm and, thanks to their generosity and help from the Wrights and the Legation staff, Arthur and Edel were married in style, Edel being lent a Parisian model wedding dress. Amongst the many people at their reception were Flight Lieutenant Eric Williams and his colleagues of Wooden Horse fame.

Edel and Arthur Bird's wedding.

Early in 1944, Dick and Edel were flown home by Dakota, where Edel joined the Land Army and Dick returned to sea aboard the Armadale, a twin sister of the Australind.

A month after he had escaped, news reached Milag that he had reached Sweden within ten days of leaving camp. In April 1944, details of Arthur's escape which might be of use to anyone following in his footsteps were communicated to Milag via a coded letter to Lt. Page, R.N. in Marlag;

Bird of Milag escaped Hamburg [Harburg] Swedish ship found dock entrances unguarded stop foreign sailors frequent Kar [Kap] Horn pub stop useful o.p. allotments east dock, plan follows.

A rather more unusual type of escape took place in Milag. Two men "disappeared" for over three years, yet never left the camp.

George Anglesen and B.C. Johannessen, had been among the many Norwegians on the Skytteren, who, having scuttled their ship rather than let it fall into enemy hands, had been declared War Criminals and pirates by the Germans. Sentenced to between six and eight years under the regime known as "Nacht und Nebel" [to disappear into the Night and Fog] they were to be sent to extermination camps, there to be starved and brutally treated. Any that survived this were likely to be executed by firing squad.

By good fortune, Anglesen and Johannessen (whose real name was Ekeberg), were in the camp hospital in February 1943, when the Germans decided to transfer the 167 men from the Performance ships to various other prisons where their deadly punishment would commence. George Anglesen was suffering from a bout of Diphtheria and was being barrier-nursed behind a screen of cardboard to prevent his infecting others. Ekeberg was in hospital having had an appendectomy.

At great personal risk, Major Harvey persuaded the Germans that he had found traces of TB in Johannessen's abdomen and transferred him to the TB ward at the end of the hospital barracks. George, remained hidden behind screens for five months, moving from room to room as necessary, before he too was placed in the TB ward with Ekeberg. Time and again, the Germans tried to get at these two men but each time they were thwarted by the implacable resistance of Major Harvey and Doctor Aldridge.

The other 164 members of the Skytteren's crew were taken away, first to Rendsberg and then to Sonnenberg. Such was their treatment that thirty-six died in the first winter. Only fifty-four of these brave men survived the war and many of those that did, were so weakened that they died shortly after they were liberated.

Before leaving Norway, George and his fellow countryman, Ekeberg, had both been involved in espionage against the German occupation forces. George, an Norwegian Naval Torpedoman, had been mapping coastal defences and passing information to England through an underground network. For both men, exposure would have brought certain death. During their twenty-six months in hiding, neither man would tell the other exactly what he had been up to in Norway, not wishing to place the other in an impossible position if caught and tortured.

Thinking that it might help them come to terms with their situation, Doctor Aldridge often asked them if they had anything on their minds, but to protect him they could not reveal the truth.

During their long ordeal, they were quite naturally subject to periods of depression but their fellow patients and the medical orderlies did their best to keep up their spirits. Major Harvey, and especially Doctor Aldridge, did everything they possibly could and went far out of their way to assist their "special patients. As George Anglesen said;
The Doctors were something else, they were under terrible pressure but never showed irritation or anger. They were a bunch of heroes

Back to Reg Urwin's story.