Well, that didn't get very far, now did it?
Just goes to prove how good our fine chaps were back in the late unpleasantness, all in all.
Just goes to prove how good our fine chaps were back in the late unpleasantness, all in all.
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Yeah, tunnelling in sand doesn't look easy, especially when bed boards are limited. How on earth didn't the German notice vast forests of wood and metal disappearing? Amazing ingenuity, but still you have to wonder about the ineptitude of the Germans. -
Considering the difficulty they had in finding the real entrance, it was obviously not a trivial problem.
Neither was digging the tunnel, judging by the results of the excavation.Comment
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It's taking the mickey building a whole bleeding glider as at Colditz though.Comment
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The Escape Committee imposed a levy on bedboards. Each bunk was supposed to have 7 boards; there were about 10,000 PoWs at maximum capacity, so that makes around 70,000 bedboards issued. By the time of the escape, many people had been reduced to four or even three boards, which made sleeping in the upper bunks somewhat precarious (though preferable to being in the bottom one when the bloke on top fell on you in the night).Originally posted by TimberWolf View Post
The German Abwehr (responsible for detecting and preventing escape attempts) were actually extremely efficient. They knew something big was going on for many months and were regularly turning the camp upside down trying to find it, but the ingenuity and cunning of the PoWs defeated them. They did find one of the three tunnels in late 1943, and relaxed slightly as that one alone was such an impressive feat of engineering that they thought it sufficient to account for all the evidence of tunnelling work they'd detected. The PoWs helped bolster this misconception by suspending all other tunnelling work for a few months.Comment
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Did the tunnels have signals? Dangerous if two escapees smash into each other on the way out.
And when they eventually got out, Bob Crow would have kept them outside the fence picketing the POW camp.Comment
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Escape tunnels at Stalag Luft III could number 100...and in September 1943 the entrance to "Tom" became the 98th tunnel to be discovered in the camp
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalag_Luft_III
The prisoners wore greatcoats to conceal the bulges made by the socks and were referred to as "penguins" because of their supposed resemblance to the animal. More than 200 were recruited who were to make an estimated 25,000 trips.Der. I bet the Germans kicked themselves when they found the tunnel was under the stove all along. D'oh.Following the escape, the Germans took an inventory of the camp and found out just how extensive the operation had been. 4,000 bed boards had gone missing, as well as the complete disappearance of 90 double bunk beds, 635 mattresses, 192 bed covers, 161 pillow cases, 52 20-man tables, 10 single tables, 34 chairs, 76 benches, 1,212 bed bolsters, 1,370 beading battens, 1219 knives, 478 spoons, 582 forks, 69 lamps, 246 water cans, 30 shovels, 1,000 feet (300 m) of electric wire, 600 feet (180 m) of rope, and 3424 towels. 1,700 blankets had been used, along with more than 1,400 Klim cans.[26] The electric cable had been stolen after being left unattended by German workers; as they had not reported the theft, they were executed by the Gestapo.[29] From then on each bed was supplied with only nine bed boards which were counted regularly by the guards.Comment
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They know now for next time...Originally posted by TimberWolf View Post“Brexit is having a wee in the middle of the room at a house party because nobody is talking to you, and then complaining about the smell.”Comment
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