other hand

Doug Collins is on holiday
and the North Shore News is
running extracts from bis cook
P.O.W, A Soldier's Story Of
His Ten Escapes from Nazi
Prison Camps.

This episode picks up the
story from where he and Dick
Parker, his friend of the first
escape, had been returned to
Stalag VIIIB. This describes
the second escape, in which
Doug and two companions
were aiming for Russia.

INTO the punishment
compound, which is for
escapers who have not
escaped, for men who
have lipped the
Germans or otherwise
refused to work, or for
anyone who has fallen
foul of a guard.

. Here one waits to do a
stretch in solitary, and the
inmates swap stories, pick lice,
and dream.

The weeks passed. Dick
was a sadder sight than cver.
He peered unhappily through
his broken glasses. His lame
arm troubled him. He
coughed, and would sit on his
bunk dribbling saliva. He
became morose, 2 condition
that started when we did our
two weeks on bread and
water and it did not change
when we went back to the
main camp.

“I think PH wait till
spring,” he said one day.
“Then I might have another

0.”

“I'd like to try before thar.
D'you mind if go with
someone else?”

“Of course not.”

Our liaison was over. I was
young and secretly impatient

Our Wa

with his ills even though f,
ton, was sick. So when Dick
let me go | felt guilty bur
glad.

That same week he was
moved fo another compound.
Ve shook hands and wished
each other luck for the next
time. But for Dick there
would be no next time. His
health became worse and I
heard later that he died in the
cruel winter of 1940-41. 1
never saw him again bur in
the mind’s eye I see him now,
a brave and lonely figure in
incongruous clothes, pushing,
his rub of earth on the Adolf
Hitler Canal and dreaming of

home.
ogoag

Tony Hopkins and
“Tommo” Thomas were
Welshmen. Tony was of my
um height, strongly builc, and
very tough. His eves were a
hard blue. Deep, curving lines
ran from the nostrils to the
edges of the mouth, and ina
place where fights were more
frequent than laughs his face
warned the foolish to stay
clear. He was a private in the
South Wales Borderers and
had served seven years in the
regulars. On his left arm a
tattoo carried the words
“Death before Dishonour.”

His friend Tommo was a
guardsman but no one would
have guessed it. Mild brown
eyes peered from beneath a
French kepi that made its
wearer look like a foreign

tman. Tommo was tall

ut, in conscious protest
against guards’ discipline kept
his hands i in his pockets and
sported an unmilitary stoop.
He detested his brigade
almost as much as he detested
being in Germany.

“IT must have been out of
my mind to join that bloody
Prussian lot,” he would say in
his lilting Welsh tones,

The three of us met in the
punishment compound and
teamed up. Later, all inno-
cence, we presented ourselves
to the Germans and said we
wanted to dig coal in order to

et act the oft-promised better
cod. Even Tony managed to
look i ingratiating and so, in

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October 1941, we arrived at
Hindenburg (a coal mining
area in a).

We were given surface jobs
at first. ] worked in a metal
shop run by a Polish civilian
called Vladimir and held
things for him while he
looked about conspiratorially
and gave che news, which
according to him was always
good news. Fifty German
bombers brought down last
night over Britain! British
fleet in command of the seas!
A new front in North Africa!
You will sce, comrade. Hitler

y asked him tor a
steel file. He produced a box-
ful.

“Take your pick, com-
rade.”

When underground work
began, the connection with
Viadimir came to an end. But
the file was a vital addition to
our armory of escape. Also,
we now had miners’ boots,
overalls, and military over-
coats that were dyed black. if
we could get away it would
be possible to walk down a
street without attracting too
much attention.

Our moment came on the
night of Saturday, Nov. 16-
17. We drew lots to deter-
mine the order of our going
and first place fell to me.
Tony would be second and
Tommo third.

The bars on the window
had been filed through and
filled with dirt. Now they
were forced up until they

reached the ceiling like ribs.
Ourside, a steep hill, almost
hear enough to touch, reared
clifflike against the sky.
There was no moon, but are
lamps set a wide glow over
the whiteness of new snow,

Two men lifted my legs
and I squeezed myself
the gap of the window,

Was no room to Manocuvre
and I went through head
first, hands reaching for the
ground. My toes found the
ledge and for a moment }
hung there like 2 dressed
duck.

I wriggled free and tum-
bled quietly to terra firma
Tony and Tommo came
through and the packs were
handed out. We set off quick-
ly up the sharp slope and
soon the camp lay below us.

The night was a mass of
impediment. Soggy terrain,
buildings, railroad cuttings,
and blind alleys. But ar last
We were on a road on which
our tracks would not show,
and by dawn were in a dense
wood, We stayed there all day.
At dusk we marched due cast.
The wind was as hard as the
ground and it became colder.
We began thinking of the
warm coal mine.

“Hot toddies when we get
home,” grinned Tony.

Four days’ march brought
us to our knees. We were now
east of Katowice, Polish
Silesia’s main centre of indus-
try. But the legs refused to
bartle the fields. It was time
to try the roads.

INJURED AN AS
CAR ACCIDENT?

Call

DEREK A. CAVE

Trial Lawyer

Get the settlement

you deserve.

#508, Kapilano 100 Building
100 Park Royal, West Van.

925-7880

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