Holzminden to Hovelhof area. Days 1-5 of Jocks escape & Days 1-3 of our journey

This excerpt from Jocks memoirs covers the first 5 days of his escape.  James & I went through the same woods outside Holzminden on Monday night so we could get a feel of what it would have been like. 

Our Twitter site @rge100yrs has Relive videos of our route and while of course, the area is now very urban there are still huge areas of forest and managed pine tree plantations.  

One other observation we've made is that back in 1918, the cornfield outside the camp was drying out and close to harvest.  There are still hundreds of acres of cornfields today but the crops are at least a few weeks away from harvest despite the excellent weather.  We weren't sure if this is climate change or advances in agriculture.

Anyway, here are Jocks words on his first 5 days of freedom that leads on from the previous post "Part 8: Jocks description leading up to the night of the escape" .

Outside the Tunnel

Nothing happened to disturb us and we had great hopes that by this time another 20 or 30 must be out, but as a matter of fact only
29 got out, the 30th man who was a South African Major of large proportions stuck in the sane place as I did, and it was not until nearly six in the morning that they managed to drag him backwards out of the tunnel into the cellar again. 

It would have been madness for anyone else to attempt to get through, so everybody returned to their rooms and got out of their filthy clothes before a roll-call was called.

Crossing the Weser

Reaching the Weser we got our clothes off as quickly as possible, tying them all up in our waterproofs as described before, and fixing the loops for towing the bundle after us. Leggat had made some sort of a raft for getting his stuff across, but it did not answer the purpose very well as he was the only one of the three who got his clothes wet. The current where we crossed was very strong so Purves and I waded in holding one another’s shoulders to prevent us being washed off our feet. 

We were very lucky in this crossing as we were able to wade across the river, the water at its deepest part coming up to our shoulders where it took some hanging on to keep one’s feet on the bottom. Once safely across we dried and dressed as quickly as possible, the sky showing that daylight was not far off. 

Half an hours walking took us into the woods at the foot of the hills up which we climbed until about half way up we struck a thick birch plantation and decided to make this our first hiding place. Our first job was to get some sleep as we were all pretty well done up after the exertion of getting through the tunnel. 

We were awakened about 9 in the morning by a party of school children searching about the plantation, but whether it was for us or not of course we could not find out. At any rate they passed within 10 yards of where we were lying. After this we moved into the centre of the plantation in amongst a pile of rocks which afforded splendid cover.

First Day in Hiding 

The sun came out and this was one of the two beautiful days we had out of the 14. All our clothes were spread out to dry and we lay about realizing at last we were free and now had a chance of pitting our brains against those of the Hun, although the odds were greatly in their favour. All that day parties of searchers passed round the plantation but none entered it. 

The method adopted by the Hun when a large party escaped was to give all the schools a holiday and to turn out all the military they could spare to join in a hunt. The first day they warned all villages within a radius of 10 miles to be on the lookout for suspicious looking people passing through. The next day they warned a 20-mile radius, the third day a 30-mile radius and so on as they knew that 10 miles was about the distance we would walk in one night.

Our hiding place was within sight of the camp and we would all have given a great deal to know what was happening there. It was months later, after the Armistice, that I learned that the tunnel was not discovered until about 7 in the morning when a roll—call was immediately summoned at which Niemeyer discovered to his horror that his hapless prisoners had once more scored and that 29 of his most dangerous were now on their way to the Dutch Frontier.

Darkness came on about 10.30 and found us ready and eager to be off. I may say we got hopelessly lost in the dense woods that 2nd night, and having no stars, we found great difficulty in keeping to our compass course but eventually we struck a broad track going in the right direction which brought us out at Bodexen cross roads where, from the signposts, we got our position on our maps.

It was here then Purves and I said goodbye to Leggatt who was going to try the journey alone and was going on a more Northerly route than the one we had selected.

Purves and I continued on until we struck the main road running N.W. at the village of Fursten which we skirted, and walked along this road until we struck a small village called Lowesdorf  where we left the main road for a track running due west a few miles along which we took to the wood, and found splended cover in a dense fir wood about a mile due south of Killerbeck. 

Probably most of you here have carried a pack in your army days so you will know how heavy they become on a long walk. Ours weighed about 45 lbs. and for the first few nights we would have given a great deal to have been able to leave them in some convenient ditch. Nor did they become any lighter, the weight did actually come down of course, but as they became lighter our strength also was getting less until on the last few nights  although our packs were practically empty they felt just as heavy as the day we started out. 

Our first job on getting into cover for the day was to don our warm underclothes, take off our saturated boots and put on a dry pair of sox. The next was to prepare a hot meal.

For the first week this consisted of my Plasman oats into which was put a soup and meat cube, the whole being warmed on one of our wax blocks. I believe these hot meals almost saved our lives, because for the most of the trek we were soaked through and these and plenty of Quinine kept either of us from taking cold. Sleep was the next thing we tried to get, but not with much success, two hours being the longest I found I could sleep at any one time. 

If the day happened to be warm one slept better, but we only got two really warm days out of the 14. Each of us had taken a book, mine being one of Stanley's Polar Expeditions. A book helped to pass the time and also kept one from wandering about where there was always the risk of running into gamekeepers and such like people.

3rd NIGHT.

10.30 p.m. saw us ready to move off, our first job being to find a stream in which to get a wash and to fill our water bottles. On a
show like this one drinks a tremendous amount of water. Later on, we suffered very badly from the want of it while passing through sandy country. We again took to the main road from Vorden to Steinhein running N.W. but this was about the last main road we walked along, for in passing through the village of Munsterbrock instead of detouring it, some villagers evidently did not like the look of us and started to give chase. 

The odds would have been all in their favour of course, because with a heavy pack one cannot run very far or fast, but a sharp corner at the outside of the village saved us, for on doubling round this we spotted a gate over which we jumped and got down behind a thick hedge, the hue and cry in a moment or two going past on the road at full blast. 

After this we kept off the main roads and detoured all villages. In coming out from the hiding place, my friend knocked a Hun off a bicycle, who was riding without any lights. Needless to say, we did not stop to apologise but hopped it across a field. At the cross roads the same night we came on three woman standing talking, who took to their heels on our approach.

Arriving at Steinheim in bright moonlight, we set about getting round it, a job which took us the most of the night as the going was very heavy and several streams had to be crossed. One pretty big stream the Emmer we crossed by a bridge beside some sort of a mill that was evidently running day and night. While passing this mill a Hun pushed his head out of a window and asked who we were, to which we answered nothing but kept an eye on him in case he decided to investigate more closely. 

Once clear of Steinheim we took a third-class road going due west from Wobbeck to Belle and lay up at a point about midway between these two villages again in a small but thick fir plantation, having a stream running through it. Nothing happened to disturb us that day and immediately it began to grow dark we set off.

4th NIGHT.

Keeping along the fringe of a big wood until we were well clear of the straggling village of Belle, we took to the road again which ran right through a very dense wood making the road as black as ebony. We passed several Huns on the road but they were more frightened of us than we were of them. This wood continued until a mile from the village of Meinberg whose outlying gardens we went through on S. side stopping to help ourselves to anything eatable, such as apples, peas, Etc., that we could lay our hands on then S.E. to Horn crossing the railway line Sandebeck, DETMOLD and giving the town of Horn a wide berth coming on to the main road with a tram-track running along the side on the S.E. side of the town. 

From our maps we could see that we were coming to a large range of hills across which the map showed only two routes, the road we were following which, however, would take us away down S. before we were across the hills and a track branching off the road which we had set our minds on taking, if we could find it and it was for this reason we ran the risk of walking along this main road which took us through a district where there were huge Hydros.

It must have been a health resort of the Huns. While walking on this road, suddenly in front of us in the moonlight we spotted two figures standing at the side of the road and on our coming closer they picked up a heavy bundle and made off into a wood at the side of the road. 

From this we gathered they were of the tunnel party and although we whistled the first line of "Annie Laurie" to which they replied they did not come near us, and we never found out who they were. Before we finally left this road, we passed two magnificent columns of rock. In the moonlight they looked to be about 200 feet high and the road was cut right through the solid rock.

It took us nearly an hour to find our path, having walked past it two or three times, but once found we were not long in getting to the summit of the range, from whence we got a dim view of a large trace of ground shown on the map as a manoeuvre ground and which we knew we would have to cross the next night, as there would be no cover there. 

Daylight found us leaving the hills, and we lay up again in a fir plantation at the foot. It poured solidly all that day so we made a sort of tent out of my friend's military cape, tying the neck to the branch of a tree and stretching out the ends and tying them to stones etc. under which we sat huddled all day with my Burberry round our shoulders. Our only visitor that day was a black cat to which we gave a small piece of bacon fat and hoped it would bring us good luck.

5th Night.

We followed the edge of the forest for about 4 miles along one of the darkest and filthiest roads I ever struck, until we came to a track shown  on maps as running almost due W. across the manoeuvre ground. About half way across this we stopped for our 10 minutes rest, our method of walking being walk 50 minutes and rest 10. We found we made better progress by this method and kept a steadier pace than if we did not rest at all. While resting and having a bite to eat a figure walked up to pass us, to which Purves said good-evening in German. The figure replied in very imperfect German and we were astonished to recognise Leggatt's voice who, you will remember, we parted from at Bodexen crossroads on our second night out.
He got down beside us saying how thankful he was to meet us, and he had found it an eerie business going alone and asked if we had any objections to his joining us. We having none, we three travelled together after this. Leggatt told us of rather an amusing experience he had when hiding the second day out. A patrol of boy scouts halted outside the wood he was in and shortly after, started systematically to search the wood. Leggatt got up a tree and although they searched the ground all round him they never thought of looking up.

We continued due S. until we got off the manoeuvre ground and crossed the main road from HOVELHONE to WELSCHMEYER thence N.W. along a track crossing innumerable streams and the railway line Hovelhof BIELEFELD lying up just E. of the main road HAUNITZ-SENNE. We were forced to stop frequently as Leggatt’s feet were giving him a great deal of trouble and continued to do so for some nights after this. 

He was wearing a pair of boots not his own, a great mistake, as a good fitting pair of boots is essential on a job like ours. He rubbed his sox with soap and his boots with fat, after which things improved a bit for him. This was an exceedingly open hiding place, and twice we had to move for people coming too close; after the second move we struck a deep ditch where we spent the rest of the day undisturbed.