Part 5: Lecture by 2nd Lt Jock Tullis MC RFC on 23rd March 1921

Tunnel at Clausthal

I should here explain that the barrack was about 100 feet long and raised off the ground at one end to a height of about three feet, tapering away to ground level at the other end. The raised end would be distant from the barbed wire about 12 feet and from there to a wooden yard would be about another 20 feet so it will readily be understood that to tunnel some 30 feet in a loose soil was no great feat. 

I do not propose here to go into a detailed description of this tunnel but will reserve that for the one that we ultimately escaped through, as tunnels are more or less alike in the manner of working them. It will be sufficient to say that this tunnel had to be abandoned because of water, one of the worst enemies to be contended with in tunnels and that another tunnel was started from a similar barrack further up the camp. This one took so long in the making that those of us who were keen to get away that summer began to look around for a different rode of exit. This tunnel was completed in the late autumn, but as the weather was showing signs of breaking the committee in charge of the affair decided to close it up and leave the attempt until the spring the following year, a great mistake in my opinion as it is never safe to leave a thing like this in a camp where everybody knew of it. A careless word dropped in the hearing of a Hun would be quite enough to ruin the whole affair. This one I heard later on was given to Neimeyer by a British member of the camp whom the Senior British Officer had asked the Germans to remove for some cause of which I never heard the details.

     The Summer wore on to the autumn and only two officers had managed to get out by cutting the wire in broad daylight while a game of baseball was in progress. After this attempt the Huns erected what was known as a Neutral Zone. 

This was simply a fence of wire erected 6 ft. from the outside and main barbed wire. To be found in this neutral zone at any time was almost certain death as all the sentries had strict orders to fire at anyone whom they saw going in. It is here necessary for me to describe the outer portion of the camp in which we had two tennis Courts and a small Golf Course. This outer space was in the shape of a half circle. During the day the sentries were all posted outside the half circle, but after evening roll call they were brought in to the straight line of wire leaving the outer wire unguarded, so that anyone lying concealed there stood a fair chance of getting away after dark. 

OUR ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE

This was the method finally adopted by two of us as the most feasib1e of getting out. Our idea was to dig a shallow ditch just wide and deep enough to allow one to lie flat in it.

As we kept the Tennis Courts in repair ourselves, the digging oft the ditch was no very difficult task. Some two or three days easy working so as not to excite the Huns saw this completed, and one fine day we got all our stuff together, wheeled it down in a barrow covered with earth, and buried it near our ditch. Wire cutters were also buried where we could lay hands on them easily. That evening just before the guard was changed saw friend walking down to the Tennis Courts wearing a loose waterproof and looking a good deal stouter than usual. To disarm suspicion, he also carried a Tennis racquet. Four fellows were playing Tennis, and when my friend had casually sat down on the edge of the ditch as if he were waiting his turn to play, one of the players knocked a ball over the wire to the nearest sentry and then politely asked him to throw it back.

During the few seconds that it took the sentry to stoop down to pick up the ball, my friend fell into the ditch and was covered up quicker than it takes to tell by a friend who was helping. I saw all this from a Window overlooking the tennis courts and after my friend had safely disappeared from view, I waited until I saw the guard change, and then repeated my friend's performance the same procedure of knocking the ball over to the new sentry being gone through. While he was getting it I flopped into the ditch lying absolutely flat on my chest and was soon covered up by our friend to a depth of perhaps 6 to 8 inches. 

I should here mention that each of us had taken a short length of pipe made of spiral wire covered with canvas through which to breathe, the mouth of this tube coming up to the surface and being covered with a tuft of grass. Some few minutes after I was covered up I heard the bugle go for the evening roll call at which I knew we would be missed and everyone would be kept standing until the Huns had searched the camp from floor to ceiling in an attempt to find us. Nothing happened to disturb the silence in which we lay for what seemed hours but in reality was only some 45 minutes. The weight of earth on top of us soon began to make itself felt, and after half an hour I would have given all I possessed to have been able to roll over on my side, but as this was impossible we had just to grin and bear it. All seemed to be going well and I judged from my luminous wrist watch that it must be getting dark when suddenly right at my ear I heard a laugh and someone shouted on the Kommandt to come and have a look. At the same moment someone started to scrape away the earth above my head and soon had me exposed to view. I never found out what had given us away, whether it was an involuntary movement on my part or whether my breath from the tube had been noticed rising out of the ground, I cannot say, but we were soon marched to the cells amidst much shouting and threats to shoot if we tried any more nonsense.

The Jug at Claustahl

A sentence of 40 days was passed on to us for this attempt and for the first 14 we were never allowed out of our cells.  After that we were allowed one hour per day in which to exercise round a small wired inclosure.   Once every three days a Hun came on duty who had spent some years in this country and we soon found that for a little of our food occasionally he would allow us to come out of our rooms after the last visit of the German officer at night, provided that we always went back to our rooms immediately the bell at the gate of the tall wooden fence surrounding the jug barrack rang. Also we soon found that by fixing a piece of cigar box wood In the latch of our doors with the aid of a penknife we could open them at will. It was these two useful weapons that a very cleverly planned escape was successfully brought off.

Parker and Blain’s Escape from the Jug

Lieut. Parker, my companion in the burying stunt, and Lieut. Blain, another officer who was doing time for escaping, started to sound the English speaking sentry and found that for a few English sovereigns he was prepared to assist them by bringing in civilian suits, maps and a compass, provided that they did not make the attempt while his guard were on duty. Another officer in the camp, Lieut. Medlicott, one of the cleverest men at getting out of any camp, amongst all the British officers, was told of the scheme and promptly got three days’ cells for smoking after 10 o’ clock by which hour we were all supposed to be in bed. He brought with him into the Jug a file, the necessary money, and anything else that was required to help in the escape.

This Lieut. Medlicott escaped from every camp that the Huns put him into, and was the most dare devil fellow I ever met. In all I think he escaped over twenty times but never successfully, for on his last attempt he and another officer, Capt. Walters, were foully murdered by the Hun guard who were taking them back to the camp, Hun excuse being that they had tried to run away from an armed guard.

The bars  of Parker's cell were soon filed through but left in position. His cell the end room facing the wooden barricade so that after they were out all they had to do was to crawl along this barricade to the outer wire, cut this and they were free. The night when the guard chanced, the rest of us were asked to stay in our rooms and make as little noise as possible so as to avoid bringing any of the Huns along the passage to see what the noise was about. Blain fixed up his door so that he could open it from the inside and about 10 o’clock he went along to Parker’s room where it did not take them long to get safely outside the camp, the wire cutters which were used to cut the wire being handed through the window of the next cell. To the rest of it was maddening to think that here was a way out just asking to be used, but as none of us had sufficient food, maps or a compass, it would have only been asking for further troube to have made use of it.

Blain and Parker took the train next morning to a small station just outside the town of DUSSELDORF into which they walked and crossed the Rhine, their chief obstacle, by the tram car as they noticed that all civilians walking over the bridge had to show some sort of passport.  This is a typical example of German thoroughness.

When some miles clear of the town, they stopped in a wood to have something to eat and to have a look at their map, but while engaged in doing so a gamekeeper appeared on the scene and they both took to their heels, one going off with all the food and the other with the map and compass. Blain got to within a mile of the Frontier and thinking he was safely over, having no map, gave himself up at what he took to be a Dutch Frontier Block House, only it turned out to be a German instead and so he was brought back to the camp to undergo a further sentence for this plucky attempt.

Parker fared little better for in swimming across a small river he lost every stitch of clothing he had, probably through not having them tied securely enough to his shoulders, and for two days he wandered about the country naked, at the end of which time he was forced to give himself up at a German farmhouse where he was told he was within half a kilometre of the Frontier, truly a case of very hard luck after so fine an attempt. He was taken to a German Guard house and given the uniform of a German soldier. Next day while sitting on a seat at the station waiting on the train to take him back to the camp, his guard of three were explaining to the stationmaster and a crowd of villagers all about his experiences, when the bold Parker jumped over the low wall of the station and beat it up a lane for all he was fit, accompanied by a volley from his surprised guard. This time he did not fare much better but ran into a German Patrol right on the Frontier.

 End of 40 Days

Towards the end of my sentence I was told by the Huns that I was to be moved to another camp. They always did this for some reason best known to themselves, which was exactly what we wanted as it was always fresh ground to make another attempt on. If they had kept us in the same camp all its possible means of escape would have been used up and it may soon have become nigh impossible to find any means of getting away.

[To be continued...]