Battleship Bismarck (59 page)

In the end, one of the camp inmates especially concerned about this matter, Oberleutant (Luftwaffe) der Reserve Franz Schad, seized the initiative on his own responsibility. With the aid of P. Eduard Griffith
*
of the London Oratorium, who often visited the camp, he gained the understanding of the fundamentally well-meaning British camp commandant, who was well acquainted with the priest. Major Dury consented to Schad’s proposal to engage interned civilian cooks from German merchant ships on a voluntary basis to work at Shap Wells. With their arrival in November 1941 the food became magnificent; the chronic indigestion that a few inmates had gradually developed disappeared.

Whoever wished could do gymnastics in the garden or care for plants or occupy himself with handicrafts. Here our Austrian comrades were especially resourceful. The necessary tools were available, a pleasant peculiarity of this camp. Those interested could borrow saws, files, hammers, drills, etc., from the hotel’s supply. These objects were issued against a receipt and had to he returned by 1600 hours at the latest—strictly for hobby use was understood. In fact, no “misuse” became known, which would have brought this practice to an early end.

Physically bracing walks outside the camp were also possible. Major Dury, a well-meaning and good man as we have already seen—a school director before the war—had no objection to that. “The participants must, of course,” he emphasized to the German camp leader, “give their word of honor not to attempt to escape while outside the camp.” And whoever agreed to that could move through the open landscape two or three afternoons a week. Not always to the undivided joy of the British escort officers, who were already older men. For it was nothing for the young German officers quickly to cover kilometer after kilometer of the hilly terrain.

A camp library was available for intellectual interests and occupation. It was also possible to buy books. The officer prisoners received a monthly allowance according to rank, with which books could be
purchased through the canteen. I personally obtained a series of Oxford University Press grammars and dictionaries, as well as historical and constitutional literature on the “host country,” Britain and the Commonwealth. In his book,
The Government of England
, the author A. Lawrence Lowell, former president of Harvard University, first called my attention to the presently well-known political prognosticator Alexis de Toqueville and the latter’s standard work,
La Démocratie en 1’Amérique
, his comparison of national constitutions.

However, a minority in camp wished to create a more far-reaching intellectual life. The foremost was Franz Schad, by civilian profession a counselor to the government of Württemberg and an attorney experienced in state administration. Intellectually at home in the Catholic youth-and student-movements, he proposed the immediate formation of intellectual-and scientific-study groups. Although the appropriate interest was present, Schad could not carry through with his idea. His drive for an organized study program was defeated by the opposition of the German camp leadership and, in the final analysis, by the anti-intellectual reflex that was then so widespread in German lands. For a long time, infectious Nazi slogans such as “You are nothing, your Folk is everything,” “Führer command, we obey,” “The Führer is always right,” and similar slogans had reached the level of an intellectual epidemic and led to a submissive self-surrender of the individual to Hitler, who was identified with the “State.” No wonder that such surrenders made themselves evident chiefly in the life of communities, including such a one as Shap Wells: all young officers who had experienced nothing but the explosive victories of 1939–40 and would live to see more like them until the “final victory” and Hitler’s “New Order” for Europe. Must not someone or other’s sudden turn to civilian studies in the midst of the war appear to them a sign of “defeatism”?

Whoever wished to acquire technical school or university-level learning in Shap Wells, therefore, had to find an avenue for himself. Franz Schad, learned and extremely well read—known and renowned as the “Crown Jurist” and the “Academic Yeast Germ”—and others, who were qualified engineers and mathematicians, were ready to help any way they could. So those who were interested could study seriously and profitably, even in the absence of a formal program.

Of course, artistic activity also flowered in Shap Wells. In the camp, tiny in comparison with those of the later war years, some officers showed themselves to be talented painters and drawers, actors
and instrumentalists. Musical recitals and theatrical productions brought a highly welcome diversion and delight to many an evening. I especially recall an Austrian Luftwaffe officer who had played the violin very well before the war. In Shap Wells he took it up again with energy and consistency. Soon he regained all the ground that he obviously had mastered before. Later, in the big camps in Canada he became the concert-master and celebrated soloist of the symphony orchestras organized there. It is also worthy of grateful note that throughout the years of captivity he gave coaching in the violin to those who requested his assistance.

Oberleutnant (Luftwaffe) der Reserve Franz Schad, an attorney experienced in government administration, intellectually at home in the Catholic youth-and student-movements, was renowned in various prisoner-of-war camps as the “Crown Jurist” and the “Academic Yeast Germ.” He is shown here at the prisoner-of-war camp at Grande Ligne, Quebec. (Photograph courtesy of Franz Schad.)

It is almost superfluous to say how important the opportunity of maintaining contact with relatives at home was to the prisoners.
Every month the officers were allowed three letters of twenty-four lines each and four postcards of seven lines, on paper that had been treated to frustrate the use of invisible ink. The censors on both sides deleted the passages they found objectionable with black ink. For the most part, this postal system worked. Naturally, every now and again wartime conditions led to great delays in delivery.

There was scarcely a German prisoner-of-war camp that over the course of the years did not have its “breakers out,” and Shap Wells was no exception. It was November 1941 and two young Luftwaffe officers, Karl Wappler and Heinz Schnabel, decided to break out. I learned of their plan when they asked if I would help them in one respect. “Gladly,” I said, “what’s it about?”

“Well,” they explained, “we want to pose as Dutch pilots who have been detailed to train airfield personnel to defend against a possible German airborne invasion. We gained plenty of the appropriate experience after the beginning of the campaign in the west in May 1940—and this must appear on our identity papers, which will be in English. Can you provide us with the text? We can prepare the papers themselves.” “But certainly,” I said, “no problem.”

After the German camp leader, to whom naturally the plan for such an escape had to be submitted, had approved it, Wappler and Schnabel made ready to carry it out. They studied British illustrated magazines that somehow came to hand, noting the pattern, color, buttons, and badges of the Dutch uniforms pictured, then tailored their own outfits. At a tactically suitable moment, they supplied themselves with blank identity papers from the office of the British camp commandant, and immersed themselves in maps and meteorological charts, as well as wind atlases. For it was their intention to proceed to a training field not far from Shap Wells, steal an aircraft, and disappear for good in the direction of the Continent. The adventurous details of their successful escape from camp have since been described in the literature of the war and will be merely sketched here. As neither Wappler nor Schnabel are still alive, I have followed the publications of British authors in describing their experiences outside camp.

On Sunday, 23 November, everything was ready. On the afternoon of that day Wappler and Schnabel concealed themselves in a hollow space as high as a man, inside a pile of firewood that had been collected on walks outside the camp and stacked in the garden for use during the winter. After nightfall, they left their hiding place and crawled along a shallow ditch screened on both sides by rhododendrons to the boundary wire. The origin of the ditch had been explained
to the British camp authorities as a means of garden “beautification,” but had actually been planned from the start to facilitate this operation. Moving only in the intervals of darkness between the sweeps of the searchlights circling the camp, they reached the barbed wire, whose individual strands they pried apart with a wooden double-lever they had fashioned for themselves. And then nothing but go through and get out of there—perfect work!

Then they proceeded—they knew the lay of the land from previous outings—to an especially steep cut of the London, Midland, and Scotland Railway, which ran near Shap Wells. There they sprang from the slope onto a freight train wheezing its way north. Upon reaching the freight yard at Carlisle, they left the train, took off the overalls that until then they had worn over their “uniforms,” and sought refuge in a nearby cinema. After the film, they attached themselves to some Allied members of the RAF, in whose company, unchallenged, they reached their goal, the Kingstown airfield, only around three kilometers away. At its entrance they were blinded by the dazzling flashlight of a sentry, who, however, excused himself with a “Sorry, sir,” as soon as he recognized the “Dutch officers.” Wappler and Schnabel passed completely for what, on the strength of their “identity papers,” they now were—Wappler, “Flight Lieutenant Harry Graven”; Schnabel, “Pilot Officer George Henry David.” They spent the night behind a hangar.

Morning came and now it became a question of finding a little aircraft, fueled up as fully as possible and ready for immediate use. Upon carefully patrolling the airfield they saw something that struck them both as advantageous: there were crowds of Poles, Czechs, Dutch, and Norwegians in training, which meant that rudimentary English would scarcely be noticed among the jumble of languages. But, it suddenly occurred to Wappler, perhaps there are too many Poles, from whom there is nothing good to expect. Yet we won’t let ourselves be discouraged, no, not at this pont, he consoled himself.

It was a foggy morning. Flight operations had yet to begin, but aircraft inspection was under way. They walked on, to the edge of the field, where they had spied two Miles Magisters, little monoplanes that the RAF used for training purposes. “Good morning,” Wappler said to the younger of the mechanics working there, “the base commander has ordered that one of these two machines take off on a weather reconnaissance. Prepare one for take off!” Wondering about the choice of such a small training plane for this purpose, the mechanic was ready to challenge it until Wappler roughly reminded him
that there was “never any accounting for” the base commander’s choices, after which the man gave him a plane. Wappler and Schnabel cast a quick glance over the cockpit fittings, nodded: “We’ll soon be through with that”—and clambered into the two seats. It was approximately 1130 hours on this 24th of November.

“Engine on!” Wappler ordered the mechanic, who obeyed; the motor coughed once, twice, came on, and revved up to full power. And the way was clear—to the runway and into the air. The mechanic’s shout didn’t carry to the two passengers in the plane: “Those two chaps don’t even have one parachute, despite the regulations! They probably can’t even read English yet. Oh, these Poles!”

Above the clouds the Germans had no idea of the confusion of the airfield commander, Wing Commander Francis S. Homersham, upon learning of their flight. They were concerned solely with the correct course to Germany and their supply of gas—would it suffice? That the range of the Magister was 367 miles they did not know exactly, only that the shortest way over the North Sea led to Holland and that was about 365 miles. If the fuel was dropping visibly before they reached the sea, they would land in England and trust to their well-tested nerve to have the plane fueled up again.

It was a day of nasty weather; unpleasant clouds hung to sixty meters, the ground could seldom be seen, and visibility forward was only about two miles, which greatly complicated navigation. The air temperature at their altitude was only a little above zero; they were miserably cold, and the air stream finally ripped off Wappler’s head covering. From a little map they had carried along he believed that he could confirm flying over Leeds and then following The Wash to the coast near Norfolk, where the decision of whether to cross the North Sea would have to be made. There, however, came a warning signal from the fuel indicator; its needle was already near the red danger zone. And so it would have been sheer suicide to begin the crossing now, without any life-preserving equipment on board in case they had to ditch in the sea. After only a few minutes over the water they decided to turn back to England and make an emergency landing somewhere, with the aim of refueling.

It was 1450 hours and they had flown approximately 325 miles when Wappler set the Magister down cleanly in a meadow at Scratby, north of Great Yarmouth. To the curious villagers who assembled, he served up his “history”: “We’re Dutch pilots on a training flight to Croydon. Unfortunately, we’ve run out of fuel. Can we get some here?” The local policeman, who seemed to be impressed by the RAF
markings on the aircraft and the two men’s papers, put through a call for Wappler to the duty officer at the nearby RAF airfield at Horsham St. Faith. But, as by then it was growing late in the day, the latter could not comply with Wappler’s request for assistance in making an immediate take off. Instead, he sent a car to pick them up. And carry them to the RAF airfield—into the heart of the enemy air arm. The prospect could bring anyone in their place to the verge of panic. But what good would that do? This wasn’t the moment to give up the bluff—not yet!