Here's one from my archive: an interview I did with former Stalag Luft III POW Ken Rees in 2003. I've met Ken since and interviewed him at length. This article was based on a telephone interview. EVERY Christmas holiday millions settle onto the sofa to watch a piece of cinematic history - The Great Escape. But one Welshman never sits down in front of the TV to watch Steve McQueen's famous motorbike ride. To Ken Rees the movie is just make believe. He was right at the heart of the real-life daring breakout that inspired the story. The Ruabon-born veteran joined the Royal Air Force just days into World War II to train as a bomber pilot. By the time he turned 21 in 1942, he was already an experienced airman. That year was to be, in his own words, "most eventful". He was promoted to flight lieutenant and began his fateful third tour of duty. He'd known his sweetheart, Mary, for five years. They tied the knot on October 3 and headed to London for their honeymoon. Four or five days later he was recalled to duty and forced to leave his new bride behind. They would not see each other again for nearly three years. He usually flew on bombing runs but his 56th - and last - mission of the war took him over the Norwegian coast to lay mines in the water. His Wellington bomber was flying at just 300ft through a clear and moonlit sky when it was hit by German anti-aircraft guns. Ken managed to land in a lake, close to the shore. The front gunner was dead; the rear gunner was missing and his body would only be found in his rusted turret two decades later. The pilot and his two surviving crew patched up their wounds and looked for help. "After meeting some locals we waited for a doctor in a remote house," recalled Ken, now 82 and living in Anglesey. "But when a doctor was called out the Germans knew. Suddenly there were soldiers everywhere. One said, 'For you the war is over!' and I put my hands up quickly." Ken was taken to Oslo to be interrogated by the Gestapo. "They just questioned me and warned me that things could get worse," he remembered. "I obviously didn't like the sound of that but things did not get worse. "I was always treated all right. The only problem I had was with the Gestapo. They were dressed just as they were shown in films - in long leather coats and big brimmed hats. I laughed a bit and one of them struck me with a rifle butt." Sometime in November 1942 he arrived at Stalag Luft III, a camp in Sagan in what was then eastern Germany but is now Poland. Meanwhile, back home, Mary was told he was no longer missing but confirmed as a prisoner of war. Just as in the film, thoughts turned quickly to escape. Fellow inmates assumed Ken as a Welshman would be of mining stock and ideal for tunnelling. He did not tell them he had grown up on his father's farm. "It was our duty as officers to escape," said Ken. "We all felt that. And we wanted to see our families and to get back in the war." In 1943, Ken was among the first prisoners to start on a tunnel which would eventually be used in The Great Escape. It was dangerous work. "The tunnel was very small, not much bigger than a fireplace and we were 30ft under in heavy sand," he recalled. "We knew that if anything happened we wouldn't have had a chance." The escape organisation, portrayed faithfully by an array of British and American film-stars in the movie, was led by South African-born lawyer Roger Bushell, who underwent a slight name change to be played by Richard Attenborough. The famous disposal of the sand from the tunnels nicknamed Tom, Dick and Harry, was also reproduced accurately by director John Sturges. Prisoners would have two bags filled with the sand stuffed inside their trousers. By releasing clips they opened the bags and dropped the sand onto the surface of the open compound. It was then trod or worked in by PoW gardeners. But other elements of the Hollywood version of the tale were wider of the mark. "They showed piles of cloth for clothes to escape - it looked like a draper's shop!" said Ken. "Of course, it couldn't be like that because we would have been found out." More than 300 of the 1,000 prisoners at Sagan were involved in the tunnels in some way, although only 30 were diggers. "Unlike in the film, there were no Americans on the escape," explained Ken. "It was mainly British, Czechs and Poles in the tunnel." The escape took place on Saturday, March 24, 1944. Bushell wanted to take 200 prisoners out. Ken was to go into the tunnel after the 50th escapee and then help a further 25 through before escaping himself. His uniform had been adapted to look like a civilian and he had false papers in his pocket. He and his pal Joe Noble planned to head towards Yugoslavia. Tension was high in hut 104 as prisoners dressed as manual workers, city slickers and even German soldiers waited to climb into the tunnel. And it got worse when word filtered back that there had been a blunder. "The tunnel was 15-20ft short of the woods," said Ken. "They had to design a signalling system because of the guards walking past the wire. "They ran a rope from the hole to the woods and someone would lie on the ground at the hole, patting the head of the next man in the tunnel. He'd follow the rope to the trees and be away." At 4.45am, Ken crawled towards the exit. "I was just on my way when I heard shots and decided to get back out. I was the last man. I was thinking they might shoot up the tunnel and I might get shot in the backside." Ken was thrown in solitary confinement - the 'cooler' - for 14 days after the escape attempt. There, he stewed over what might have been. But then news filtered through that 50 of the 76 who had escaped had been rounded up by the Gestapo and SS and executed. "I was devastated," he said. "So many of them were friends who had been working with me on the tunnel. I was extremely lucky." It will be the 60th anniversary of the break-out next year, but Ken has never truly left The Great Escape behind, thanks to a series of documentaries and books, and, of course, the 1963 blockbuster. "The film was all done from America," explained Ken, who like most of the PoWs is not directly represented in the film. "They did not talk to me about it, but I was invited to the premiere in London. Of course bits of it were ridiculous. There was no motorbike in the escape but you have to have people like Steve McQueen and you have to make a film, I understand that. But I don't watch it." He added: "There's still such a lot of interest in The Great Escape, from young people especially. It's amazing." Much of the interest may be down to the film, which gets its latest showing on television next Saturday. But for Ken Rees the memories of the real barbed wire of Sagan are more than enough. Greg Lewis, Wales on Sunday Dec 21 2003 Read More Ken's real Great Escape - Wales News - News - WalesOnline Read More Ken's real Great Escape - Wales News - News - WalesOnline
History honours four 'great escapers' Louise Williams in Most, Czech Republic March 26, 2012 THE Great Escape, the true story, has a new ending. In perfect spring weather in the Czech town of Most, two Australian World War II fighter pilots, who met a lonely death at the hands of the Gestapo after tunnelling out of a German POW camp, were this weekend finally remembered with full military honours. A memorial was unveiled to four of the 76 ''great escapers'' who spent a year digging a tunnel for the 1944 mass breakout of Allied airmen from a supposed escape-proof POW camp. Their clandestine operation was immortalised in the Hollywood blockbuster, The Great Escape. Advertisement: Story continues below Schoolmates in Sydney before the war, RAAF Squadron Leader John ''Willy'' Williams DFC, from Manly, and RAAF Flight Lieutenant Reginald ''Rusty'' Kierath, from country NSW, were escape partners. With fellow escapees, RAF Flight Lieutenant Leslie George Bull DFC (British) and RAF Flight Officer Jerzy Mondschein (Polish), they reached the mountainous border of then-German-occupied Czechoslovakia, trudging the last 20 kilometres in waist-deep snow. ''Their journey to freedom, tragically, ended here,'' said Czech organiser, Michal Holy, flanked by Czech, Australian, British and Polish military and government representatives, and officials of the region where the men were secretly executed after being intercepted by a German alpine patrol. Although the location of their executions has never been identified, their bodies were brought to Most for cremation. Family members from Australia, Britain and Poland unveiled the memorial. Recent research into the case of the ''Most Four'' has uncovered photos of the young men taken by the secret police shortly before their death, showing the civilian clothes cut from uniforms by the POWs to disguise them as migrant workers. The paperwork ordering the men's cremations was also unearthed. It showed the order was signed the night before they were killed. Official Nazi documents claim the men were ''shot trying to escape'', an event that could hardly have been foreseen the previous day. Of the 76 escapees, 73 were recaptured and 50 secretly executed on Hitler's personal orders, in breach of the Geneva Conventions. ''These are very intriguing finds,'' says British historian Guy Walters, the author of the coming book The Real Great Escape. ''The fact that the cremations were ordered before the men were shot for supposedly trying to escape reminds us quite how cold-blooded the Gestapo could be.'' Peter Devitt, representing the RAF Museum London at the ceremony, said the escape achieved two important goals despite its tragic end. ''They (the POWs) wanted to show the Germans what they were capable of, and … it not only caused massive disruption but hit German morale hard.'' Read more: History honours four 'great escapers'
