Island Farm - The "Forgotten" Great Escape

The "Forgotten" Great Escape

On 10 March 1945, 70 prisoners escaped from Island Farm through a tunnel dug from Hut Nine (the only hut now left standing). The tunnel was about 70 feet (21 m) long and breached the perimeter fence.

Some of the techniques used by the inmates were ingenious and not too dissimilar to those in the war film The Great Escape about Allied POWs. Excavating the tunnels was not easy because of the heavy clay soil upon which the camp was built. Cans, meat tins, and even knives from the canteen were used as digging implements. The soil was hauled out of the tunnel on a makeshift skip and put into kit bags. At first, prisoners carried the soil in their pockets to the long-jump pit or garden plots. Others kneaded clay into balls and dropped them through a hole in a false wall they had constructed in an unused room in one of the huts. To support the tunnel roof, oak benches were stolen from the canteen and bed legs were cut down when supplies of wood were depleted. A ventilation pipeline was made from condensed milk tins; air was forced through by a hand-operated fan. The tunnel even had its own electric lights, tapped off the mains supply. Noise was concealed by chorus singing.

The escapers were divided into groups, each of which was equipped with a map, homemade compass, and food. Each person in the group also had identity papers, produced in the camp. All these preparations required tremendous organization, yet it is not known who actually organized the escape. For security purposes, each escaper’s identity was known only to the others in his small group. This anonymity protected them against betrayal and prevented discovery of the full extent of the escape.

At around 10pm on March 10, the prisoners made their move; a few stole the local doctor's car and got as far as Birmingham, at least 120 miles (190 km) away, and another group got to the port of Southampton. The prisoners knew their way around through crude but accurate rough drawings of Wales and the surrounding area, mainly of railway lines and principal roads.

All the escapees were eventually captured and were not officially punished.

The media blamed the guards for the escape, citing that they had full knowledge of the escape through a note apparently thrown through the fence the very night of the escape suggesting that there was an escape plot. The military and the guards blamed undermanning of the camp and new stricter procedures were introduced.

Peter Phillips, author of The German Great Escape, claims that 84 prisoners actually got out, thus eclipsing the 76 Allied POWs who broke out of Stalag Luft III, the inspiration for the film The Great Escape. Fourteen were captured very soon afterwards, allowing officials to announce, for propaganda reasons, that only 70 had escaped. Three were spotted in Kent, but were (according to Phillips) never caught. Afterwards, the government revised its figure to 67.