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FIGHTER PLANE ENGINES ROAR | 0:00:09 | 0:00:12 | |
As soon as the battle started, | 0:00:24 | 0:00:26 | |
about four or five of them fell on me | 0:00:26 | 0:00:28 | |
and oh, boy, did I start dodging. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:30 | |
My first I got with a full deflection shot from underneath. | 0:00:30 | 0:00:35 | |
He went down in a long glide | 0:00:35 | 0:00:38 | |
and I went into a spin, | 0:00:38 | 0:00:39 | |
as two others were firing at me from aft. | 0:00:39 | 0:00:42 | |
I pulled left and up. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:45 | |
I then saw a Messerschmitt trying to fire up at me | 0:00:45 | 0:00:48 | |
so I went head-on at him. | 0:00:48 | 0:00:50 | |
We were both firing and everything was red flashes. | 0:00:50 | 0:00:54 | |
I killed the pilot because suddenly he pulled right at me | 0:00:54 | 0:00:57 | |
and missed me by inches. | 0:00:57 | 0:00:58 | |
I went over the top of him | 0:01:00 | 0:01:01 | |
and, as I turned, I saw him rear right up in a stall | 0:01:01 | 0:01:05 | |
and go down with his engines smoking. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:08 | |
He was out of control and half on his back. | 0:01:08 | 0:01:11 | |
My engine was badly shot-up | 0:01:13 | 0:01:15 | |
and caught fire. | 0:01:15 | 0:01:17 | |
I turned everything off. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:20 | |
The fire went out and I glided down. | 0:01:20 | 0:01:23 | |
There was a lot of glycol and I couldn't see anything much. | 0:01:23 | 0:01:27 | |
I turned the petrol on again. | 0:01:27 | 0:01:30 | |
The engine ran for a little while | 0:01:30 | 0:01:32 | |
and then everything seized | 0:01:32 | 0:01:34 | |
and a lot of fumes and smoke came into the cockpit. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:37 | |
So I prepared to land, undercarriage up. | 0:01:38 | 0:01:41 | |
This I did successfully, | 0:01:45 | 0:01:47 | |
only to get a knock on the nose, which bled like a pig. | 0:01:47 | 0:01:50 | |
The old girl burst into flames | 0:01:50 | 0:01:53 | |
and, as you can imagine, I moved pretty quickly. | 0:01:53 | 0:01:55 | |
I'd landed just East of Boulogne. | 0:01:57 | 0:02:00 | |
I thought, of course, I was well behind our lines. | 0:02:00 | 0:02:04 | |
And then, to my rage and astonishment, | 0:02:05 | 0:02:09 | |
a German motorbike came round the corner | 0:02:09 | 0:02:11 | |
and I was taken prisoner. | 0:02:11 | 0:02:13 | |
Please ask Hollis to send me the standard law books, like Salmond, | 0:02:15 | 0:02:19 | |
and also all the quarterlies, so I can keep my hand in. | 0:02:19 | 0:02:24 | |
A cheap set of Shakespeare would be grand. | 0:02:24 | 0:02:27 | |
I was three years old | 0:02:53 | 0:02:55 | |
when Hitler personally ordered the execution | 0:02:55 | 0:02:58 | |
of my uncle, Roger Bushell. | 0:02:58 | 0:03:00 | |
Throughout our childhood, he gazed down on us, | 0:03:20 | 0:03:23 | |
he smiled at us, | 0:03:23 | 0:03:25 | |
he winked at us, and we winked back. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:27 | |
Every summer, we spent our holidays | 0:03:30 | 0:03:32 | |
in my grandparents' house in Hermanus, | 0:03:32 | 0:03:35 | |
a small fishing village on the South African Cape coast. | 0:03:35 | 0:03:39 | |
After lunch, | 0:03:42 | 0:03:44 | |
my sister and I would play or laze about in my grandfather's study | 0:03:44 | 0:03:48 | |
while the elders slept. | 0:03:48 | 0:03:50 | |
My grandfather instilled in us a love for Britain. | 0:03:52 | 0:03:56 | |
He read us Rudyard Kipling. | 0:03:56 | 0:03:58 | |
We grew up believing that the British were best. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:02 | |
We read about Roger | 0:04:04 | 0:04:05 | |
from Paul Brickhill's book The Great Escape. | 0:04:05 | 0:04:08 | |
But what we longed for most | 0:04:10 | 0:04:13 | |
was that he would walk through the gate | 0:04:13 | 0:04:15 | |
so we could leap into his arms. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:17 | |
But this he never did. | 0:04:21 | 0:04:23 | |
My uncle, Roger Bushell, | 0:04:27 | 0:04:30 | |
masterminded the Great Escape of World War II. | 0:04:30 | 0:04:34 | |
In 1963, Hollywood made a film about it. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:38 | |
This time we'll dig straight down 30 feet before we go horizontal. | 0:04:38 | 0:04:42 | |
-That'll rule out any question of sound detection. -All right, Roger. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:46 | |
Roger Bushell's role as Big X was played by Richard Attenborough. | 0:04:46 | 0:04:49 | |
We're going to devote our energies to sports and gardening, | 0:04:49 | 0:04:54 | |
all the cultural pursuits. | 0:04:54 | 0:04:56 | |
Meanwhile, | 0:04:56 | 0:04:58 | |
we dig. | 0:04:58 | 0:04:59 | |
All right? | 0:05:08 | 0:05:10 | |
Hold onto yourself, Bartlett, you're 20 feet short. | 0:05:10 | 0:05:12 | |
What do you mean, 20 feet short? | 0:05:12 | 0:05:14 | |
You're 20 feet short of the woods. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:16 | |
My mother and I attended | 0:05:16 | 0:05:18 | |
the premiere of the film in London. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:20 | |
I was 22 | 0:05:20 | 0:05:21 | |
and I sat next to Wing-Commander Harry Day, | 0:05:21 | 0:05:24 | |
who was Roger's senior commanding officer. | 0:05:24 | 0:05:27 | |
They were together as prisoners throughout the war. | 0:05:27 | 0:05:32 | |
Tods met Richard Attenborough afterwards | 0:05:32 | 0:05:34 | |
at the sort of reception they had | 0:05:34 | 0:05:36 | |
and he said to her, "I was wrong in the part, wasn't I?" | 0:05:36 | 0:05:40 | |
and she said, "Yes, frankly, you were. | 0:05:40 | 0:05:42 | |
"You weren't a bit like my brother." | 0:05:42 | 0:05:44 | |
And, of course, they changed his name to Bartley or something, | 0:05:44 | 0:05:48 | |
which annoyed me intensely, | 0:05:48 | 0:05:50 | |
but they did it apparently to... | 0:05:50 | 0:05:53 | |
safeguard themselves against any criticism from the family | 0:05:53 | 0:05:56 | |
so I suppose one has to accept it. | 0:05:56 | 0:05:58 | |
Squadron Leader Bartlett, | 0:05:58 | 0:06:01 | |
if you escape again, | 0:06:01 | 0:06:03 | |
and be caught, you will be shot. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:06 | |
-Heil Hitler. -Heil Hitler. | 0:06:08 | 0:06:10 | |
In all those years we spent in my grandfather's study, | 0:06:21 | 0:06:25 | |
we never found the meticulous records he made of Roger's life. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:28 | |
Only very recently, we found them all in one place. | 0:06:30 | 0:06:36 | |
Childhood, youth, | 0:06:36 | 0:06:38 | |
youth into manhood, photographs, | 0:06:38 | 0:06:42 | |
letters, certificates, | 0:06:42 | 0:06:44 | |
newspaper clippings, | 0:06:44 | 0:06:46 | |
small notes and wry comments, | 0:06:46 | 0:06:49 | |
all sealed away for two generations to keep tragedy at bay. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:54 | |
My grandmother's diary begins it all. | 0:06:57 | 0:07:00 | |
For a week after his birth, | 0:07:03 | 0:07:05 | |
he lost weight steadily | 0:07:05 | 0:07:07 | |
and one night, his life hung by so slender a thread | 0:07:07 | 0:07:10 | |
that the nursing sister, a Roman Catholic, | 0:07:10 | 0:07:14 | |
implored me to let her christen him. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:17 | |
Roger Joyce Bushell, | 0:07:17 | 0:07:19 | |
I baptise you in the name of the Father... | 0:07:19 | 0:07:22 | |
After she had said the lovely words, | 0:07:22 | 0:07:24 | |
she laid him in my arms. | 0:07:24 | 0:07:26 | |
Drops of holy water still lay on his queer wrinkled forehead. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:31 | |
All fear for my beloved little son left me. | 0:07:32 | 0:07:36 | |
I knew that he would live. | 0:07:36 | 0:07:38 | |
He was my mother's brother. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:43 | |
He called her Tods. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:44 | |
They grew up on a gold mine | 0:07:47 | 0:07:49 | |
at West Springs on the South African Gold Reef. | 0:07:49 | 0:07:52 | |
They did everything together. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:53 | |
If it was bird-watching, my mother was sent along the branch first | 0:07:55 | 0:07:59 | |
to see if it would break. | 0:07:59 | 0:08:01 | |
My mother's dolls were burnt at the stake. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:05 | |
Roger could spit a phenomenal distance. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:09 | |
They had one small dog called Rubbish, | 0:08:09 | 0:08:12 | |
because he was found on a rubbish heap | 0:08:12 | 0:08:15 | |
and they had a much younger sister called Elizabeth. | 0:08:15 | 0:08:18 | |
Like many boys at the time, | 0:08:21 | 0:08:23 | |
Roger was sent to senior school in England. | 0:08:23 | 0:08:26 | |
He only ever returned to South Africa once or twice. | 0:08:28 | 0:08:31 | |
I suppose because we didn't see so much of him | 0:08:33 | 0:08:35 | |
he was sort of glamourised. | 0:08:35 | 0:08:38 | |
Stuffiness and being hide-bound by rules and regulations | 0:08:38 | 0:08:42 | |
were not his scene at all. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:44 | |
He did cock a snook at authority. | 0:08:44 | 0:08:47 | |
When he left Wellington, the headmaster wrote that | 0:08:47 | 0:08:50 | |
he really didn't think he could teach Roger anything more | 0:08:50 | 0:08:53 | |
and he suggested Roger went to West Africa, you know, in the Services, | 0:08:53 | 0:08:57 | |
and my father wrote and said that he thought he knew a bit more about | 0:08:57 | 0:09:00 | |
West Africa than the headmaster did, and no son of his was going there. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:04 | |
And that's when he went to Grenoble. | 0:09:04 | 0:09:06 | |
Roger was 15 when he first skied at Murren | 0:09:10 | 0:09:13 | |
but, even in those days, he counted in any company. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:17 | |
In 1931, aged 20, he won the Langlauf at Scheidig Oberland. | 0:09:17 | 0:09:22 | |
In later years he was one of the great characters at St Moritz. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:32 | |
And the uncrowned king | 0:09:35 | 0:09:36 | |
of the fashionable Italian skiing centre at Sestriere. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:41 | |
Sometimes, as a racer, Roger had far more courage than judgment | 0:09:42 | 0:09:46 | |
and threw away many races through recklessness. | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
In an attempt to overtake Frank Campbell of McGill, | 0:09:51 | 0:09:55 | |
he fell on a swift downhill run, | 0:09:55 | 0:09:57 | |
broke both skis | 0:09:57 | 0:09:59 | |
and lacerated his left eye. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:01 | |
However, when the rescue team went to pick him up, | 0:10:01 | 0:10:05 | |
he said he intended to go on. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:07 | |
"The team needs every point," he protested. | 0:10:07 | 0:10:09 | |
"They'll lose if I don't continue." | 0:10:09 | 0:10:11 | |
He was was restrained and sent to hospital. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:14 | |
Behind his gaiety and nonsense, which is joie de vivre | 0:10:20 | 0:10:23 | |
and also a touch of joie de vice - | 0:10:23 | 0:10:26 | |
is an unceasing or underlying purpose | 0:10:26 | 0:10:30 | |
and a strong will to carry it out. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:32 | |
Loving as he is, fundamentally, | 0:10:34 | 0:10:36 | |
he will never let his heart completely control his head - | 0:10:36 | 0:10:41 | |
and so, he will grow into a fine man. | 0:10:41 | 0:10:44 | |
My most vivid memory, I suppose, going to dinner at the Savoy | 0:10:49 | 0:10:54 | |
and dancing, and as the clock struck 12 and I became 17, he said, | 0:10:54 | 0:10:58 | |
"Right, now I'm going to show you how people really kiss," | 0:10:58 | 0:11:01 | |
and I went down the drain and came up for air about two minutes later. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:06 | |
He said, "Well, there you are. Now you know." | 0:11:08 | 0:11:11 | |
You know, sweet 17 and never kissed before, | 0:11:11 | 0:11:13 | |
sort of, which wasn't entirely true, but still. | 0:11:13 | 0:11:16 | |
There were very few people who had the experience that Roger had | 0:11:21 | 0:11:23 | |
on the female sex, I can assure you. | 0:11:23 | 0:11:26 | |
He had many girlfriends, many, many girlfriends. | 0:11:26 | 0:11:30 | |
# Some day you'll come along | 0:11:30 | 0:11:35 | |
# The man I love... # | 0:11:35 | 0:11:37 | |
And, very often, a married one, and a rich one. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:42 | |
I mean, he used to go to the same tailor as Daddy | 0:11:42 | 0:11:45 | |
and have things made up | 0:11:45 | 0:11:47 | |
and then the bills came in, and Father hit the roof. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:52 | |
He'd moved into a world that was completely different | 0:11:53 | 0:11:56 | |
to anything that Benji had been in. | 0:11:56 | 0:11:58 | |
# He'll look at me and smile... # | 0:11:58 | 0:12:02 | |
Benji didn't countenance the fact that Roger was always stony-broke. | 0:12:02 | 0:12:06 | |
He got mad as a snake about this but he didn't realise | 0:12:06 | 0:12:08 | |
that living in London was a great deal more expensive | 0:12:08 | 0:12:11 | |
than living in South Africa, and certainly in Springs. | 0:12:11 | 0:12:14 | |
What Roger never realised was that, | 0:12:14 | 0:12:16 | |
although Benji had a very big position at the mine, | 0:12:16 | 0:12:19 | |
and he had a lot of perks, | 0:12:19 | 0:12:21 | |
he had a car and a chauffeur and God knows how many gardeners | 0:12:21 | 0:12:25 | |
and the house. | 0:12:25 | 0:12:27 | |
Actual cash? I don't think he had all that amount. | 0:12:27 | 0:12:30 | |
He didn't consider Roger needed that amount of money | 0:12:30 | 0:12:33 | |
because he didn't, he didn't need it. | 0:12:33 | 0:12:36 | |
# He'll build a little home | 0:12:36 | 0:12:39 | |
# Just meant for two | 0:12:39 | 0:12:43 | |
# From which I'll never roam | 0:12:43 | 0:12:47 | |
# Who would?# | 0:12:47 | 0:12:50 | |
Skiing and flying were his great loves. | 0:12:50 | 0:12:54 | |
He was a member of Auxiliary Air Force. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:56 | |
He was 601 Squadron and they spent a fortnight, I think, a year, | 0:12:56 | 0:13:01 | |
at various aerodromes doing training | 0:13:01 | 0:13:04 | |
and they'd spend their lives getting sacks of flour or something | 0:13:04 | 0:13:08 | |
and dive-bombing 600. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:10 | |
Very, very full of beans, full of jokes, | 0:13:11 | 0:13:14 | |
but that was all sort of childish fun that went on each year. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:18 | |
But they were very serious about their flying. | 0:13:22 | 0:13:25 | |
"It's that silly ass Hitler again. | 0:13:43 | 0:13:46 | |
"Just back by flying boat from the South of France. | 0:13:46 | 0:13:50 | |
"Embodied yesterday. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:53 | |
"Address: 601 Hendon. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:58 | |
"Don't worry. | 0:13:58 | 0:13:59 | |
"Am fighting fit. All love, Roger." | 0:13:59 | 0:14:02 | |
Roger was embodied by the RAF as a squadron leader. | 0:14:05 | 0:14:08 | |
He took a couple of his friends from 601 and formed Squadron 92. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:14 | |
By the time Roger sent the telegram to his parents, | 0:14:17 | 0:14:21 | |
on August 26th, 1939, | 0:14:21 | 0:14:23 | |
Adolf Hitler had already annexed Austria and occupied Czechoslovakia. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:29 | |
Six days after the telegram arrived, German divisions broke into Poland. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:39 | |
This morning, the British Ambassador in Berlin | 0:14:43 | 0:14:46 | |
handed the German government a final note | 0:14:46 | 0:14:51 | |
stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock | 0:14:51 | 0:14:56 | |
that they were prepared to withdraw their troops from Poland, | 0:14:56 | 0:15:01 | |
a state of war would exist between us. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:04 | |
I have to tell you now, | 0:15:06 | 0:15:08 | |
that no such undertaking has been received | 0:15:08 | 0:15:12 | |
and that consequently, this country is at war with Germany. | 0:15:12 | 0:15:17 | |
Roger's Squadron 92 traded Blenheim planes for Spitfires. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:30 | |
Pilots spoke of the clear-cut beauty of the Spitfire | 0:15:30 | 0:15:33 | |
with its Rolls-Royce engine | 0:15:33 | 0:15:37 | |
and that flying them was like an extension of their own bodies, | 0:15:37 | 0:15:41 | |
brains and nervous system. | 0:15:41 | 0:15:43 | |
On the morning of May 23rd 1940, | 0:15:48 | 0:15:51 | |
Squadron 92 was ordered to patrol the French coastline. | 0:15:51 | 0:15:55 | |
Roger was shot down at this juncture, | 0:16:00 | 0:16:02 | |
during the retreat of the British army at Dunkerque. | 0:16:02 | 0:16:05 | |
I remember the telegram arriving, | 0:16:15 | 0:16:16 | |
saying that Roger had been killed. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:18 | |
Well, we were all absolutely devastated. | 0:16:21 | 0:16:23 | |
I went back to Varsity and I was in some show | 0:16:26 | 0:16:28 | |
and the chap who was producing was an absolute darling. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:31 | |
I remember him taking me out for coffee or something | 0:16:31 | 0:16:35 | |
after we'd had a rehearsal | 0:16:35 | 0:16:37 | |
and saying, "Look, don't take it, I bet he's a prisoner of war." | 0:16:37 | 0:16:40 | |
My God, two days later or something, came the news that he was. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:45 | |
He was everything. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:48 | |
Someone once said to me during the war, | 0:16:48 | 0:16:51 | |
"You know you'll never get a husband | 0:16:51 | 0:16:53 | |
"if you keep measuring him up to your brother." | 0:16:53 | 0:16:56 | |
And that was my basic thing. | 0:16:56 | 0:16:58 | |
31st of July, 1940. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:09 | |
My darlings, you will know by now that I am a prisoner of war | 0:17:09 | 0:17:14 | |
and alive and well. | 0:17:14 | 0:17:16 | |
I understand that I had some flattering obituary notices, | 0:17:16 | 0:17:20 | |
so I'm afraid you must have had a bad time. | 0:17:20 | 0:17:23 | |
I hardly know where to start. | 0:17:33 | 0:17:35 | |
As we are only allowed this single sheet of paper, | 0:17:36 | 0:17:39 | |
my news will be sketchy. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:42 | |
I was shot down in a big battle with Messerschmitts. | 0:17:42 | 0:17:46 | |
I got two of them first, | 0:17:46 | 0:17:48 | |
so I have done something to help win the war. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:50 | |
Do you remember how I told you at the beginning of the war | 0:17:58 | 0:18:01 | |
that I knew I'd get through it? | 0:18:01 | 0:18:03 | |
Well, admittedly, I never thought it would be this way. | 0:18:03 | 0:18:07 | |
But I'm convinced now, that all my energies, | 0:18:07 | 0:18:10 | |
bottled up for the time being, are meant to be used later on. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:14 | |
My dear Uncle Harry, my flat, as you know, | 0:18:18 | 0:18:22 | |
I shared with Michael Peacock. | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
We owed the people a certain amount of rent because, of course, | 0:18:25 | 0:18:28 | |
with the declaration of war, | 0:18:28 | 0:18:30 | |
our circumstances were very much altered. | 0:18:30 | 0:18:33 | |
This letter gives you full authority to act on my behalf. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:37 | |
He and Michael Peacock, they had a flat in Tite Street, in Chelsea. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
They shared the car, they shared everything | 0:18:42 | 0:18:45 | |
because if one had the tailcoat, | 0:18:45 | 0:18:46 | |
the other couldn't go out in a tail-coat that night! | 0:18:46 | 0:18:50 | |
They had this wonderful sort of carefree existence | 0:18:50 | 0:18:57 | |
and they had an old girl called Mrs Robinson who was their char, | 0:18:57 | 0:19:00 | |
who must have been an absolute saint the way she coped with them. | 0:19:00 | 0:19:04 | |
But, I mean, trust them to find someone like that. | 0:19:04 | 0:19:07 | |
In 1936, when he was actually working as a barrister, | 0:19:08 | 0:19:12 | |
he and Michael Peacock joined up as juniors in Khaki's Chambers. | 0:19:12 | 0:19:17 | |
I think they did all the sort of minor cases with no money attached. | 0:19:23 | 0:19:27 | |
And they also went down into what was the East End, once a week, | 0:19:29 | 0:19:34 | |
to give advice to people who had legal problems, | 0:19:34 | 0:19:37 | |
for free gratis and for nothing because it was experience, | 0:19:37 | 0:19:40 | |
and quite a few of them got into the newspapers. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:43 | |
He really did have the gift of the gab. | 0:19:51 | 0:19:53 | |
He could talk his way into anything and out of anything | 0:19:53 | 0:19:57 | |
and swore like a trooper at times. | 0:19:57 | 0:20:00 | |
And he had this rather fat chuckle. | 0:20:00 | 0:20:02 | |
I mean, they did their job and they did the job well. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:09 | |
Both he and Michael were very good at law. | 0:20:09 | 0:20:12 | |
I think he was quite liable to go out most of the night, | 0:20:14 | 0:20:18 | |
and come in and have to be in court at nine o'clock the next morning. | 0:20:18 | 0:20:22 | |
And thank God they did. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:25 | |
Poor Mike, I'm afraid, is dead. | 0:20:30 | 0:20:33 | |
Michael Peacock was killed three days before Roger was captured. | 0:20:35 | 0:20:39 | |
Life here is very peaceful and we are extremely well treated. | 0:20:42 | 0:20:46 | |
I had a delightful birthday party | 0:20:48 | 0:20:50 | |
with whisky sent over by the Kommandant, | 0:20:50 | 0:20:53 | |
who is a charming fellow. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:54 | |
I have many books, all the old classics | 0:20:56 | 0:20:59 | |
and have a whole set of Shakespeare, which is a great joy. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:03 | |
And several parcels of popular games like backgammon, chess | 0:21:05 | 0:21:09 | |
and those absurd puzzles have arrived from Harrods. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:11 | |
I have all that's necessary to bodily comfort, | 0:21:14 | 0:21:17 | |
only that devil, the human mind, makes one go crazy at times. | 0:21:17 | 0:21:21 | |
Something of greater value beckons him on | 0:21:27 | 0:21:31 | |
and the image of it shines in his curiously dilated pupils. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:36 | |
At times only a rim of brilliant blue shines around them. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:40 | |
Were his goals solely a material one, I'd be anxious. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:48 | |
My dear Uncle Harry. | 0:21:52 | 0:21:54 | |
I would be grateful if you'd get in touch | 0:21:54 | 0:21:56 | |
with Miss Peggy Hamilton, | 0:21:56 | 0:21:58 | |
9 Wellesley House, Sloane Square, 8469. | 0:21:58 | 0:22:04 | |
We were going to get married, if I'd not ended up here | 0:22:04 | 0:22:07 | |
and we are going to get married as soon as this bloody war is over. | 0:22:07 | 0:22:10 | |
I've written to Cox & Kings | 0:22:11 | 0:22:14 | |
and told them that I wish my pay be made over to her. | 0:22:14 | 0:22:18 | |
My account at Barclays bank is overdrawn | 0:22:18 | 0:22:20 | |
but I have a life insurance to cover it. | 0:22:20 | 0:22:23 | |
My darling Mummy, your letters are the greatest joy. | 0:22:32 | 0:22:35 | |
Please don't think they're boring. | 0:22:35 | 0:22:37 | |
Letters are wonderful things when you're a prisoner. | 0:22:37 | 0:22:41 | |
I'm so glad Peggy Hamilton wrote to you. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:43 | |
She is, I'm quite sure, the only person in the world for me | 0:22:43 | 0:22:47 | |
and I know that you will adore her. | 0:22:47 | 0:22:49 | |
I want you to buy a lovely diamond | 0:22:50 | 0:22:53 | |
which I'll arrange to pay for out of my pay. | 0:22:53 | 0:22:56 | |
Send it to her and tell her to have it made into a ring. | 0:22:56 | 0:23:00 | |
While I'm a prisoner, it's probably the only time | 0:23:00 | 0:23:02 | |
I'll have enough money to buy her something really good. | 0:23:02 | 0:23:05 | |
It drives me almost frantic, with London being bombed, | 0:23:12 | 0:23:15 | |
to feel that Peggy is there, nursing, in the middle of it. | 0:23:15 | 0:23:19 | |
One is liable to become vague, I find, | 0:23:29 | 0:23:32 | |
so shut away from the world are we. | 0:23:32 | 0:23:34 | |
Papers and the wireless bring the war into perspective for a moment, | 0:23:34 | 0:23:38 | |
but the context is an artificial one | 0:23:38 | 0:23:41 | |
and we carry on in our community in splendid isolation | 0:23:41 | 0:23:44 | |
from the struggle and tragedy of it all. | 0:23:44 | 0:23:47 | |
The first snow has fallen. | 0:23:55 | 0:23:57 | |
The air is like wine and the snow has that creaky, squeaky crunch | 0:23:57 | 0:24:01 | |
that makes me so homesick for Switzerland and a pair of skis. | 0:24:01 | 0:24:05 | |
We went out today in beautiful powder snow, | 0:24:07 | 0:24:11 | |
crisp fresh air, blue sky | 0:24:11 | 0:24:13 | |
and all the trees loaded with snow. | 0:24:13 | 0:24:16 | |
It was too beautiful for words. | 0:24:20 | 0:24:23 | |
Believe it or not, we bought skis through the canteen | 0:24:26 | 0:24:30 | |
and use Red Cross boots and go out on the local hills | 0:24:30 | 0:24:33 | |
with the German officers. | 0:24:33 | 0:24:36 | |
You can imagine what it does to us. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:38 | |
And then, of course, one gets outside the old barbed wire. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:44 | |
Life is like a jigsaw puzzle. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:52 | |
We fiddle with the pieces, put them this way and that, | 0:24:52 | 0:24:55 | |
try to fit one with the other, but it's of no use. | 0:24:55 | 0:24:58 | |
They will only go one way and, finally, we have to find it. | 0:24:58 | 0:25:03 | |
I am the first of the family ever to take this journey across Europe | 0:25:20 | 0:25:24 | |
to find out as much as I can about Roger's dogged life, | 0:25:24 | 0:25:28 | |
of escape and captivity. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:30 | |
The exhilaration of getting outside the old barbed wire onto skis again | 0:25:32 | 0:25:37 | |
inspired Roger's first escape. | 0:25:37 | 0:25:39 | |
While he and Wings Day and others | 0:25:44 | 0:25:47 | |
placated the German Luftwaffe at Dulag Luft, | 0:25:47 | 0:25:49 | |
they were simultaneously digging a tunnel to get out. | 0:25:49 | 0:25:53 | |
The others agreed that Roger would leave | 0:25:53 | 0:25:55 | |
the day before the tunnel attempt. | 0:25:55 | 0:25:57 | |
Roger outlined his plan to hide in a goat shed overnight | 0:25:57 | 0:26:01 | |
before catching trains south to the Swiss border. | 0:26:01 | 0:26:05 | |
With his fluency in German, he set course for Switzerland, | 0:26:09 | 0:26:12 | |
travelling by day in a civilian suit | 0:26:12 | 0:26:15 | |
bought from one of the guards at Dulag Luft. | 0:26:15 | 0:26:18 | |
I was able to engage in brief conversations and navigated | 0:26:19 | 0:26:23 | |
with the aid of guidebooks purchased from shops along the way. | 0:26:23 | 0:26:27 | |
I went to Tuttlingen by express train | 0:26:27 | 0:26:31 | |
and from there to Bondorf by suburban line. | 0:26:31 | 0:26:34 | |
From Bondorf I reached, on foot, the point I was making for, | 0:26:34 | 0:26:38 | |
just a few kilometres from the Swiss border. | 0:26:38 | 0:26:41 | |
Things had gone almost too well, | 0:26:41 | 0:26:44 | |
so I sat down for two hours and made myself generate caution | 0:26:44 | 0:26:49 | |
for the last decisive stage. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:51 | |
I had the alternatives of waiting for nightfall, with all its problems, | 0:26:52 | 0:26:56 | |
or by bluffing it out by daylight, and I chose the latter. | 0:26:56 | 0:27:01 | |
Roger discovered that he'd been only 100 yards from the Swiss border | 0:27:03 | 0:27:07 | |
at that moment when he paused to consider. | 0:27:07 | 0:27:10 | |
Alas, in the border village of Stuhlingen, | 0:27:11 | 0:27:14 | |
he was halted by a guard. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:16 | |
Pretending to be a drunken but amiable ski-instructor, | 0:27:16 | 0:27:20 | |
and speaking German, he was being conducted towards a check point | 0:27:20 | 0:27:23 | |
for an examination of his papers when he broke loose and bolted, | 0:27:23 | 0:27:27 | |
dodging bullets into a side street which, alas, | 0:27:27 | 0:27:31 | |
proved to be a cul-de-sac and he was run to earth within minutes. | 0:27:31 | 0:27:37 | |
Escaping meant punishment | 0:27:40 | 0:27:42 | |
and Roger was sent to Stalag Luft II on the Baltic. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:46 | |
Starkly different from Dulag Luft. | 0:27:46 | 0:27:50 | |
June 21st, 1941 | 0:28:05 | 0:28:07 | |
My darlings, I've changed my address. | 0:28:09 | 0:28:13 | |
Apologies for not writing last month. | 0:28:13 | 0:28:15 | |
I left the camp without asking, | 0:28:15 | 0:28:17 | |
having decided it was so long since I'd seen my friends. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:21 | |
Ghastly bad luck stopped me literally right at the last moment. | 0:28:22 | 0:28:27 | |
I was within 100 yards and could have taken a girl's school across, | 0:28:27 | 0:28:31 | |
when I paused. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:33 | |
Almost all of the old crowd from Dulag have collected here. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:40 | |
Yes, the next time I saw him was in the summer of 1941, | 0:28:42 | 0:28:47 | |
after the Dulag Luft tunnel, through which about 18 or 20 escaped. | 0:28:47 | 0:28:53 | |
Now, previous to that, we thought they were... | 0:28:53 | 0:28:56 | |
just having a good time down at Dulag. | 0:28:56 | 0:28:59 | |
There were permanent staff | 0:28:59 | 0:29:01 | |
and they were enjoying the fruits of the German occupation of France, | 0:29:01 | 0:29:06 | |
and captured British stocks and so on, | 0:29:06 | 0:29:10 | |
and they got a very cold reception when they came in through the gate | 0:29:10 | 0:29:13 | |
but, of course, when we heard that they had dug a tunnel and escaped, | 0:29:13 | 0:29:17 | |
the attitude changed entirely. | 0:29:17 | 0:29:20 | |
Letters are our only link with the real world. | 0:29:25 | 0:29:29 | |
One writes not knowing what number of people read them | 0:29:29 | 0:29:33 | |
and one tries to pretend the complicated machinery of censorship | 0:29:33 | 0:29:37 | |
does not exist. | 0:29:37 | 0:29:39 | |
I still have not heard from Peggy. | 0:29:39 | 0:29:41 | |
All my books left at the last camp. | 0:29:42 | 0:29:46 | |
Splendid of John to subscribe to my parcels. | 0:29:46 | 0:29:50 | |
The best would be cigarettes. | 0:29:50 | 0:29:52 | |
Several shops like Harrods know the ropes. | 0:29:52 | 0:29:55 | |
Actually, in this camp, we have had no parcels. | 0:29:55 | 0:29:59 | |
You'll be speechless to hear that I got on the scale at 12 stone 4 lbs, | 0:30:01 | 0:30:05 | |
26 lbs lighter than on arrival. | 0:30:05 | 0:30:07 | |
The Germans began by saying to everybody, they said it to me, | 0:30:11 | 0:30:14 | |
"For you, the war is over." It isn't. It's still going on. | 0:30:14 | 0:30:18 | |
You must also never forget that you're on the winning side | 0:30:18 | 0:30:20 | |
and you must remind the Germans of that. | 0:30:20 | 0:30:23 | |
If they know that you speak German you must speak German to them | 0:30:23 | 0:30:26 | |
as often as you can. | 0:30:26 | 0:30:28 | |
You take an air of convinced superiority to them. | 0:30:28 | 0:30:32 | |
This could annoy some of the rear-area Germans, | 0:30:34 | 0:30:39 | |
looking after the prisoner of war camps, very much indeed, of course. | 0:30:39 | 0:30:42 | |
And it was deliberately harped on by men as clever as Roger, | 0:30:42 | 0:30:45 | |
who were good at it. | 0:30:45 | 0:30:47 | |
My second birthday just passed as an unwilling guest in this country. | 0:30:48 | 0:30:55 | |
He very soon made himself felt, if not heard, I mean, | 0:30:55 | 0:30:59 | |
if you didn't meet him, you heard him talking around the compound | 0:30:59 | 0:31:02 | |
or expressing his views of the Germans. | 0:31:02 | 0:31:04 | |
As far as I can see, I am likely to spend one more birthday here | 0:31:08 | 0:31:13 | |
before the war is over. | 0:31:13 | 0:31:16 | |
All my love, Roger. | 0:31:16 | 0:31:18 | |
He escaped again with a Czech pilot seven years younger than him, | 0:31:30 | 0:31:34 | |
Jarka Zafouk. | 0:31:34 | 0:31:37 | |
I first met Roger in a prison near Hamburg. | 0:31:40 | 0:31:44 | |
We got to know that the Germans are going to move the whole camp | 0:31:44 | 0:31:48 | |
and transport all of us by train to somewhere in Germany. | 0:31:48 | 0:31:52 | |
Roger managed to get some German money | 0:31:53 | 0:31:56 | |
and all sorts of things necessary for escape, | 0:31:56 | 0:31:59 | |
and got some food coupons out of the German guards for some cigarettes. | 0:31:59 | 0:32:03 | |
I had a good plan for an escape route. | 0:32:03 | 0:32:06 | |
By the middle of '41, | 0:32:08 | 0:32:12 | |
anybody going on an air-force raid over enemy occupied territory | 0:32:12 | 0:32:17 | |
or anybody going on a commando raid | 0:32:17 | 0:32:19 | |
had one of Clayton Hutton's escape boxes | 0:32:19 | 0:32:22 | |
in the trouser pocket of his battledress, | 0:32:22 | 0:32:25 | |
which included food for a few days of a sort, | 0:32:25 | 0:32:30 | |
chocolate and Horlicks tablets, water-purifying tablets, | 0:32:30 | 0:32:33 | |
a tiny little water-bottle, a fish-hook, | 0:32:33 | 0:32:36 | |
a little thread in case your clothes got torn, a saw and a compass. | 0:32:36 | 0:32:42 | |
The Germans put 30 of us in one cattle truck with two guards. | 0:32:51 | 0:32:56 | |
It was quite dark inside and we took out our saws | 0:32:56 | 0:32:59 | |
and starting sawing the board on one end of the truck. | 0:32:59 | 0:33:02 | |
There were another four boys and everybody took his turn. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:07 | |
After about an hour and a half of sawing | 0:33:07 | 0:33:10 | |
we managed to loosen the board and took it inside. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:13 | |
Round about midnight, the train came to a large goods station | 0:33:21 | 0:33:26 | |
where it slowed down a bit and we decided to go. We jumped. | 0:33:26 | 0:33:33 | |
After we got to our feet, both of us ran across about three rails | 0:33:33 | 0:33:36 | |
and hid under a stationary train, waiting until our train passed | 0:33:36 | 0:33:41 | |
and to see whether all is clear for us to get up and dash for freedom. | 0:33:41 | 0:33:46 | |
Everything seemed quiet, so we got up, ran back across the rails, | 0:33:54 | 0:33:58 | |
jumped the fence. | 0:33:58 | 0:34:00 | |
We changed into our home-made civvy clothes. | 0:34:03 | 0:34:07 | |
Both of us looked more like two masqueraders than anything else! | 0:34:07 | 0:34:11 | |
We stayed in a field till the day broke out. | 0:34:15 | 0:34:18 | |
Then we found in the vicinity a stream where we washed ourselves | 0:34:18 | 0:34:22 | |
and made ready for our next move. | 0:34:22 | 0:34:24 | |
We knew roughly where we were and went to the station. | 0:34:25 | 0:34:29 | |
There we found a cinema that was open and went inside to hide ourselves | 0:34:29 | 0:34:34 | |
until came the time for us to catch a train to Dresden. | 0:34:34 | 0:34:38 | |
From now on, everything went according to our plan - | 0:34:38 | 0:34:43 | |
to get to Prague, | 0:34:43 | 0:34:46 | |
to get in touch with the Czech underground people, | 0:34:46 | 0:34:48 | |
who would help us to get either to Switzerland | 0:34:48 | 0:34:51 | |
or to some other neutral country. | 0:34:51 | 0:34:53 | |
In Prague, Jarka Zafouk's girlfriend recognised him on a train. | 0:34:58 | 0:35:03 | |
It was in 1941. I was coming back from a date, I think it was. | 0:35:06 | 0:35:12 | |
And there was this man standing on the street car inside | 0:35:12 | 0:35:17 | |
with glasses, moustache and I looked at him and I said, | 0:35:17 | 0:35:23 | |
"Oh, my God, it must be him!" | 0:35:23 | 0:35:25 | |
And that was Jarka and that was how we got back together. | 0:35:25 | 0:35:30 | |
Vlasta Zafouk flew back to Prague from Montreal | 0:35:36 | 0:35:39 | |
to tell me what she remembered of the time | 0:35:39 | 0:35:42 | |
when Roger and Jarka were there in hiding. | 0:35:42 | 0:35:45 | |
I always remember Roger because he made quite an impression on me. | 0:35:47 | 0:35:51 | |
He was really, really something different, | 0:35:53 | 0:35:57 | |
brave, crazy, | 0:35:57 | 0:36:01 | |
ready to take any chance just to get what he wanted. | 0:36:01 | 0:36:05 | |
Exceptional man. | 0:36:08 | 0:36:10 | |
Roger would take any chance to get away, | 0:36:10 | 0:36:15 | |
steal an aeroplane, | 0:36:15 | 0:36:17 | |
"We'll do this, we'll do that." | 0:36:17 | 0:36:19 | |
That's where...they went on together very well, | 0:36:19 | 0:36:21 | |
except these little moments | 0:36:21 | 0:36:24 | |
when he got into that mood and he wanted out. | 0:36:24 | 0:36:28 | |
When they came to Prague, | 0:36:31 | 0:36:33 | |
apparently they stayed with Schumberer | 0:36:33 | 0:36:37 | |
but then they had to go out because the people got scared. | 0:36:37 | 0:36:40 | |
Jarka knew Ota and he said, | 0:36:42 | 0:36:45 | |
"Well, I'll talk to my sister and to my father and see if they agree". | 0:36:45 | 0:36:51 | |
And they agreed, and so they went and stayed there. | 0:36:51 | 0:36:54 | |
It was against the law to be in resistance | 0:36:55 | 0:36:58 | |
and the penalty was a bullet to the back of the neck straight away | 0:36:58 | 0:37:03 | |
or get sent off to a labour camp and be worked to death. | 0:37:03 | 0:37:05 | |
Not only for you but for all your family as well. | 0:37:05 | 0:37:08 | |
You put not only yourself but all of your relatives at risk | 0:37:08 | 0:37:12 | |
if you went into resistance. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:14 | |
They stayed in this house on the third floor. | 0:37:16 | 0:37:20 | |
Their name was Zeithammle, Blaza, Ota and the father. | 0:37:21 | 0:37:28 | |
Blaza, she was a very good-looking girl, | 0:37:28 | 0:37:33 | |
blonde, voluptuous... | 0:37:33 | 0:37:36 | |
..nice, lots of fun to talk to. | 0:37:38 | 0:37:42 | |
And Ota, I didn't see him very much either | 0:37:42 | 0:37:44 | |
because he was in the army | 0:37:44 | 0:37:46 | |
and he came home now and then for a visit, | 0:37:46 | 0:37:49 | |
and later on I think he worked for the Underground. | 0:37:49 | 0:37:53 | |
You had to be so careful because there were so many spies. | 0:38:00 | 0:38:05 | |
Just before the Zeithammle family hid Roger and Jarka Zafouk, | 0:38:12 | 0:38:17 | |
Reinhard Heydrich, Hitler's head of secret state police | 0:38:17 | 0:38:20 | |
and the criminal police, | 0:38:20 | 0:38:22 | |
became the Third Reich Protektor of Czechoslovakia. | 0:38:22 | 0:38:25 | |
Lots of killing, lots of arrests. | 0:38:27 | 0:38:31 | |
You only have to do a little bit of thing, they arrested you right away. | 0:38:31 | 0:38:35 | |
He was hated, absolutely hated. | 0:38:35 | 0:38:39 | |
So how could you fight, you know, | 0:38:40 | 0:38:43 | |
somebody who had all the power really to just crush you | 0:38:43 | 0:38:47 | |
if you tried to do anything? | 0:38:47 | 0:38:49 | |
All universities were closed and everybody had to go to work. | 0:38:51 | 0:38:55 | |
It was Heydrich who had signed and set in motion | 0:38:58 | 0:39:01 | |
what the Third Reich called | 0:39:01 | 0:39:03 | |
The Final Solution to the Jewish Question. | 0:39:03 | 0:39:05 | |
Since Heydrich came, people got more afraid, so we stayed more inside. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:13 | |
In this particular house, nobody knew they were there. | 0:39:14 | 0:39:18 | |
All of us play cards, amuse ourselves as much as we could. | 0:39:18 | 0:39:22 | |
There was no TV that time, only radio. | 0:39:22 | 0:39:27 | |
While 20,000 Jews were being removed from Prague's Jewish quarter, | 0:39:39 | 0:39:45 | |
the people of Prague began to feel uncomfortable in their own streets. | 0:39:45 | 0:39:50 | |
And Roger tried to kill time in the apartment. | 0:39:50 | 0:39:53 | |
Roger, I don't know what he did all day. | 0:40:01 | 0:40:05 | |
I ask him several times. | 0:40:05 | 0:40:07 | |
He said he read. | 0:40:07 | 0:40:10 | |
He read, I suppose, poor Roger, | 0:40:12 | 0:40:16 | |
stuck being alone there all day, | 0:40:16 | 0:40:20 | |
and Blaza looking so good, you know. | 0:40:20 | 0:40:26 | |
They got involved together. | 0:40:26 | 0:40:29 | |
There was a war going on and during the war lots of things happen | 0:40:32 | 0:40:37 | |
which normally probably wouldn't have happened. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:41 | |
And Blaza probably thought she wanted to marry him after the war | 0:40:41 | 0:40:46 | |
and he told her - Roger said, "No, I can't marry you. | 0:40:46 | 0:40:51 | |
"I can't because I am already engaged in England." | 0:40:51 | 0:40:54 | |
Whatever, she got very hurt | 0:40:57 | 0:41:00 | |
and she had a boyfriend before the war. | 0:41:00 | 0:41:04 | |
She called him up and told him everything | 0:41:04 | 0:41:09 | |
and he was the one who gave them away to Gestapo, for money. | 0:41:09 | 0:41:13 | |
I was supposed to work in the afternoon | 0:41:17 | 0:41:21 | |
and the girl who changed with me, came to me and said, | 0:41:21 | 0:41:25 | |
"Can I work in the morning?" | 0:41:25 | 0:41:28 | |
For me, it didn't make any difference so I said, "Fine." | 0:41:28 | 0:41:32 | |
If it didn't happen, I would have been there in the morning with them. | 0:41:32 | 0:41:37 | |
That would have been the end of me. | 0:41:39 | 0:41:41 | |
Jarka told me that Roger got very angry with the Gestapo man | 0:41:44 | 0:41:50 | |
and I think he hit him. | 0:41:50 | 0:41:53 | |
So Roger was beaten quite a bit | 0:41:53 | 0:41:57 | |
because, with his hot temper, he was opposing. | 0:41:57 | 0:42:01 | |
And Jarka, I am sure he got more than he told me. | 0:42:01 | 0:42:06 | |
He didn't like talking about it. | 0:42:06 | 0:42:08 | |
Roger came face to face with Fascism for the first time. | 0:42:12 | 0:42:15 | |
He had been associated with the Czech Resistance | 0:42:15 | 0:42:19 | |
and this enraged the Germans. | 0:42:19 | 0:42:22 | |
We know that he refused to give the names of the Zeithammle family | 0:42:22 | 0:42:26 | |
and that he was severely treated as a result. | 0:42:26 | 0:42:30 | |
There was one rule about being interrogated, | 0:42:30 | 0:42:32 | |
which was universal, which Roger would have picked up, | 0:42:32 | 0:42:36 | |
applied particularly to the Secret Services, | 0:42:36 | 0:42:38 | |
you say nothing at all for the first 48 hours | 0:42:38 | 0:42:41 | |
to give everybody who was in touch with you a chance to scarper. | 0:42:41 | 0:42:45 | |
The father was arrested right away. | 0:42:46 | 0:42:50 | |
The son was arrested right away. | 0:42:50 | 0:42:52 | |
And Blaza was going around with no problem at all. | 0:42:52 | 0:42:56 | |
I never came round this place again. | 0:42:58 | 0:43:02 | |
This is the first time after, what is it, 65 years. | 0:43:02 | 0:43:06 | |
Sad, sad, remembering all the good things | 0:43:06 | 0:43:11 | |
because at that time I was quite happy | 0:43:11 | 0:43:15 | |
in spite of all the misery going around. | 0:43:15 | 0:43:17 | |
Heydrich wasn't only the Reich's Protektor in Czechoslovakia. | 0:43:19 | 0:43:26 | |
He remained also head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, | 0:43:26 | 0:43:32 | |
the main German party secret service. | 0:43:32 | 0:43:36 | |
And, therefore, had a lot of secrets locked up in his head | 0:43:36 | 0:43:40 | |
which would die with him if somebody could manage to kill him. | 0:43:40 | 0:43:44 | |
He was, therefore, a legitimate objective for any Secret Service. | 0:43:44 | 0:43:47 | |
About 20 Czechs were sent up to one of SOE's training camps | 0:43:50 | 0:43:54 | |
in Scotland | 0:43:54 | 0:43:56 | |
and two of them were settled on eventually. | 0:43:56 | 0:43:59 | |
They went off into Prague. | 0:44:02 | 0:44:04 | |
CAR HORN BEEPS | 0:44:09 | 0:44:10 | |
HE SPEAKS GERMAN | 0:44:10 | 0:44:13 | |
Run! | 0:44:18 | 0:44:20 | |
Orders came from Berlin to shoot | 0:44:41 | 0:44:45 | |
everybody who was under suspicion, | 0:44:45 | 0:44:49 | |
which happened also that Blaza was taken in also. | 0:44:49 | 0:44:53 | |
The Gestapo shot the Zeithammle family. | 0:44:57 | 0:45:02 | |
It is possible that Roger was taken to Berlin | 0:45:12 | 0:45:16 | |
in the very week of Heydrich's state funeral, a time of high emotion, | 0:45:16 | 0:45:21 | |
and the Reich's unabated fury at his death. | 0:45:21 | 0:45:25 | |
HIMMLER EULOGISES HEYDRICH | 0:45:25 | 0:45:31 | |
It was sheer bad luck for Roger that this assassination took place | 0:45:37 | 0:45:41 | |
just two weeks after he'd been arrested. | 0:45:41 | 0:45:45 | |
The Gestapo seemed to think that he was a British Secret Service agent | 0:45:45 | 0:45:49 | |
and that between the time of his escape | 0:45:49 | 0:45:52 | |
and his re-arrest six months later, he had been back in London. | 0:45:52 | 0:45:57 | |
They believe that he'd been dropped back into Czechoslovakia | 0:45:57 | 0:46:01 | |
in a parachute, like the Czech assassins, | 0:46:01 | 0:46:04 | |
to help foment an insurrection at the same time. | 0:46:04 | 0:46:08 | |
I remember as a girl asking my mother | 0:46:37 | 0:46:40 | |
whether what was happening in South Africa wasn't the same evil | 0:46:40 | 0:46:44 | |
Roger had fought against. | 0:46:44 | 0:46:46 | |
She told me I knew nothing about World War II, which was true, | 0:46:46 | 0:46:51 | |
but I was right. | 0:46:51 | 0:46:52 | |
Each generation makes its choice | 0:46:58 | 0:47:01 | |
of whether or not to create and nurture a culture of fear. | 0:47:01 | 0:47:05 | |
This is the infamous Prinz Albrecht-Strasse, | 0:47:24 | 0:47:28 | |
the ruined site of Heydrich's SS Headquarters. | 0:47:28 | 0:47:31 | |
The secret police turned the studios of The School of Industrial Arts | 0:47:34 | 0:47:39 | |
into interrogation cells. | 0:47:39 | 0:47:42 | |
Here the enemies of Hitler's Third Reich were interrogated, | 0:47:42 | 0:47:46 | |
all its political and religious opponents - | 0:47:46 | 0:47:50 | |
artists, musicians, writers and intellectuals. | 0:47:50 | 0:47:55 | |
It is very likely that Roger was interrogated here, in these cells. | 0:47:55 | 0:48:02 | |
The rule was, you're compelled by the Geneva Convention | 0:48:02 | 0:48:06 | |
to give your name and rank or your name and number. | 0:48:06 | 0:48:11 | |
Beyond that, you are entitled to say nothing. | 0:48:11 | 0:48:14 | |
Roger will have had a very difficult month in Berlin, | 0:48:15 | 0:48:19 | |
probably being interrogated alternately | 0:48:19 | 0:48:22 | |
by the hard man and the soft man. | 0:48:22 | 0:48:24 | |
The soft man giving him a cigarette and apologising to him | 0:48:24 | 0:48:27 | |
for the dreadful manners of the hard man, | 0:48:27 | 0:48:29 | |
the hard man bark, bark, barking at him all the time, | 0:48:29 | 0:48:33 | |
threatening him with physical torture, probably not applying it. | 0:48:33 | 0:48:37 | |
Not many prisoners of war were actually tortured. | 0:48:38 | 0:48:42 | |
They would use threats and things like that, | 0:48:42 | 0:48:46 | |
and hope that you were weak enough to fall for it. | 0:48:46 | 0:48:51 | |
They're quite likely to take off your boots and trample on your toes, | 0:48:51 | 0:48:55 | |
which will break quite a lot of people up quite fast | 0:48:55 | 0:48:58 | |
but if you're bloody-enough-minded, | 0:48:58 | 0:49:00 | |
and Roger was good at being bloody-minded, | 0:49:00 | 0:49:02 | |
you can stand up to that. | 0:49:02 | 0:49:03 | |
You were pretty cautious. One knew what was happening. | 0:49:03 | 0:49:07 | |
But you could go along with it, to a small degree | 0:49:07 | 0:49:12 | |
and then divert off, take them off the scent, as you might say. | 0:49:12 | 0:49:19 | |
But there are some things you never admit, | 0:49:19 | 0:49:23 | |
such as what code you're using, if you are using a code, | 0:49:23 | 0:49:27 | |
such as who you were staying with. | 0:49:27 | 0:49:30 | |
You simply don't admit that. | 0:49:30 | 0:49:32 | |
If you showed any fear or anything like that, | 0:49:32 | 0:49:36 | |
you'd have had it, really. | 0:49:36 | 0:49:39 | |
You had to put on a very brave front. | 0:49:40 | 0:49:43 | |
Roger was one of those people whose face is the window of their spirit. | 0:49:55 | 0:50:00 | |
When all was well, there was the light within. | 0:50:00 | 0:50:03 | |
When he was thwarted or wrongly judged, | 0:50:03 | 0:50:06 | |
the light dimmed and he was thought to be morose | 0:50:06 | 0:50:10 | |
when he was actually deeply perturbed or unhappy. | 0:50:10 | 0:50:14 | |
Relations between the Gestapo | 0:50:22 | 0:50:24 | |
and the rest of the German armed forces were often pretty chill. | 0:50:24 | 0:50:27 | |
The Luftwaffe liked to keep its prisoners to itself | 0:50:27 | 0:50:33 | |
and was inclined, if the Gestapo got hold of a prisoner of war | 0:50:33 | 0:50:39 | |
to see whether they couldn't intervene and get him back, | 0:50:39 | 0:50:42 | |
out of Gestapo hands, into a more normal prisoner-of-war environment. | 0:50:42 | 0:50:45 | |
Roger was held for three months. | 0:50:48 | 0:50:50 | |
His release from the Gestapo was greatly helped | 0:50:50 | 0:50:53 | |
by the intervention of two Germans, Uber-Lieutenant von Massow, | 0:50:53 | 0:50:57 | |
an intelligence officer, who had known and liked Roger at Dulag Luft, | 0:50:57 | 0:51:03 | |
and even taken him out to dinner in Frankfurt, | 0:51:03 | 0:51:05 | |
and Oberst von Lindeiner, | 0:51:05 | 0:51:07 | |
a newly appointed Kommandant of Stalag Luft III. | 0:51:07 | 0:51:11 | |
Roger took this same journey with the Gestapo - Berlin to Zagan - | 0:51:13 | 0:51:18 | |
where Goering had built his model camp, | 0:51:18 | 0:51:20 | |
specifically designed to prevent prisoners from escaping, | 0:51:20 | 0:51:25 | |
Stalag Luft III. | 0:51:25 | 0:51:26 | |
When he was handed over, the Gestapo warned Roger | 0:51:29 | 0:51:33 | |
that if he was ever caught escaping again | 0:51:33 | 0:51:37 | |
he would be shot. | 0:51:37 | 0:51:39 | |
Quite a large party of us had come from Dulag Luft, | 0:51:50 | 0:51:54 | |
that was the interrogation camp, in a special train. | 0:51:54 | 0:52:00 | |
We got to the station in Zagan | 0:52:00 | 0:52:03 | |
and out of the train | 0:52:03 | 0:52:05 | |
and were marched up a short distance to the camp. | 0:52:05 | 0:52:08 | |
You could see a wide open space of dirty sand, | 0:52:08 | 0:52:12 | |
a clearing in a pine forest, | 0:52:12 | 0:52:15 | |
a lot of wooden huts, surrounded by an ample supply of barbed-wire. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:19 | |
All I thought was, | 0:52:19 | 0:52:22 | |
"Well, this is going to be home for the rest of the war." | 0:52:22 | 0:52:26 | |
My darlings, here I am again. | 0:52:35 | 0:52:40 | |
You will, I know, have had a very anxious and trying time | 0:52:40 | 0:52:44 | |
but I also know that you would not have expected me, | 0:52:44 | 0:52:47 | |
in the circumstances, to have done anything other than I did. | 0:52:47 | 0:52:51 | |
I am quite OK. | 0:52:54 | 0:52:55 | |
I wouldn't worry about the photography, by the way. | 0:52:59 | 0:53:02 | |
It was taken on a bad day in winter, in a bad light. | 0:53:02 | 0:53:06 | |
I was also probably in a bad temper | 0:53:06 | 0:53:09 | |
and I don't look any younger these days | 0:53:09 | 0:53:11 | |
but I am very well, all things considered, | 0:53:11 | 0:53:14 | |
and a month of decent, civilised life would put me back to normal. | 0:53:14 | 0:53:18 | |
And I will have one great advantage - | 0:53:18 | 0:53:22 | |
I will be very much wiser. | 0:53:22 | 0:53:24 | |
I am naturally very disappointed to have been caught again | 0:53:25 | 0:53:29 | |
but my spirits are sky-high and you need have no fear | 0:53:29 | 0:53:32 | |
that this life has got me down yet, | 0:53:32 | 0:53:35 | |
or that it ever will, please, God. | 0:53:35 | 0:53:38 | |
Give yourselves all a big hug and lots of love, from Roger. | 0:53:38 | 0:53:43 | |
I met Roger in the camp. | 0:53:45 | 0:53:47 | |
He was shot down long before I was. | 0:53:47 | 0:53:50 | |
I was very fond of him. | 0:53:50 | 0:53:52 | |
We used to have a lot of | 0:53:52 | 0:53:53 | |
what I think was very intelligent conversation anyway. | 0:53:53 | 0:53:56 | |
He might not have done! | 0:53:56 | 0:53:59 | |
But I certainly did. | 0:53:59 | 0:54:00 | |
We discussed everything, | 0:54:00 | 0:54:03 | |
from women to anything else you'd like to talk about. | 0:54:03 | 0:54:06 | |
Shortly after his arrival, von Massow handed Roger a letter | 0:54:07 | 0:54:11 | |
he had kept back until he was among friends. | 0:54:11 | 0:54:15 | |
It was from Peggy Hamilton, to say she had married somebody else. | 0:54:15 | 0:54:20 | |
I only heard about Peggy a couple of weeks ago. | 0:54:22 | 0:54:27 | |
Don't waste any false sympathy on this, | 0:54:27 | 0:54:29 | |
because I find I don't really care a damn about it. | 0:54:29 | 0:54:33 | |
I have told Harry to do what he can about the money, | 0:54:33 | 0:54:36 | |
but if Peggy sticks her toes in, there's nothing I can do legally. | 0:54:36 | 0:54:40 | |
The whole business is a bore and not worth discussing. | 0:54:40 | 0:54:44 | |
Soon after this, Roger addressed the camp in words to this effect. | 0:54:52 | 0:54:58 | |
Everyone here in this room is living on borrowed time. | 0:54:58 | 0:55:02 | |
By rights, we should all be dead. | 0:55:02 | 0:55:05 | |
The only reason that God allowed us this extra ration of life | 0:55:05 | 0:55:09 | |
is so that we can make life hell for the Hun. | 0:55:09 | 0:55:12 | |
Quite clearly he was a formidable figure on the escaping front, | 0:55:14 | 0:55:19 | |
being what Crocket used to call escape-minded, from an early stage. | 0:55:19 | 0:55:24 | |
He became what was known as X, that is head of escapes, | 0:55:24 | 0:55:30 | |
for the entire camp, a very responsible business. | 0:55:30 | 0:55:34 | |
He was very good as X, very good indeed. | 0:55:35 | 0:55:38 | |
I mean, he had a very clear brain and knew exactly what he wanted | 0:55:38 | 0:55:42 | |
and what he didn't want, and what he expected of us. | 0:55:42 | 0:55:46 | |
And that was very important | 0:55:46 | 0:55:49 | |
because sometimes we wouldn't necessarily know | 0:55:49 | 0:55:51 | |
what we wanted to do and he made it clear what we ought to do. | 0:55:51 | 0:55:56 | |
He took charge and brought order and discipline into the whole process | 0:55:56 | 0:56:02 | |
which, previously, hadn't existed. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:05 | |
I mean, if I decided it would be a good idea to start a tunnel | 0:56:05 | 0:56:10 | |
from here and see if I could tunnel out there | 0:56:10 | 0:56:13 | |
and you decided that you were going to start one there... | 0:56:13 | 0:56:15 | |
They were all digging like bunnies and usually got in each other's way | 0:56:15 | 0:56:21 | |
and Roger said, "Well, there must be a stop to this!" | 0:56:21 | 0:56:24 | |
No private enterprise tunnels allowed! | 0:56:24 | 0:56:27 | |
We will dig three bloody deep, bloody long tunnels, | 0:56:27 | 0:56:31 | |
and the tunnel is taboo. | 0:56:31 | 0:56:33 | |
They will be called Tom, Dick and Harry. | 0:56:34 | 0:56:40 | |
The genius behind Roger's idea of digging three tunnels simultaneously | 0:56:40 | 0:56:46 | |
was that if one tunnel was found, | 0:56:46 | 0:56:49 | |
the Germans would not suspect any others existed. | 0:56:49 | 0:56:52 | |
They set about sinking three separate shafts | 0:56:54 | 0:56:58 | |
from three different huts, | 0:56:58 | 0:57:01 | |
each 25 feet deep and two feet square | 0:57:01 | 0:57:06 | |
and the tunnelling began. | 0:57:06 | 0:57:09 | |
I'm quite sure that Roger, although he ran the whole thing, | 0:57:09 | 0:57:12 | |
I'm quite sure he didn't go down until it was absolutely done, | 0:57:12 | 0:57:15 | |
because he wouldn't even go in a tube if he could avoid it. | 0:57:15 | 0:57:18 | |
He hated being underground. | 0:57:18 | 0:57:20 | |
It was quite phobia with him. | 0:57:20 | 0:57:22 | |
In his role as Big X, his father's mantle fell upon him. | 0:57:22 | 0:57:27 | |
Benjy would have liked him to go into mining | 0:57:27 | 0:57:30 | |
and nothing was going to induce him to go into mining. | 0:57:30 | 0:57:34 | |
He hated the very thought of it. | 0:57:34 | 0:57:35 | |
Now, ironically, his freedom depended on it. | 0:57:35 | 0:57:40 | |
For the first time in his life, | 0:57:40 | 0:57:42 | |
Roger needed his father's advice as a mining engineer. | 0:57:42 | 0:57:46 | |
This was the one thing he could not write about in his letters. | 0:57:46 | 0:57:50 | |
My darlings, only one letter from father this month. | 0:57:52 | 0:57:57 | |
Now, what am I to write to you about? | 0:57:59 | 0:58:02 | |
Hmmm, the weather? | 0:58:02 | 0:58:04 | |
It's dull, like the countryside and our existence. | 0:58:04 | 0:58:09 | |
My fellow human beings? | 0:58:09 | 0:58:11 | |
They're ordinary and, alas, somewhat dull too. | 0:58:11 | 0:58:15 | |
The war? | 0:58:15 | 0:58:17 | |
That's a topic worn threadbare in our daily lives. | 0:58:17 | 0:58:20 | |
And a letter should be like a holiday, new world | 0:58:20 | 0:58:24 | |
and new people, like a cinema, enchantment for a short hour or so. | 0:58:24 | 0:58:29 | |
Outside, people are lying about in the sun, and overhead, | 0:58:35 | 0:58:39 | |
the pale blue German sky, so like those pale blue Aryan eyes, | 0:58:39 | 0:58:44 | |
looks down with stolid indifference on us. | 0:58:44 | 0:58:49 | |
Tomorrow I'm 33. Hey-ho! | 0:58:49 | 0:58:54 | |
Lots of love, Roger. | 0:58:54 | 0:58:55 | |
In the early days, breakfast was just acorn coffee, | 0:58:57 | 0:59:01 | |
lunchtime, a watery sauerkraut soup and a few bad potatoes. | 0:59:01 | 0:59:05 | |
So we were pretty darned hungry on that. | 0:59:05 | 0:59:09 | |
People played football and... | 0:59:09 | 0:59:11 | |
but we didn't have the energy to play very enthusiastically. | 0:59:11 | 0:59:17 | |
Roger harnessed the skills of the camp. | 0:59:17 | 0:59:20 | |
He intended to get 200 men out. | 0:59:20 | 0:59:24 | |
Each person would need civilian clothing, official papers, | 0:59:24 | 0:59:28 | |
money, maps, compasses and so forth. | 0:59:28 | 0:59:32 | |
He personally selected the men to run these departments. | 0:59:32 | 0:59:35 | |
He had to be able to get on with everybody, | 0:59:38 | 0:59:41 | |
and he had to be able to detect their weaknesses | 0:59:41 | 0:59:43 | |
and their strengths, which he was very good at doing, | 0:59:43 | 0:59:48 | |
I might say, very good, | 0:59:48 | 0:59:50 | |
and he'd soon let you know, too! | 0:59:50 | 0:59:53 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:59:53 | 0:59:54 | |
600 people dug the three tunnels. | 0:59:54 | 0:59:58 | |
I had no part in that, mercifully! | 0:59:58 | 1:00:02 | |
I mean I can't think of anything more horrible... | 1:00:02 | 1:00:05 | |
HE CHUCKLES | 1:00:05 | 1:00:06 | |
..than digging a tunnel. | 1:00:06 | 1:00:08 | |
The only time I ever got near a tunnel | 1:00:08 | 1:00:11 | |
was we built this ventilation pump. | 1:00:11 | 1:00:15 | |
It was a double-acting pump, two kit-bags, right, | 1:00:15 | 1:00:19 | |
and the operator just sat there, as though he was rowing, | 1:00:19 | 1:00:23 | |
just pumping air down a pipeline | 1:00:23 | 1:00:26 | |
because you couldn't breathe without a source of air | 1:00:26 | 1:00:29 | |
once you were a considerable distance away from the shaft. | 1:00:29 | 1:00:32 | |
You've got all these teams of experts like tailors, | 1:00:35 | 1:00:40 | |
forgers, con-men who bribed the guards. | 1:00:40 | 1:00:45 | |
Escaping was the principle industry, of course. | 1:00:45 | 1:00:48 | |
It occupied most people's time. | 1:00:48 | 1:00:51 | |
Even if you were sanguine enough to know | 1:00:51 | 1:00:54 | |
that your chances of getting out of the camp were slim | 1:00:54 | 1:00:58 | |
and of getting home were almost negligible. | 1:00:58 | 1:01:01 | |
The goons knew perfectly well that there were tunnels | 1:01:01 | 1:01:04 | |
but they just couldn't find them. | 1:01:04 | 1:01:06 | |
You would only have needed one word in the wrong place | 1:01:06 | 1:01:10 | |
and, of course, they would have been found in no time. | 1:01:10 | 1:01:13 | |
Because the Germans were pretty smart. | 1:01:13 | 1:01:15 | |
We might have thought them as idiots, but they weren't! | 1:01:15 | 1:01:19 | |
You never talked indoors, for example, | 1:01:19 | 1:01:23 | |
because the Germans would use microphones and God knows what | 1:01:23 | 1:01:26 | |
all over the place. | 1:01:26 | 1:01:28 | |
Let's go and have a stroll or something like that, you see, | 1:01:28 | 1:01:31 | |
and you knew what he meant. | 1:01:31 | 1:01:33 | |
You only talked when you were on the circuit, walking round. | 1:01:33 | 1:01:37 | |
I've had a number of letters from Georgie Curzon, | 1:01:50 | 1:01:53 | |
an old flame of mine. | 1:01:53 | 1:01:55 | |
She's been busy divorcing her husband | 1:01:55 | 1:01:58 | |
who doesn't seem to have behaved very prettily. | 1:01:58 | 1:02:00 | |
And, now, poor Georgie is turning to her old love for comfort. | 1:02:00 | 1:02:05 | |
I had not heard from her for years. | 1:02:05 | 1:02:08 | |
I jolly nearly married her once. | 1:02:08 | 1:02:11 | |
You didn't know that, did you? | 1:02:11 | 1:02:13 | |
There was quite a bit of falling out and giving up, | 1:02:19 | 1:02:24 | |
people not wanting to do the escape. | 1:02:24 | 1:02:29 | |
Understandable. | 1:02:29 | 1:02:30 | |
They'd had enough, wanted a quiet life. | 1:02:30 | 1:02:34 | |
I wasn't one of them. | 1:02:36 | 1:02:39 | |
I was one of the two leading teams of diggers. | 1:02:49 | 1:02:54 | |
And we just went in there and dug the tunnel. That was it! | 1:02:54 | 1:02:58 | |
My job was digging at the front and then somebody behind me | 1:02:58 | 1:03:02 | |
would be taking the sand away from me. | 1:03:02 | 1:03:05 | |
That would be put on the trolley and the trolley was taken up | 1:03:05 | 1:03:08 | |
and the trolley was brought back again for another load. | 1:03:08 | 1:03:11 | |
We built sort of railway, you might say. | 1:03:12 | 1:03:16 | |
Six inches beneath the top soil was yellow sand. | 1:03:21 | 1:03:26 | |
The sight of this sand anywhere in the camp | 1:03:26 | 1:03:30 | |
immediately informed the German ferrets that a tunnel was being dug. | 1:03:30 | 1:03:33 | |
Peter Fanshawe invented an inner-trouser device | 1:03:33 | 1:03:37 | |
from long-johns, | 1:03:37 | 1:03:38 | |
which they filled up with sand as it came out of the tunnel twice a day. | 1:03:38 | 1:03:42 | |
They would then walk to the fence, pull a string, | 1:03:42 | 1:03:46 | |
the sand fell down over their shoes and they'd kick it into the ground. | 1:03:46 | 1:03:51 | |
These men became known as penguins | 1:03:51 | 1:03:54 | |
because if they waddled, they were detected by the ferrets. | 1:03:54 | 1:03:58 | |
The camp is filling up and we're about 1,500 strong. | 1:04:00 | 1:04:05 | |
Newcomers, very optimistic, | 1:04:05 | 1:04:07 | |
especially about the effect of our particular efforts. | 1:04:07 | 1:04:11 | |
As everybody in Stalag Luft III was aircrew, | 1:04:11 | 1:04:15 | |
by definition, they were young and also they were intelligent | 1:04:15 | 1:04:19 | |
because of you were that stupid you couldn't really fly an aeroplane. | 1:04:19 | 1:04:23 | |
Um... And so all sorts of activities emerged, | 1:04:23 | 1:04:27 | |
the theatre being, obviously, one. | 1:04:27 | 1:04:31 | |
# A room with a view and you | 1:04:31 | 1:04:37 | |
# And no-one to give advice | 1:04:37 | 1:04:40 | |
# That sounds a paradise few | 1:04:40 | 1:04:43 | |
# Could fail to choose... # | 1:04:43 | 1:04:45 | |
I've now taken to the boards in the camp theatre | 1:04:45 | 1:04:49 | |
as a fat and worried old stock-broker, | 1:04:49 | 1:04:52 | |
who gets the wind up about the world | 1:04:52 | 1:04:54 | |
and his own affairs at 5.00am, in bed. | 1:04:54 | 1:04:58 | |
It's an amusing play called Apprehensions. | 1:04:58 | 1:05:01 | |
And the girls played are by fellows, some of them astonishingly funny. | 1:05:01 | 1:05:07 | |
# We'll be as happy and contented | 1:05:07 | 1:05:10 | |
# As birds upon a tree | 1:05:10 | 1:05:14 | |
# High above the mountains and the sea | 1:05:14 | 1:05:20 | |
# We'll bill and we'll coo-ooo-oo... # | 1:05:20 | 1:05:24 | |
I had the advantage of being rather a pretty boy | 1:05:24 | 1:05:29 | |
and so I was suitable for female roles. | 1:05:29 | 1:05:32 | |
HE LAUGHS | 1:05:32 | 1:05:34 | |
We did hire special dresses | 1:05:34 | 1:05:38 | |
from some theatrical agency in Berlin or something like that, | 1:05:38 | 1:05:43 | |
which enabled us to look properly dressed. | 1:05:43 | 1:05:47 | |
That's not to say that the tailoring department wasn't very skilled, | 1:05:48 | 1:05:52 | |
it was primarily occupied with producing escaping gear, | 1:05:52 | 1:05:56 | |
not theatrical gear. | 1:05:56 | 1:05:58 | |
# Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington | 1:05:58 | 1:06:02 | |
# Don't put your daughter on the stage | 1:06:02 | 1:06:05 | |
# She's a bit of an ugly duckling | 1:06:05 | 1:06:07 | |
# You must honestly confess... # | 1:06:07 | 1:06:09 | |
We didn't get any propositions, but... | 1:06:09 | 1:06:13 | |
which was a shame, I suppose! | 1:06:13 | 1:06:15 | |
# Please, Mrs Worthington | 1:06:15 | 1:06:17 | |
# Don't put your daughter on the stage. # | 1:06:17 | 1:06:20 | |
In the ordinary mail, | 1:06:30 | 1:06:33 | |
the prisoners watched out for ingeniously hidden devices. | 1:06:33 | 1:06:37 | |
Among the things that MI9 sent in a perfectly ordinary parcel was, | 1:06:37 | 1:06:42 | |
of course, clothes and blankets. | 1:06:42 | 1:06:46 | |
If you looked very carefully at the blankets, | 1:06:46 | 1:06:49 | |
much more carefully than the Germans ever did, | 1:06:49 | 1:06:52 | |
you could see that if you could take a knife to them, | 1:06:52 | 1:06:55 | |
you could cut them down and turn them into an officer's greatcoat, | 1:06:55 | 1:06:58 | |
a German officer's greatcoat. | 1:06:58 | 1:07:00 | |
The locus classicus is the pack of playing cards. | 1:07:00 | 1:07:04 | |
You drop them in a bucket, all the cards come off, | 1:07:04 | 1:07:07 | |
and there's a very detailed map of the frontier of Switzerland inside. | 1:07:07 | 1:07:11 | |
Monopoly boards. | 1:07:11 | 1:07:14 | |
Take the Monopoly board off and there's a map of Germany inside. | 1:07:14 | 1:07:17 | |
All sorts of devices of this sort were prepared. | 1:07:17 | 1:07:21 | |
December 1943. | 1:07:27 | 1:07:30 | |
Thanks to the Red Cross, we're the best-fed people in Europe. | 1:07:30 | 1:07:34 | |
We had quite a comic Christmas with lots of Red Cross food | 1:07:34 | 1:07:38 | |
and home-brewed booze, which had to be tasted to be believed | 1:07:38 | 1:07:42 | |
but which produced the necessary oblivion, | 1:07:42 | 1:07:45 | |
which is all that is required in a place like this. | 1:07:45 | 1:07:48 | |
We're all bubbling over with optimism at the moment and I, | 1:07:50 | 1:07:53 | |
personally, am quite certain we've had our last Christmas here. | 1:07:53 | 1:07:58 | |
It was, indeed, Roger's last Christmas behind the wire. | 1:08:00 | 1:08:05 | |
His prediction about the three tunnels had come true. | 1:08:05 | 1:08:09 | |
Tom was discovered the year before | 1:08:09 | 1:08:11 | |
when it was within 20 yards of the wood. | 1:08:11 | 1:08:15 | |
The Germans did not suspected other tunnels | 1:08:15 | 1:08:18 | |
and Dick was used for storage. | 1:08:18 | 1:08:21 | |
By March, 1944, Harry was ready. | 1:08:23 | 1:08:27 | |
And Harry got right through. | 1:08:33 | 1:08:35 | |
It was 120 yards long with an exit comfortably outside the wire. | 1:08:35 | 1:08:40 | |
The whole venture had taken 18 months to achieve. | 1:08:40 | 1:08:44 | |
200 men were fully equipped and ready to go. | 1:08:44 | 1:08:48 | |
I'm beginning to believe that it can be possible to transfer yourself | 1:08:54 | 1:08:59 | |
to another part of the world or even to other worlds, with your mind. | 1:08:59 | 1:09:04 | |
We Europeans know little about it | 1:09:04 | 1:09:07 | |
but the Indian philosophies appear to put it into practice. | 1:09:07 | 1:09:11 | |
And all the older religions teach it. | 1:09:11 | 1:09:16 | |
And I'm going to do Higgins in Pygmalion. | 1:09:21 | 1:09:25 | |
Lots of love, Roger. | 1:09:25 | 1:09:28 | |
He gave us a talk in the theatre, | 1:09:33 | 1:09:35 | |
a general briefing of what was going to happen. | 1:09:35 | 1:09:38 | |
I think he gave, first of all, | 1:09:38 | 1:09:40 | |
warnings to people to dress properly, | 1:09:40 | 1:09:43 | |
not to be too bulky, not to have great big suitcases | 1:09:43 | 1:09:46 | |
otherwise they'd knock the tunnel down. | 1:09:46 | 1:09:48 | |
All the passes were stamped and rations issued | 1:09:48 | 1:09:52 | |
and compasses and maps and so on. | 1:09:52 | 1:09:56 | |
Roger said, "Right, well, we'll go now!" | 1:09:57 | 1:10:00 | |
Which was the 24th. | 1:10:00 | 1:10:02 | |
My darlings, I am well and full of confidence as usual. | 1:10:05 | 1:10:12 | |
Next instalment next month. | 1:10:12 | 1:10:15 | |
Bless you all, Roger. | 1:10:15 | 1:10:18 | |
This was the last letter Roger wrote, | 1:10:21 | 1:10:25 | |
the last letter ever received by the family. | 1:10:25 | 1:10:28 | |
The tunnel was opened up and the escape began. | 1:10:31 | 1:10:36 | |
When you got to the very end, | 1:10:43 | 1:10:45 | |
where you were actually doing the escape, | 1:10:45 | 1:10:47 | |
that had to be very carefully done. | 1:10:47 | 1:10:50 | |
Then that just went straight up | 1:10:50 | 1:10:53 | |
and we had sort of a ladder to go up and get out. | 1:10:53 | 1:10:59 | |
Oh, it was wonderful. | 1:10:59 | 1:11:02 | |
The fresh air that came in when you opened the top, | 1:11:02 | 1:11:05 | |
it was a wonderful feeling. | 1:11:05 | 1:11:08 | |
It absolutely gushed down. | 1:11:08 | 1:11:10 | |
I came out onto the snow and it was jolly cold. | 1:11:10 | 1:11:13 | |
You had to get across a little bit of open space | 1:11:13 | 1:11:18 | |
before you could get something to conceal you. | 1:11:18 | 1:11:21 | |
I made the wood and I thought, | 1:11:23 | 1:11:25 | |
"Ah, freedom at last, first time for four years." | 1:11:25 | 1:11:29 | |
Roger was the fourth man out of the tunnel. | 1:11:32 | 1:11:36 | |
He chose Bernard Scheidauer, | 1:11:36 | 1:11:38 | |
whose family were in the French Resistance, as his partner. | 1:11:38 | 1:11:42 | |
They moved swiftly through the woods | 1:11:45 | 1:11:47 | |
and arrived at Zagan station, where Roger bought two tickets to Breslau. | 1:11:47 | 1:11:52 | |
100 miles away, the RAF began to bomb Berlin. | 1:11:56 | 1:12:01 | |
Roger was dressed in a well-cut tweed suit with Trilby hat, | 1:12:10 | 1:12:14 | |
a greatcoat and a small attache case. | 1:12:14 | 1:12:18 | |
He looked exactly the part of a prosperous French businessman | 1:12:18 | 1:12:21 | |
and he was in very good spirits | 1:12:21 | 1:12:24 | |
and convinced he was going to get home. | 1:12:24 | 1:12:27 | |
A train came in. | 1:12:28 | 1:12:30 | |
Several escapees hastily boarded it. | 1:12:30 | 1:12:34 | |
The driver was in a hurry. | 1:12:34 | 1:12:35 | |
Des Plunkett tells how Roger, without a flicker of recognition, | 1:12:37 | 1:12:41 | |
walked down the carriage and squeezed his hand, | 1:12:41 | 1:12:43 | |
indicating they were all still in charge. | 1:12:43 | 1:12:47 | |
Back at the camp, 76 men had escaped by 5.00am, | 1:12:50 | 1:12:54 | |
when a guard finally saw one of them, by virtually bumping into him. | 1:12:54 | 1:12:59 | |
A single shot rang out but nobody was hurt. | 1:12:59 | 1:13:02 | |
Hitler was immediately informed. | 1:13:03 | 1:13:07 | |
He flew into a rage | 1:13:07 | 1:13:09 | |
and ordered that every single re-captured prisoner was to be shot. | 1:13:09 | 1:13:13 | |
Cautioned that this would cause an international outcry, | 1:13:13 | 1:13:17 | |
he reduced the number to 50. | 1:13:17 | 1:13:19 | |
The reason to be given | 1:13:20 | 1:13:22 | |
was that prisoners were shot while trying to escape. | 1:13:22 | 1:13:25 | |
This order went out to every Gestapo office in the country. | 1:13:26 | 1:13:30 | |
By 8.00am almost every railway station, | 1:13:31 | 1:13:35 | |
every crossing, was alerted. | 1:13:35 | 1:13:38 | |
It was later estimated that five million Germans were deployed | 1:13:38 | 1:13:42 | |
to find the men. | 1:13:42 | 1:13:44 | |
At Breslau, Roger bought two tickets to Paris. | 1:13:44 | 1:13:49 | |
He and Scheidhauer crossed Germany and arrived at Saarbrucken, | 1:13:49 | 1:13:53 | |
within walking distance of the French border. | 1:13:53 | 1:13:55 | |
Flight Lieutenant van Wymeersch, another escapee, | 1:13:56 | 1:14:01 | |
saw them board the train at Breslau. | 1:14:01 | 1:14:03 | |
Later in the day, he himself was arrested at Metz. | 1:14:05 | 1:14:08 | |
The Gestapo officer was immensely impressed with his forged papers, | 1:14:08 | 1:14:13 | |
but, he added triumphantly... | 1:14:13 | 1:14:16 | |
"You do not have the new special mark. | 1:14:16 | 1:14:19 | |
"Every week, every day sometimes now, | 1:14:19 | 1:14:21 | |
"we add a small special mark to a document. | 1:14:21 | 1:14:25 | |
"You're not the first one to be caught. | 1:14:25 | 1:14:27 | |
"We caught two very clever ones, smartly dressed, in good suits, | 1:14:27 | 1:14:32 | |
"briefcases, perfect French and German, | 1:14:32 | 1:14:35 | |
"business executives travelling to Paris. | 1:14:35 | 1:14:38 | |
"No special mark. We have them." | 1:14:38 | 1:14:42 | |
Roger Bushell and Bernhard Scheidhauer. | 1:14:47 | 1:14:53 | |
In Saarbrucken, the regional chief of the Gestapo, Dr Leopold Spann, | 1:15:01 | 1:15:07 | |
ushered Roger and Bernard Scheidauer into his office. | 1:15:07 | 1:15:10 | |
His secretary, Gertrude Schmidt, | 1:15:10 | 1:15:13 | |
noticed that they were hand-cuffed in front. | 1:15:13 | 1:15:16 | |
A few minutes later, Dr Spann came out. | 1:15:17 | 1:15:20 | |
He ordered her to type two death certificates. | 1:15:20 | 1:15:23 | |
Around 4.00am he rang his chauffeur, Walter Breithaupt, | 1:15:29 | 1:15:34 | |
to pick him up with his deputy, Emil Schulz. | 1:15:34 | 1:15:37 | |
Roger and Bernard were then collected from the Kripo prison. | 1:15:39 | 1:15:44 | |
The chauffeur, Walter Breithaupt, remembers... | 1:15:44 | 1:15:47 | |
Schulz fastened the hands of each prisoner with handcuffs | 1:15:50 | 1:15:53 | |
and sat between them. | 1:15:53 | 1:15:55 | |
The bigger of the two, Bushell, said to Schulz in German, | 1:15:55 | 1:16:00 | |
that this was not compatible with the honour of an officer. | 1:16:00 | 1:16:04 | |
I drove 40km and then turned on to the autobahn towards Mannheim. | 1:16:04 | 1:16:09 | |
Nobody spoke during the drive. | 1:16:11 | 1:16:14 | |
After about 4km to 5km, Spann ordered me to stop the car. | 1:16:14 | 1:16:20 | |
He got out with Schulz. | 1:16:26 | 1:16:28 | |
Both lit cigarettes and moved out of hearing. | 1:16:28 | 1:16:30 | |
They returned and one of them said to the prisoners | 1:16:32 | 1:16:35 | |
that they could get out and relieve themselves. | 1:16:35 | 1:16:40 | |
Spann told them they would get shot if they tried to escape. | 1:16:40 | 1:16:44 | |
I stood next to the car by the driver's seat. | 1:16:45 | 1:16:47 | |
Both prisoners stood about two meters off the road | 1:16:47 | 1:16:50 | |
to relieve themselves. | 1:16:50 | 1:16:51 | |
While Spann and Schulz stood a metre behind them | 1:16:51 | 1:16:54 | |
with their pistols in their hands. | 1:16:54 | 1:16:56 | |
TWO GUNSHOTS | 1:17:07 | 1:17:10 | |
When I found out Roger was shot | 1:17:27 | 1:17:31 | |
was because it was all over the newspaper. | 1:17:31 | 1:17:35 | |
It was reported in the newspaper | 1:17:35 | 1:17:39 | |
that 72 escapees escaped, | 1:17:39 | 1:17:45 | |
that it was quite successful | 1:17:45 | 1:17:47 | |
and that time I heard that nobody made it back but then, after the war, | 1:17:47 | 1:17:52 | |
it was found out that about three or four actually made it. | 1:17:52 | 1:17:58 | |
Hitler's orders were obeyed. | 1:17:59 | 1:18:02 | |
Over the next few days, 50 re-captured men were shot. | 1:18:02 | 1:18:07 | |
We saw a little paragraph in the Voelkischer Beobachter, | 1:18:20 | 1:18:24 | |
saying that Anthony Eden had made a protest in the House of Commons | 1:18:24 | 1:18:29 | |
about these 50 officers who had been shot | 1:18:29 | 1:18:33 | |
trying to escape and he made the protest to the German government. | 1:18:33 | 1:18:39 | |
Well, it could only have been our friends. | 1:18:40 | 1:18:47 | |
You rather wonder why the hell you yourself weren't shot. | 1:18:51 | 1:18:56 | |
That's what Jimmy and I felt, anyway. | 1:18:56 | 1:18:59 | |
Why we weren't shot. | 1:18:59 | 1:19:02 | |
We could have been. | 1:19:02 | 1:19:04 | |
It was just luck. | 1:19:04 | 1:19:07 | |
And... | 1:19:07 | 1:19:08 | |
..pretty terrible. | 1:19:10 | 1:19:12 | |
And it was a nasty shock all round | 1:19:17 | 1:19:20 | |
because they were all prisoners of war | 1:19:20 | 1:19:22 | |
and under the Geneva Convention | 1:19:22 | 1:19:25 | |
were bound to be preserved by the captive power. | 1:19:25 | 1:19:28 | |
And we now know they were shot on Hitler's personal order. | 1:19:28 | 1:19:33 | |
23 were returned to prisoner-of-war camps. | 1:19:36 | 1:19:40 | |
Jens Mueller and Per Bergsland got all the way home to Norway | 1:19:40 | 1:19:45 | |
and Bram van der Stock to England. | 1:19:45 | 1:19:48 | |
True to form, the Gestapo cremated the bodies of the 50 who were shot | 1:19:51 | 1:19:55 | |
and returned their ashes to the camp in caskets. | 1:19:55 | 1:19:59 | |
Roger's brave stance for freedom against tyranny, | 1:20:02 | 1:20:06 | |
for which he was prepared to die, was not lost on us | 1:20:06 | 1:20:11 | |
as we played in my grandfather's study. | 1:20:11 | 1:20:13 | |
In the scramble of advancing armies, | 1:20:22 | 1:20:26 | |
Roger's casket was broken, | 1:20:26 | 1:20:29 | |
so his ashes lie here, | 1:20:29 | 1:20:32 | |
in this place, | 1:20:32 | 1:20:34 | |
in this forest. | 1:20:34 | 1:20:36 | |
My grandmother wrote a poem. | 1:20:39 | 1:20:42 | |
To Roger Bushell, squadron leader in the RAF, | 1:20:42 | 1:20:47 | |
and 49 gallant comrades who died with him. | 1:20:47 | 1:20:51 | |
With bare, earth-stained hands | 1:20:53 | 1:20:55 | |
And their brave hearts | 1:20:55 | 1:20:57 | |
They faced, unarmed, the bestial Nazi rage | 1:20:57 | 1:21:01 | |
Their young bodies fell, riddled with steel | 1:21:04 | 1:21:06 | |
To rest together in a common grave | 1:21:06 | 1:21:09 | |
But with joy their spirits claimed their freedom | 1:21:09 | 1:21:12 | |
From frustration, longing, prison bars | 1:21:12 | 1:21:15 | |
With glad shouts, they fled across the border | 1:21:16 | 1:21:19 | |
To that new life where they can earn God's wage. | 1:21:19 | 1:21:22 | |
They will be paid for service with that peace | 1:21:23 | 1:21:26 | |
Which passeth all our human understanding | 1:21:26 | 1:21:30 | |
With love that has no earthly dross to cloud it | 1:21:30 | 1:21:34 | |
With knowledge woven from celestial strands | 1:21:34 | 1:21:38 | |
And we, left here, who so well knew and loved them | 1:21:38 | 1:21:42 | |
Must rise above the cruel loss and pain | 1:21:42 | 1:21:46 | |
With courage, we must follow in their footsteps | 1:21:47 | 1:21:50 | |
So that, in freedom, we may meet again. | 1:21:50 | 1:21:54 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 1:22:19 | 1:22:22 |