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The Real Great Escape

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FIGHTER PLANE ENGINES ROAR

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As soon as the battle started,

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about four or five of them fell on me

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and oh, boy, did I start dodging.

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My first I got with a full deflection shot from underneath.

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He went down in a long glide

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and I went into a spin,

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as two others were firing at me from aft.

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I pulled left and up.

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I then saw a Messerschmitt trying to fire up at me

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so I went head-on at him.

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We were both firing and everything was red flashes.

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I killed the pilot because suddenly he pulled right at me

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and missed me by inches.

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I went over the top of him

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and, as I turned, I saw him rear right up in a stall

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and go down with his engines smoking.

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He was out of control and half on his back.

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My engine was badly shot-up

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and caught fire.

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I turned everything off.

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The fire went out and I glided down.

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There was a lot of glycol and I couldn't see anything much.

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I turned the petrol on again.

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The engine ran for a little while

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and then everything seized

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and a lot of fumes and smoke came into the cockpit.

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So I prepared to land, undercarriage up.

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This I did successfully,

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only to get a knock on the nose, which bled like a pig.

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The old girl burst into flames

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and, as you can imagine, I moved pretty quickly.

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I'd landed just East of Boulogne.

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I thought, of course, I was well behind our lines.

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And then, to my rage and astonishment,

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a German motorbike came round the corner

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and I was taken prisoner.

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Please ask Hollis to send me the standard law books, like Salmond,

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and also all the quarterlies, so I can keep my hand in.

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A cheap set of Shakespeare would be grand.

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I was three years old

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when Hitler personally ordered the execution

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of my uncle, Roger Bushell.

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Throughout our childhood, he gazed down on us,

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he smiled at us,

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he winked at us, and we winked back.

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Every summer, we spent our holidays

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in my grandparents' house in Hermanus,

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a small fishing village on the South African Cape coast.

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After lunch,

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my sister and I would play or laze about in my grandfather's study

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while the elders slept.

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My grandfather instilled in us a love for Britain.

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He read us Rudyard Kipling.

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We grew up believing that the British were best.

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We read about Roger

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from Paul Brickhill's book The Great Escape.

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But what we longed for most

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was that he would walk through the gate

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so we could leap into his arms.

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But this he never did.

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My uncle, Roger Bushell,

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masterminded the Great Escape of World War II.

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In 1963, Hollywood made a film about it.

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This time we'll dig straight down 30 feet before we go horizontal.

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-That'll rule out any question of sound detection.

-All right, Roger.

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Roger Bushell's role as Big X was played by Richard Attenborough.

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We're going to devote our energies to sports and gardening,

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all the cultural pursuits.

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Meanwhile,

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we dig.

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All right?

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Hold onto yourself, Bartlett, you're 20 feet short.

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What do you mean, 20 feet short?

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You're 20 feet short of the woods.

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My mother and I attended

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the premiere of the film in London.

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I was 22

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and I sat next to Wing-Commander Harry Day,

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who was Roger's senior commanding officer.

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They were together as prisoners throughout the war.

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Tods met Richard Attenborough afterwards

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at the sort of reception they had

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and he said to her, "I was wrong in the part, wasn't I?"

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and she said, "Yes, frankly, you were.

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"You weren't a bit like my brother."

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And, of course, they changed his name to Bartley or something,

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which annoyed me intensely,

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but they did it apparently to...

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safeguard themselves against any criticism from the family

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so I suppose one has to accept it.

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Squadron Leader Bartlett,

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if you escape again,

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and be caught, you will be shot.

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-Heil Hitler.

-Heil Hitler.

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In all those years we spent in my grandfather's study,

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we never found the meticulous records he made of Roger's life.

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Only very recently, we found them all in one place.

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Childhood, youth,

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youth into manhood, photographs,

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letters, certificates,

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newspaper clippings,

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small notes and wry comments,

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all sealed away for two generations to keep tragedy at bay.

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My grandmother's diary begins it all.

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For a week after his birth,

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he lost weight steadily

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and one night, his life hung by so slender a thread

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that the nursing sister, a Roman Catholic,

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implored me to let her christen him.

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Roger Joyce Bushell,

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I baptise you in the name of the Father...

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After she had said the lovely words,

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she laid him in my arms.

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Drops of holy water still lay on his queer wrinkled forehead.

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All fear for my beloved little son left me.

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I knew that he would live.

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He was my mother's brother.

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He called her Tods.

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They grew up on a gold mine

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at West Springs on the South African Gold Reef.

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They did everything together.

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If it was bird-watching, my mother was sent along the branch first

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to see if it would break.

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My mother's dolls were burnt at the stake.

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Roger could spit a phenomenal distance.

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They had one small dog called Rubbish,

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because he was found on a rubbish heap

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and they had a much younger sister called Elizabeth.

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Like many boys at the time,

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Roger was sent to senior school in England.

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He only ever returned to South Africa once or twice.

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I suppose because we didn't see so much of him

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he was sort of glamourised.

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Stuffiness and being hide-bound by rules and regulations

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were not his scene at all.

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He did cock a snook at authority.

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When he left Wellington, the headmaster wrote that

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he really didn't think he could teach Roger anything more

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and he suggested Roger went to West Africa, you know, in the Services,

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and my father wrote and said that he thought he knew a bit more about

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West Africa than the headmaster did, and no son of his was going there.

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And that's when he went to Grenoble.

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Roger was 15 when he first skied at Murren

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but, even in those days, he counted in any company.

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In 1931, aged 20, he won the Langlauf at Scheidig Oberland.

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In later years he was one of the great characters at St Moritz.

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And the uncrowned king

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of the fashionable Italian skiing centre at Sestriere.

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Sometimes, as a racer, Roger had far more courage than judgment

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and threw away many races through recklessness.

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In an attempt to overtake Frank Campbell of McGill,

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he fell on a swift downhill run,

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broke both skis

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and lacerated his left eye.

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However, when the rescue team went to pick him up,

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he said he intended to go on.

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"The team needs every point," he protested.

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"They'll lose if I don't continue."

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He was was restrained and sent to hospital.

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Behind his gaiety and nonsense, which is joie de vivre

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and also a touch of joie de vice -

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is an unceasing or underlying purpose

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and a strong will to carry it out.

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Loving as he is, fundamentally,

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he will never let his heart completely control his head -

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and so, he will grow into a fine man.

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My most vivid memory, I suppose, going to dinner at the Savoy

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and dancing, and as the clock struck 12 and I became 17, he said,

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"Right, now I'm going to show you how people really kiss,"

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and I went down the drain and came up for air about two minutes later.

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He said, "Well, there you are. Now you know."

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You know, sweet 17 and never kissed before,

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sort of, which wasn't entirely true, but still.

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There were very few people who had the experience that Roger had

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on the female sex, I can assure you.

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He had many girlfriends, many, many girlfriends.

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# Some day you'll come along

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# The man I love... #

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And, very often, a married one, and a rich one.

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I mean, he used to go to the same tailor as Daddy

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and have things made up

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and then the bills came in, and Father hit the roof.

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He'd moved into a world that was completely different

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to anything that Benji had been in.

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# He'll look at me and smile... #

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Benji didn't countenance the fact that Roger was always stony-broke.

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He got mad as a snake about this but he didn't realise

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that living in London was a great deal more expensive

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than living in South Africa, and certainly in Springs.

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What Roger never realised was that,

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although Benji had a very big position at the mine,

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and he had a lot of perks,

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he had a car and a chauffeur and God knows how many gardeners

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and the house.

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Actual cash? I don't think he had all that amount.

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He didn't consider Roger needed that amount of money

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because he didn't, he didn't need it.

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# He'll build a little home

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# Just meant for two

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# From which I'll never roam

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# Who would?#

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Skiing and flying were his great loves.

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He was a member of Auxiliary Air Force.

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He was 601 Squadron and they spent a fortnight, I think, a year,

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at various aerodromes doing training

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and they'd spend their lives getting sacks of flour or something

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and dive-bombing 600.

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Very, very full of beans, full of jokes,

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but that was all sort of childish fun that went on each year.

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But they were very serious about their flying.

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"It's that silly ass Hitler again.

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"Just back by flying boat from the South of France.

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"Embodied yesterday.

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"Address: 601 Hendon.

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"Don't worry.

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"Am fighting fit. All love, Roger."

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Roger was embodied by the RAF as a squadron leader.

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He took a couple of his friends from 601 and formed Squadron 92.

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By the time Roger sent the telegram to his parents,

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on August 26th, 1939,

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Adolf Hitler had already annexed Austria and occupied Czechoslovakia.

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Six days after the telegram arrived, German divisions broke into Poland.

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This morning, the British Ambassador in Berlin

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handed the German government a final note

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stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock

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that they were prepared to withdraw their troops from Poland,

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a state of war would exist between us.

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I have to tell you now,

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that no such undertaking has been received

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and that consequently, this country is at war with Germany.

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Roger's Squadron 92 traded Blenheim planes for Spitfires.

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Pilots spoke of the clear-cut beauty of the Spitfire

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with its Rolls-Royce engine

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and that flying them was like an extension of their own bodies,

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brains and nervous system.

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On the morning of May 23rd 1940,

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Squadron 92 was ordered to patrol the French coastline.

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Roger was shot down at this juncture,

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during the retreat of the British army at Dunkerque.

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I remember the telegram arriving,

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saying that Roger had been killed.

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Well, we were all absolutely devastated.

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I went back to Varsity and I was in some show

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and the chap who was producing was an absolute darling.

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I remember him taking me out for coffee or something

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after we'd had a rehearsal

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and saying, "Look, don't take it, I bet he's a prisoner of war."

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My God, two days later or something, came the news that he was.

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He was everything.

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Someone once said to me during the war,

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"You know you'll never get a husband

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"if you keep measuring him up to your brother."

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And that was my basic thing.

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31st of July, 1940.

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My darlings, you will know by now that I am a prisoner of war

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and alive and well.

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I understand that I had some flattering obituary notices,

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so I'm afraid you must have had a bad time.

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I hardly know where to start.

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As we are only allowed this single sheet of paper,

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my news will be sketchy.

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I was shot down in a big battle with Messerschmitts.

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I got two of them first,

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so I have done something to help win the war.

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Do you remember how I told you at the beginning of the war

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that I knew I'd get through it?

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Well, admittedly, I never thought it would be this way.

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But I'm convinced now, that all my energies,

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bottled up for the time being, are meant to be used later on.

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My dear Uncle Harry, my flat, as you know,

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I shared with Michael Peacock.

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We owed the people a certain amount of rent because, of course,

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with the declaration of war,

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our circumstances were very much altered.

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This letter gives you full authority to act on my behalf.

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He and Michael Peacock, they had a flat in Tite Street, in Chelsea.

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They shared the car, they shared everything

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because if one had the tailcoat,

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the other couldn't go out in a tail-coat that night!

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They had this wonderful sort of carefree existence

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and they had an old girl called Mrs Robinson who was their char,

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who must have been an absolute saint the way she coped with them.

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But, I mean, trust them to find someone like that.

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In 1936, when he was actually working as a barrister,

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he and Michael Peacock joined up as juniors in Khaki's Chambers.

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I think they did all the sort of minor cases with no money attached.

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And they also went down into what was the East End, once a week,

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to give advice to people who had legal problems,

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for free gratis and for nothing because it was experience,

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and quite a few of them got into the newspapers.

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He really did have the gift of the gab.

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He could talk his way into anything and out of anything

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and swore like a trooper at times.

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And he had this rather fat chuckle.

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I mean, they did their job and they did the job well.

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Both he and Michael were very good at law.

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I think he was quite liable to go out most of the night,

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and come in and have to be in court at nine o'clock the next morning.

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And thank God they did.

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Poor Mike, I'm afraid, is dead.

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Michael Peacock was killed three days before Roger was captured.

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Life here is very peaceful and we are extremely well treated.

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I had a delightful birthday party

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with whisky sent over by the Kommandant,

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who is a charming fellow.

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I have many books, all the old classics

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and have a whole set of Shakespeare, which is a great joy.

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And several parcels of popular games like backgammon, chess

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and those absurd puzzles have arrived from Harrods.

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I have all that's necessary to bodily comfort,

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only that devil, the human mind, makes one go crazy at times.

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Something of greater value beckons him on

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and the image of it shines in his curiously dilated pupils.

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At times only a rim of brilliant blue shines around them.

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Were his goals solely a material one, I'd be anxious.

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My dear Uncle Harry.

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I would be grateful if you'd get in touch

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with Miss Peggy Hamilton,

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9 Wellesley House, Sloane Square, 8469.

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We were going to get married, if I'd not ended up here

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and we are going to get married as soon as this bloody war is over.

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I've written to Cox & Kings

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and told them that I wish my pay be made over to her.

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My account at Barclays bank is overdrawn

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but I have a life insurance to cover it.

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My darling Mummy, your letters are the greatest joy.

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Please don't think they're boring.

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Letters are wonderful things when you're a prisoner.

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I'm so glad Peggy Hamilton wrote to you.

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She is, I'm quite sure, the only person in the world for me

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and I know that you will adore her.

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I want you to buy a lovely diamond

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which I'll arrange to pay for out of my pay.

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Send it to her and tell her to have it made into a ring.

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While I'm a prisoner, it's probably the only time

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I'll have enough money to buy her something really good.

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It drives me almost frantic, with London being bombed,

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to feel that Peggy is there, nursing, in the middle of it.

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One is liable to become vague, I find,

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so shut away from the world are we.

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Papers and the wireless bring the war into perspective for a moment,

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but the context is an artificial one

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and we carry on in our community in splendid isolation

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from the struggle and tragedy of it all.

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The first snow has fallen.

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The air is like wine and the snow has that creaky, squeaky crunch

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that makes me so homesick for Switzerland and a pair of skis.

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We went out today in beautiful powder snow,

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crisp fresh air, blue sky

0:24:110:24:13

and all the trees loaded with snow.

0:24:130:24:16

It was too beautiful for words.

0:24:200:24:23

Believe it or not, we bought skis through the canteen

0:24:260:24:30

and use Red Cross boots and go out on the local hills

0:24:300:24:33

with the German officers.

0:24:330:24:36

You can imagine what it does to us.

0:24:360:24:38

And then, of course, one gets outside the old barbed wire.

0:24:400:24:44

Life is like a jigsaw puzzle.

0:24:490:24:52

We fiddle with the pieces, put them this way and that,

0:24:520:24:55

try to fit one with the other, but it's of no use.

0:24:550:24:58

They will only go one way and, finally, we have to find it.

0:24:580:25:03

I am the first of the family ever to take this journey across Europe

0:25:200:25:24

to find out as much as I can about Roger's dogged life,

0:25:240:25:28

of escape and captivity.

0:25:280:25:30

The exhilaration of getting outside the old barbed wire onto skis again

0:25:320:25:37

inspired Roger's first escape.

0:25:370:25:39

While he and Wings Day and others

0:25:440:25:47

placated the German Luftwaffe at Dulag Luft,

0:25:470:25:49

they were simultaneously digging a tunnel to get out.

0:25:490:25:53

The others agreed that Roger would leave

0:25:530:25:55

the day before the tunnel attempt.

0:25:550:25:57

Roger outlined his plan to hide in a goat shed overnight

0:25:570:26:01

before catching trains south to the Swiss border.

0:26:010:26:05

With his fluency in German, he set course for Switzerland,

0:26:090:26:12

travelling by day in a civilian suit

0:26:120:26:15

bought from one of the guards at Dulag Luft.

0:26:150:26:18

I was able to engage in brief conversations and navigated

0:26:190:26:23

with the aid of guidebooks purchased from shops along the way.

0:26:230:26:27

I went to Tuttlingen by express train

0:26:270:26:31

and from there to Bondorf by suburban line.

0:26:310:26:34

From Bondorf I reached, on foot, the point I was making for,

0:26:340:26:38

just a few kilometres from the Swiss border.

0:26:380:26:41

Things had gone almost too well,

0:26:410:26:44

so I sat down for two hours and made myself generate caution

0:26:440:26:49

for the last decisive stage.

0:26:490:26:51

I had the alternatives of waiting for nightfall, with all its problems,

0:26:520:26:56

or by bluffing it out by daylight, and I chose the latter.

0:26:560:27:01

Roger discovered that he'd been only 100 yards from the Swiss border

0:27:030:27:07

at that moment when he paused to consider.

0:27:070:27:10

Alas, in the border village of Stuhlingen,

0:27:110:27:14

he was halted by a guard.

0:27:140:27:16

Pretending to be a drunken but amiable ski-instructor,

0:27:160:27:20

and speaking German, he was being conducted towards a check point

0:27:200:27:23

for an examination of his papers when he broke loose and bolted,

0:27:230:27:27

dodging bullets into a side street which, alas,

0:27:270:27:31

proved to be a cul-de-sac and he was run to earth within minutes.

0:27:310:27:37

Escaping meant punishment

0:27:400:27:42

and Roger was sent to Stalag Luft II on the Baltic.

0:27:420:27:46

Starkly different from Dulag Luft.

0:27:460:27:50

June 21st, 1941

0:28:050:28:07

My darlings, I've changed my address.

0:28:090:28:13

Apologies for not writing last month.

0:28:130:28:15

I left the camp without asking,

0:28:150:28:17

having decided it was so long since I'd seen my friends.

0:28:170:28:21

Ghastly bad luck stopped me literally right at the last moment.

0:28:220:28:27

I was within 100 yards and could have taken a girl's school across,

0:28:270:28:31

when I paused.

0:28:310:28:33

Almost all of the old crowd from Dulag have collected here.

0:28:350:28:40

Yes, the next time I saw him was in the summer of 1941,

0:28:420:28:47

after the Dulag Luft tunnel, through which about 18 or 20 escaped.

0:28:470:28:53

Now, previous to that, we thought they were...

0:28:530:28:56

just having a good time down at Dulag.

0:28:560:28:59

There were permanent staff

0:28:590:29:01

and they were enjoying the fruits of the German occupation of France,

0:29:010:29:06

and captured British stocks and so on,

0:29:060:29:10

and they got a very cold reception when they came in through the gate

0:29:100:29:13

but, of course, when we heard that they had dug a tunnel and escaped,

0:29:130:29:17

the attitude changed entirely.

0:29:170:29:20

Letters are our only link with the real world.

0:29:250:29:29

One writes not knowing what number of people read them

0:29:290:29:33

and one tries to pretend the complicated machinery of censorship

0:29:330:29:37

does not exist.

0:29:370:29:39

I still have not heard from Peggy.

0:29:390:29:41

All my books left at the last camp.

0:29:420:29:46

Splendid of John to subscribe to my parcels.

0:29:460:29:50

The best would be cigarettes.

0:29:500:29:52

Several shops like Harrods know the ropes.

0:29:520:29:55

Actually, in this camp, we have had no parcels.

0:29:550:29:59

You'll be speechless to hear that I got on the scale at 12 stone 4 lbs,

0:30:010:30:05

26 lbs lighter than on arrival.

0:30:050:30:07

The Germans began by saying to everybody, they said it to me,

0:30:110:30:14

"For you, the war is over." It isn't. It's still going on.

0:30:140:30:18

You must also never forget that you're on the winning side

0:30:180:30:20

and you must remind the Germans of that.

0:30:200:30:23

If they know that you speak German you must speak German to them

0:30:230:30:26

as often as you can.

0:30:260:30:28

You take an air of convinced superiority to them.

0:30:280:30:32

This could annoy some of the rear-area Germans,

0:30:340:30:39

looking after the prisoner of war camps, very much indeed, of course.

0:30:390:30:42

And it was deliberately harped on by men as clever as Roger,

0:30:420:30:45

who were good at it.

0:30:450:30:47

My second birthday just passed as an unwilling guest in this country.

0:30:480:30:55

He very soon made himself felt, if not heard, I mean,

0:30:550:30:59

if you didn't meet him, you heard him talking around the compound

0:30:590:31:02

or expressing his views of the Germans.

0:31:020:31:04

As far as I can see, I am likely to spend one more birthday here

0:31:080:31:13

before the war is over.

0:31:130:31:16

All my love, Roger.

0:31:160:31:18

He escaped again with a Czech pilot seven years younger than him,

0:31:300:31:34

Jarka Zafouk.

0:31:340:31:37

I first met Roger in a prison near Hamburg.

0:31:400:31:44

We got to know that the Germans are going to move the whole camp

0:31:440:31:48

and transport all of us by train to somewhere in Germany.

0:31:480:31:52

Roger managed to get some German money

0:31:530:31:56

and all sorts of things necessary for escape,

0:31:560:31:59

and got some food coupons out of the German guards for some cigarettes.

0:31:590:32:03

I had a good plan for an escape route.

0:32:030:32:06

By the middle of '41,

0:32:080:32:12

anybody going on an air-force raid over enemy occupied territory

0:32:120:32:17

or anybody going on a commando raid

0:32:170:32:19

had one of Clayton Hutton's escape boxes

0:32:190:32:22

in the trouser pocket of his battledress,

0:32:220:32:25

which included food for a few days of a sort,

0:32:250:32:30

chocolate and Horlicks tablets, water-purifying tablets,

0:32:300:32:33

a tiny little water-bottle, a fish-hook,

0:32:330:32:36

a little thread in case your clothes got torn, a saw and a compass.

0:32:360:32:42

The Germans put 30 of us in one cattle truck with two guards.

0:32:510:32:56

It was quite dark inside and we took out our saws

0:32:560:32:59

and starting sawing the board on one end of the truck.

0:32:590:33:02

There were another four boys and everybody took his turn.

0:33:030:33:07

After about an hour and a half of sawing

0:33:070:33:10

we managed to loosen the board and took it inside.

0:33:100:33:13

Round about midnight, the train came to a large goods station

0:33:210:33:26

where it slowed down a bit and we decided to go. We jumped.

0:33:260:33:33

After we got to our feet, both of us ran across about three rails

0:33:330:33:36

and hid under a stationary train, waiting until our train passed

0:33:360:33:41

and to see whether all is clear for us to get up and dash for freedom.

0:33:410:33:46

Everything seemed quiet, so we got up, ran back across the rails,

0:33:540:33:58

jumped the fence.

0:33:580:34:00

We changed into our home-made civvy clothes.

0:34:030:34:07

Both of us looked more like two masqueraders than anything else!

0:34:070:34:11

We stayed in a field till the day broke out.

0:34:150:34:18

Then we found in the vicinity a stream where we washed ourselves

0:34:180:34:22

and made ready for our next move.

0:34:220:34:24

We knew roughly where we were and went to the station.

0:34:250:34:29

There we found a cinema that was open and went inside to hide ourselves

0:34:290:34:34

until came the time for us to catch a train to Dresden.

0:34:340:34:38

From now on, everything went according to our plan -

0:34:380:34:43

to get to Prague,

0:34:430:34:46

to get in touch with the Czech underground people,

0:34:460:34:48

who would help us to get either to Switzerland

0:34:480:34:51

or to some other neutral country.

0:34:510:34:53

In Prague, Jarka Zafouk's girlfriend recognised him on a train.

0:34:580:35:03

It was in 1941. I was coming back from a date, I think it was.

0:35:060:35:12

And there was this man standing on the street car inside

0:35:120:35:17

with glasses, moustache and I looked at him and I said,

0:35:170:35:23

"Oh, my God, it must be him!"

0:35:230:35:25

And that was Jarka and that was how we got back together.

0:35:250:35:30

Vlasta Zafouk flew back to Prague from Montreal

0:35:360:35:39

to tell me what she remembered of the time

0:35:390:35:42

when Roger and Jarka were there in hiding.

0:35:420:35:45

I always remember Roger because he made quite an impression on me.

0:35:470:35:51

He was really, really something different,

0:35:530:35:57

brave, crazy,

0:35:570:36:01

ready to take any chance just to get what he wanted.

0:36:010:36:05

Exceptional man.

0:36:080:36:10

Roger would take any chance to get away,

0:36:100:36:15

steal an aeroplane,

0:36:150:36:17

"We'll do this, we'll do that."

0:36:170:36:19

That's where...they went on together very well,

0:36:190:36:21

except these little moments

0:36:210:36:24

when he got into that mood and he wanted out.

0:36:240:36:28

When they came to Prague,

0:36:310:36:33

apparently they stayed with Schumberer

0:36:330:36:37

but then they had to go out because the people got scared.

0:36:370:36:40

Jarka knew Ota and he said,

0:36:420:36:45

"Well, I'll talk to my sister and to my father and see if they agree".

0:36:450:36:51

And they agreed, and so they went and stayed there.

0:36:510:36:54

It was against the law to be in resistance

0:36:550:36:58

and the penalty was a bullet to the back of the neck straight away

0:36:580:37:03

or get sent off to a labour camp and be worked to death.

0:37:030:37:05

Not only for you but for all your family as well.

0:37:050:37:08

You put not only yourself but all of your relatives at risk

0:37:080:37:12

if you went into resistance.

0:37:120:37:14

They stayed in this house on the third floor.

0:37:160:37:20

Their name was Zeithammle, Blaza, Ota and the father.

0:37:210:37:28

Blaza, she was a very good-looking girl,

0:37:280:37:33

blonde, voluptuous...

0:37:330:37:36

..nice, lots of fun to talk to.

0:37:380:37:42

And Ota, I didn't see him very much either

0:37:420:37:44

because he was in the army

0:37:440:37:46

and he came home now and then for a visit,

0:37:460:37:49

and later on I think he worked for the Underground.

0:37:490:37:53

You had to be so careful because there were so many spies.

0:38:000:38:05

Just before the Zeithammle family hid Roger and Jarka Zafouk,

0:38:120:38:17

Reinhard Heydrich, Hitler's head of secret state police

0:38:170:38:20

and the criminal police,

0:38:200:38:22

became the Third Reich Protektor of Czechoslovakia.

0:38:220:38:25

Lots of killing, lots of arrests.

0:38:270:38:31

You only have to do a little bit of thing, they arrested you right away.

0:38:310:38:35

He was hated, absolutely hated.

0:38:350:38:39

So how could you fight, you know,

0:38:400:38:43

somebody who had all the power really to just crush you

0:38:430:38:47

if you tried to do anything?

0:38:470:38:49

All universities were closed and everybody had to go to work.

0:38:510:38:55

It was Heydrich who had signed and set in motion

0:38:580:39:01

what the Third Reich called

0:39:010:39:03

The Final Solution to the Jewish Question.

0:39:030:39:05

Since Heydrich came, people got more afraid, so we stayed more inside.

0:39:070:39:13

In this particular house, nobody knew they were there.

0:39:140:39:18

All of us play cards, amuse ourselves as much as we could.

0:39:180:39:22

There was no TV that time, only radio.

0:39:220:39:27

While 20,000 Jews were being removed from Prague's Jewish quarter,

0:39:390:39:45

the people of Prague began to feel uncomfortable in their own streets.

0:39:450:39:50

And Roger tried to kill time in the apartment.

0:39:500:39:53

Roger, I don't know what he did all day.

0:40:010:40:05

I ask him several times.

0:40:050:40:07

He said he read.

0:40:070:40:10

He read, I suppose, poor Roger,

0:40:120:40:16

stuck being alone there all day,

0:40:160:40:20

and Blaza looking so good, you know.

0:40:200:40:26

They got involved together.

0:40:260:40:29

There was a war going on and during the war lots of things happen

0:40:320:40:37

which normally probably wouldn't have happened.

0:40:370:40:41

And Blaza probably thought she wanted to marry him after the war

0:40:410:40:46

and he told her - Roger said, "No, I can't marry you.

0:40:460:40:51

"I can't because I am already engaged in England."

0:40:510:40:54

Whatever, she got very hurt

0:40:570:41:00

and she had a boyfriend before the war.

0:41:000:41:04

She called him up and told him everything

0:41:040:41:09

and he was the one who gave them away to Gestapo, for money.

0:41:090:41:13

I was supposed to work in the afternoon

0:41:170:41:21

and the girl who changed with me, came to me and said,

0:41:210:41:25

"Can I work in the morning?"

0:41:250:41:28

For me, it didn't make any difference so I said, "Fine."

0:41:280:41:32

If it didn't happen, I would have been there in the morning with them.

0:41:320:41:37

That would have been the end of me.

0:41:390:41:41

Jarka told me that Roger got very angry with the Gestapo man

0:41:440:41:50

and I think he hit him.

0:41:500:41:53

So Roger was beaten quite a bit

0:41:530:41:57

because, with his hot temper, he was opposing.

0:41:570:42:01

And Jarka, I am sure he got more than he told me.

0:42:010:42:06

He didn't like talking about it.

0:42:060:42:08

Roger came face to face with Fascism for the first time.

0:42:120:42:15

He had been associated with the Czech Resistance

0:42:150:42:19

and this enraged the Germans.

0:42:190:42:22

We know that he refused to give the names of the Zeithammle family

0:42:220:42:26

and that he was severely treated as a result.

0:42:260:42:30

There was one rule about being interrogated,

0:42:300:42:32

which was universal, which Roger would have picked up,

0:42:320:42:36

applied particularly to the Secret Services,

0:42:360:42:38

you say nothing at all for the first 48 hours

0:42:380:42:41

to give everybody who was in touch with you a chance to scarper.

0:42:410:42:45

The father was arrested right away.

0:42:460:42:50

The son was arrested right away.

0:42:500:42:52

And Blaza was going around with no problem at all.

0:42:520:42:56

I never came round this place again.

0:42:580:43:02

This is the first time after, what is it, 65 years.

0:43:020:43:06

Sad, sad, remembering all the good things

0:43:060:43:11

because at that time I was quite happy

0:43:110:43:15

in spite of all the misery going around.

0:43:150:43:17

Heydrich wasn't only the Reich's Protektor in Czechoslovakia.

0:43:190:43:26

He remained also head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt,

0:43:260:43:32

the main German party secret service.

0:43:320:43:36

And, therefore, had a lot of secrets locked up in his head

0:43:360:43:40

which would die with him if somebody could manage to kill him.

0:43:400:43:44

He was, therefore, a legitimate objective for any Secret Service.

0:43:440:43:47

About 20 Czechs were sent up to one of SOE's training camps

0:43:500:43:54

in Scotland

0:43:540:43:56

and two of them were settled on eventually.

0:43:560:43:59

They went off into Prague.

0:44:020:44:04

CAR HORN BEEPS

0:44:090:44:10

HE SPEAKS GERMAN

0:44:100:44:13

Run!

0:44:180:44:20

Orders came from Berlin to shoot

0:44:410:44:45

everybody who was under suspicion,

0:44:450:44:49

which happened also that Blaza was taken in also.

0:44:490:44:53

The Gestapo shot the Zeithammle family.

0:44:570:45:02

It is possible that Roger was taken to Berlin

0:45:120:45:16

in the very week of Heydrich's state funeral, a time of high emotion,

0:45:160:45:21

and the Reich's unabated fury at his death.

0:45:210:45:25

HIMMLER EULOGISES HEYDRICH

0:45:250:45:31

It was sheer bad luck for Roger that this assassination took place

0:45:370:45:41

just two weeks after he'd been arrested.

0:45:410:45:45

The Gestapo seemed to think that he was a British Secret Service agent

0:45:450:45:49

and that between the time of his escape

0:45:490:45:52

and his re-arrest six months later, he had been back in London.

0:45:520:45:57

They believe that he'd been dropped back into Czechoslovakia

0:45:570:46:01

in a parachute, like the Czech assassins,

0:46:010:46:04

to help foment an insurrection at the same time.

0:46:040:46:08

I remember as a girl asking my mother

0:46:370:46:40

whether what was happening in South Africa wasn't the same evil

0:46:400:46:44

Roger had fought against.

0:46:440:46:46

She told me I knew nothing about World War II, which was true,

0:46:460:46:51

but I was right.

0:46:510:46:52

Each generation makes its choice

0:46:580:47:01

of whether or not to create and nurture a culture of fear.

0:47:010:47:05

This is the infamous Prinz Albrecht-Strasse,

0:47:240:47:28

the ruined site of Heydrich's SS Headquarters.

0:47:280:47:31

The secret police turned the studios of The School of Industrial Arts

0:47:340:47:39

into interrogation cells.

0:47:390:47:42

Here the enemies of Hitler's Third Reich were interrogated,

0:47:420:47:46

all its political and religious opponents -

0:47:460:47:50

artists, musicians, writers and intellectuals.

0:47:500:47:55

It is very likely that Roger was interrogated here, in these cells.

0:47:550:48:02

The rule was, you're compelled by the Geneva Convention

0:48:020:48:06

to give your name and rank or your name and number.

0:48:060:48:11

Beyond that, you are entitled to say nothing.

0:48:110:48:14

Roger will have had a very difficult month in Berlin,

0:48:150:48:19

probably being interrogated alternately

0:48:190:48:22

by the hard man and the soft man.

0:48:220:48:24

The soft man giving him a cigarette and apologising to him

0:48:240:48:27

for the dreadful manners of the hard man,

0:48:270:48:29

the hard man bark, bark, barking at him all the time,

0:48:290:48:33

threatening him with physical torture, probably not applying it.

0:48:330:48:37

Not many prisoners of war were actually tortured.

0:48:380:48:42

They would use threats and things like that,

0:48:420:48:46

and hope that you were weak enough to fall for it.

0:48:460:48:51

They're quite likely to take off your boots and trample on your toes,

0:48:510:48:55

which will break quite a lot of people up quite fast

0:48:550:48:58

but if you're bloody-enough-minded,

0:48:580:49:00

and Roger was good at being bloody-minded,

0:49:000:49:02

you can stand up to that.

0:49:020:49:03

You were pretty cautious. One knew what was happening.

0:49:030:49:07

But you could go along with it, to a small degree

0:49:070:49:12

and then divert off, take them off the scent, as you might say.

0:49:120:49:19

But there are some things you never admit,

0:49:190:49:23

such as what code you're using, if you are using a code,

0:49:230:49:27

such as who you were staying with.

0:49:270:49:30

You simply don't admit that.

0:49:300:49:32

If you showed any fear or anything like that,

0:49:320:49:36

you'd have had it, really.

0:49:360:49:39

You had to put on a very brave front.

0:49:400:49:43

Roger was one of those people whose face is the window of their spirit.

0:49:550:50:00

When all was well, there was the light within.

0:50:000:50:03

When he was thwarted or wrongly judged,

0:50:030:50:06

the light dimmed and he was thought to be morose

0:50:060:50:10

when he was actually deeply perturbed or unhappy.

0:50:100:50:14

Relations between the Gestapo

0:50:220:50:24

and the rest of the German armed forces were often pretty chill.

0:50:240:50:27

The Luftwaffe liked to keep its prisoners to itself

0:50:270:50:33

and was inclined, if the Gestapo got hold of a prisoner of war

0:50:330:50:39

to see whether they couldn't intervene and get him back,

0:50:390:50:42

out of Gestapo hands, into a more normal prisoner-of-war environment.

0:50:420:50:45

Roger was held for three months.

0:50:480:50:50

His release from the Gestapo was greatly helped

0:50:500:50:53

by the intervention of two Germans, Uber-Lieutenant von Massow,

0:50:530:50:57

an intelligence officer, who had known and liked Roger at Dulag Luft,

0:50:570:51:03

and even taken him out to dinner in Frankfurt,

0:51:030:51:05

and Oberst von Lindeiner,

0:51:050:51:07

a newly appointed Kommandant of Stalag Luft III.

0:51:070:51:11

Roger took this same journey with the Gestapo - Berlin to Zagan -

0:51:130:51:18

where Goering had built his model camp,

0:51:180:51:20

specifically designed to prevent prisoners from escaping,

0:51:200:51:25

Stalag Luft III.

0:51:250:51:26

When he was handed over, the Gestapo warned Roger

0:51:290:51:33

that if he was ever caught escaping again

0:51:330:51:37

he would be shot.

0:51:370:51:39

Quite a large party of us had come from Dulag Luft,

0:51:500:51:54

that was the interrogation camp, in a special train.

0:51:540:52:00

We got to the station in Zagan

0:52:000:52:03

and out of the train

0:52:030:52:05

and were marched up a short distance to the camp.

0:52:050:52:08

You could see a wide open space of dirty sand,

0:52:080:52:12

a clearing in a pine forest,

0:52:120:52:15

a lot of wooden huts, surrounded by an ample supply of barbed-wire.

0:52:150:52:19

All I thought was,

0:52:190:52:22

"Well, this is going to be home for the rest of the war."

0:52:220:52:26

My darlings, here I am again.

0:52:350:52:40

You will, I know, have had a very anxious and trying time

0:52:400:52:44

but I also know that you would not have expected me,

0:52:440:52:47

in the circumstances, to have done anything other than I did.

0:52:470:52:51

I am quite OK.

0:52:540:52:55

I wouldn't worry about the photography, by the way.

0:52:590:53:02

It was taken on a bad day in winter, in a bad light.

0:53:020:53:06

I was also probably in a bad temper

0:53:060:53:09

and I don't look any younger these days

0:53:090:53:11

but I am very well, all things considered,

0:53:110:53:14

and a month of decent, civilised life would put me back to normal.

0:53:140:53:18

And I will have one great advantage -

0:53:180:53:22

I will be very much wiser.

0:53:220:53:24

I am naturally very disappointed to have been caught again

0:53:250:53:29

but my spirits are sky-high and you need have no fear

0:53:290:53:32

that this life has got me down yet,

0:53:320:53:35

or that it ever will, please, God.

0:53:350:53:38

Give yourselves all a big hug and lots of love, from Roger.

0:53:380:53:43

I met Roger in the camp.

0:53:450:53:47

He was shot down long before I was.

0:53:470:53:50

I was very fond of him.

0:53:500:53:52

We used to have a lot of

0:53:520:53:53

what I think was very intelligent conversation anyway.

0:53:530:53:56

He might not have done!

0:53:560:53:59

But I certainly did.

0:53:590:54:00

We discussed everything,

0:54:000:54:03

from women to anything else you'd like to talk about.

0:54:030:54:06

Shortly after his arrival, von Massow handed Roger a letter

0:54:070:54:11

he had kept back until he was among friends.

0:54:110:54:15

It was from Peggy Hamilton, to say she had married somebody else.

0:54:150:54:20

I only heard about Peggy a couple of weeks ago.

0:54:220:54:27

Don't waste any false sympathy on this,

0:54:270:54:29

because I find I don't really care a damn about it.

0:54:290:54:33

I have told Harry to do what he can about the money,

0:54:330:54:36

but if Peggy sticks her toes in, there's nothing I can do legally.

0:54:360:54:40

The whole business is a bore and not worth discussing.

0:54:400:54:44

Soon after this, Roger addressed the camp in words to this effect.

0:54:520:54:58

Everyone here in this room is living on borrowed time.

0:54:580:55:02

By rights, we should all be dead.

0:55:020:55:05

The only reason that God allowed us this extra ration of life

0:55:050:55:09

is so that we can make life hell for the Hun.

0:55:090:55:12

Quite clearly he was a formidable figure on the escaping front,

0:55:140:55:19

being what Crocket used to call escape-minded, from an early stage.

0:55:190:55:24

He became what was known as X, that is head of escapes,

0:55:240:55:30

for the entire camp, a very responsible business.

0:55:300:55:34

He was very good as X, very good indeed.

0:55:350:55:38

I mean, he had a very clear brain and knew exactly what he wanted

0:55:380:55:42

and what he didn't want, and what he expected of us.

0:55:420:55:46

And that was very important

0:55:460:55:49

because sometimes we wouldn't necessarily know

0:55:490:55:51

what we wanted to do and he made it clear what we ought to do.

0:55:510:55:56

He took charge and brought order and discipline into the whole process

0:55:560:56:02

which, previously, hadn't existed.

0:56:020:56:05

I mean, if I decided it would be a good idea to start a tunnel

0:56:050:56:10

from here and see if I could tunnel out there

0:56:100:56:13

and you decided that you were going to start one there...

0:56:130:56:15

They were all digging like bunnies and usually got in each other's way

0:56:150:56:21

and Roger said, "Well, there must be a stop to this!"

0:56:210:56:24

No private enterprise tunnels allowed!

0:56:240:56:27

We will dig three bloody deep, bloody long tunnels,

0:56:270:56:31

and the tunnel is taboo.

0:56:310:56:33

They will be called Tom, Dick and Harry.

0:56:340:56:40

The genius behind Roger's idea of digging three tunnels simultaneously

0:56:400:56:46

was that if one tunnel was found,

0:56:460:56:49

the Germans would not suspect any others existed.

0:56:490:56:52

They set about sinking three separate shafts

0:56:540:56:58

from three different huts,

0:56:580:57:01

each 25 feet deep and two feet square

0:57:010:57:06

and the tunnelling began.

0:57:060:57:09

I'm quite sure that Roger, although he ran the whole thing,

0:57:090:57:12

I'm quite sure he didn't go down until it was absolutely done,

0:57:120:57:15

because he wouldn't even go in a tube if he could avoid it.

0:57:150:57:18

He hated being underground.

0:57:180:57:20

It was quite phobia with him.

0:57:200:57:22

In his role as Big X, his father's mantle fell upon him.

0:57:220:57:27

Benjy would have liked him to go into mining

0:57:270:57:30

and nothing was going to induce him to go into mining.

0:57:300:57:34

He hated the very thought of it.

0:57:340:57:35

Now, ironically, his freedom depended on it.

0:57:350:57:40

For the first time in his life,

0:57:400:57:42

Roger needed his father's advice as a mining engineer.

0:57:420:57:46

This was the one thing he could not write about in his letters.

0:57:460:57:50

My darlings, only one letter from father this month.

0:57:520:57:57

Now, what am I to write to you about?

0:57:590:58:02

Hmmm, the weather?

0:58:020:58:04

It's dull, like the countryside and our existence.

0:58:040:58:09

My fellow human beings?

0:58:090:58:11

They're ordinary and, alas, somewhat dull too.

0:58:110:58:15

The war?

0:58:150:58:17

That's a topic worn threadbare in our daily lives.

0:58:170:58:20

And a letter should be like a holiday, new world

0:58:200:58:24

and new people, like a cinema, enchantment for a short hour or so.

0:58:240:58:29

Outside, people are lying about in the sun, and overhead,

0:58:350:58:39

the pale blue German sky, so like those pale blue Aryan eyes,

0:58:390:58:44

looks down with stolid indifference on us.

0:58:440:58:49

Tomorrow I'm 33. Hey-ho!

0:58:490:58:54

Lots of love, Roger.

0:58:540:58:55

In the early days, breakfast was just acorn coffee,

0:58:570:59:01

lunchtime, a watery sauerkraut soup and a few bad potatoes.

0:59:010:59:05

So we were pretty darned hungry on that.

0:59:050:59:09

People played football and...

0:59:090:59:11

but we didn't have the energy to play very enthusiastically.

0:59:110:59:17

Roger harnessed the skills of the camp.

0:59:170:59:20

He intended to get 200 men out.

0:59:200:59:24

Each person would need civilian clothing, official papers,

0:59:240:59:28

money, maps, compasses and so forth.

0:59:280:59:32

He personally selected the men to run these departments.

0:59:320:59:35

He had to be able to get on with everybody,

0:59:380:59:41

and he had to be able to detect their weaknesses

0:59:410:59:43

and their strengths, which he was very good at doing,

0:59:430:59:48

I might say, very good,

0:59:480:59:50

and he'd soon let you know, too!

0:59:500:59:53

HE LAUGHS

0:59:530:59:54

600 people dug the three tunnels.

0:59:540:59:58

I had no part in that, mercifully!

0:59:581:00:02

I mean I can't think of anything more horrible...

1:00:021:00:05

HE CHUCKLES

1:00:051:00:06

..than digging a tunnel.

1:00:061:00:08

The only time I ever got near a tunnel

1:00:081:00:11

was we built this ventilation pump.

1:00:111:00:15

It was a double-acting pump, two kit-bags, right,

1:00:151:00:19

and the operator just sat there, as though he was rowing,

1:00:191:00:23

just pumping air down a pipeline

1:00:231:00:26

because you couldn't breathe without a source of air

1:00:261:00:29

once you were a considerable distance away from the shaft.

1:00:291:00:32

You've got all these teams of experts like tailors,

1:00:351:00:40

forgers, con-men who bribed the guards.

1:00:401:00:45

Escaping was the principle industry, of course.

1:00:451:00:48

It occupied most people's time.

1:00:481:00:51

Even if you were sanguine enough to know

1:00:511:00:54

that your chances of getting out of the camp were slim

1:00:541:00:58

and of getting home were almost negligible.

1:00:581:01:01

The goons knew perfectly well that there were tunnels

1:01:011:01:04

but they just couldn't find them.

1:01:041:01:06

You would only have needed one word in the wrong place

1:01:061:01:10

and, of course, they would have been found in no time.

1:01:101:01:13

Because the Germans were pretty smart.

1:01:131:01:15

We might have thought them as idiots, but they weren't!

1:01:151:01:19

You never talked indoors, for example,

1:01:191:01:23

because the Germans would use microphones and God knows what

1:01:231:01:26

all over the place.

1:01:261:01:28

Let's go and have a stroll or something like that, you see,

1:01:281:01:31

and you knew what he meant.

1:01:311:01:33

You only talked when you were on the circuit, walking round.

1:01:331:01:37

I've had a number of letters from Georgie Curzon,

1:01:501:01:53

an old flame of mine.

1:01:531:01:55

She's been busy divorcing her husband

1:01:551:01:58

who doesn't seem to have behaved very prettily.

1:01:581:02:00

And, now, poor Georgie is turning to her old love for comfort.

1:02:001:02:05

I had not heard from her for years.

1:02:051:02:08

I jolly nearly married her once.

1:02:081:02:11

You didn't know that, did you?

1:02:111:02:13

There was quite a bit of falling out and giving up,

1:02:191:02:24

people not wanting to do the escape.

1:02:241:02:29

Understandable.

1:02:291:02:30

They'd had enough, wanted a quiet life.

1:02:301:02:34

I wasn't one of them.

1:02:361:02:39

I was one of the two leading teams of diggers.

1:02:491:02:54

And we just went in there and dug the tunnel. That was it!

1:02:541:02:58

My job was digging at the front and then somebody behind me

1:02:581:03:02

would be taking the sand away from me.

1:03:021:03:05

That would be put on the trolley and the trolley was taken up

1:03:051:03:08

and the trolley was brought back again for another load.

1:03:081:03:11

We built sort of railway, you might say.

1:03:121:03:16

Six inches beneath the top soil was yellow sand.

1:03:211:03:26

The sight of this sand anywhere in the camp

1:03:261:03:30

immediately informed the German ferrets that a tunnel was being dug.

1:03:301:03:33

Peter Fanshawe invented an inner-trouser device

1:03:331:03:37

from long-johns,

1:03:371:03:38

which they filled up with sand as it came out of the tunnel twice a day.

1:03:381:03:42

They would then walk to the fence, pull a string,

1:03:421:03:46

the sand fell down over their shoes and they'd kick it into the ground.

1:03:461:03:51

These men became known as penguins

1:03:511:03:54

because if they waddled, they were detected by the ferrets.

1:03:541:03:58

The camp is filling up and we're about 1,500 strong.

1:04:001:04:05

Newcomers, very optimistic,

1:04:051:04:07

especially about the effect of our particular efforts.

1:04:071:04:11

As everybody in Stalag Luft III was aircrew,

1:04:111:04:15

by definition, they were young and also they were intelligent

1:04:151:04:19

because of you were that stupid you couldn't really fly an aeroplane.

1:04:191:04:23

Um... And so all sorts of activities emerged,

1:04:231:04:27

the theatre being, obviously, one.

1:04:271:04:31

# A room with a view and you

1:04:311:04:37

# And no-one to give advice

1:04:371:04:40

# That sounds a paradise few

1:04:401:04:43

# Could fail to choose... #

1:04:431:04:45

I've now taken to the boards in the camp theatre

1:04:451:04:49

as a fat and worried old stock-broker,

1:04:491:04:52

who gets the wind up about the world

1:04:521:04:54

and his own affairs at 5.00am, in bed.

1:04:541:04:58

It's an amusing play called Apprehensions.

1:04:581:05:01

And the girls played are by fellows, some of them astonishingly funny.

1:05:011:05:07

# We'll be as happy and contented

1:05:071:05:10

# As birds upon a tree

1:05:101:05:14

# High above the mountains and the sea

1:05:141:05:20

# We'll bill and we'll coo-ooo-oo... #

1:05:201:05:24

I had the advantage of being rather a pretty boy

1:05:241:05:29

and so I was suitable for female roles.

1:05:291:05:32

HE LAUGHS

1:05:321:05:34

We did hire special dresses

1:05:341:05:38

from some theatrical agency in Berlin or something like that,

1:05:381:05:43

which enabled us to look properly dressed.

1:05:431:05:47

That's not to say that the tailoring department wasn't very skilled,

1:05:481:05:52

it was primarily occupied with producing escaping gear,

1:05:521:05:56

not theatrical gear.

1:05:561:05:58

# Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington

1:05:581:06:02

# Don't put your daughter on the stage

1:06:021:06:05

# She's a bit of an ugly duckling

1:06:051:06:07

# You must honestly confess... #

1:06:071:06:09

We didn't get any propositions, but...

1:06:091:06:13

which was a shame, I suppose!

1:06:131:06:15

# Please, Mrs Worthington

1:06:151:06:17

# Don't put your daughter on the stage. #

1:06:171:06:20

In the ordinary mail,

1:06:301:06:33

the prisoners watched out for ingeniously hidden devices.

1:06:331:06:37

Among the things that MI9 sent in a perfectly ordinary parcel was,

1:06:371:06:42

of course, clothes and blankets.

1:06:421:06:46

If you looked very carefully at the blankets,

1:06:461:06:49

much more carefully than the Germans ever did,

1:06:491:06:52

you could see that if you could take a knife to them,

1:06:521:06:55

you could cut them down and turn them into an officer's greatcoat,

1:06:551:06:58

a German officer's greatcoat.

1:06:581:07:00

The locus classicus is the pack of playing cards.

1:07:001:07:04

You drop them in a bucket, all the cards come off,

1:07:041:07:07

and there's a very detailed map of the frontier of Switzerland inside.

1:07:071:07:11

Monopoly boards.

1:07:111:07:14

Take the Monopoly board off and there's a map of Germany inside.

1:07:141:07:17

All sorts of devices of this sort were prepared.

1:07:171:07:21

December 1943.

1:07:271:07:30

Thanks to the Red Cross, we're the best-fed people in Europe.

1:07:301:07:34

We had quite a comic Christmas with lots of Red Cross food

1:07:341:07:38

and home-brewed booze, which had to be tasted to be believed

1:07:381:07:42

but which produced the necessary oblivion,

1:07:421:07:45

which is all that is required in a place like this.

1:07:451:07:48

We're all bubbling over with optimism at the moment and I,

1:07:501:07:53

personally, am quite certain we've had our last Christmas here.

1:07:531:07:58

It was, indeed, Roger's last Christmas behind the wire.

1:08:001:08:05

His prediction about the three tunnels had come true.

1:08:051:08:09

Tom was discovered the year before

1:08:091:08:11

when it was within 20 yards of the wood.

1:08:111:08:15

The Germans did not suspected other tunnels

1:08:151:08:18

and Dick was used for storage.

1:08:181:08:21

By March, 1944, Harry was ready.

1:08:231:08:27

And Harry got right through.

1:08:331:08:35

It was 120 yards long with an exit comfortably outside the wire.

1:08:351:08:40

The whole venture had taken 18 months to achieve.

1:08:401:08:44

200 men were fully equipped and ready to go.

1:08:441:08:48

I'm beginning to believe that it can be possible to transfer yourself

1:08:541:08:59

to another part of the world or even to other worlds, with your mind.

1:08:591:09:04

We Europeans know little about it

1:09:041:09:07

but the Indian philosophies appear to put it into practice.

1:09:071:09:11

And all the older religions teach it.

1:09:111:09:16

And I'm going to do Higgins in Pygmalion.

1:09:211:09:25

Lots of love, Roger.

1:09:251:09:28

He gave us a talk in the theatre,

1:09:331:09:35

a general briefing of what was going to happen.

1:09:351:09:38

I think he gave, first of all,

1:09:381:09:40

warnings to people to dress properly,

1:09:401:09:43

not to be too bulky, not to have great big suitcases

1:09:431:09:46

otherwise they'd knock the tunnel down.

1:09:461:09:48

All the passes were stamped and rations issued

1:09:481:09:52

and compasses and maps and so on.

1:09:521:09:56

Roger said, "Right, well, we'll go now!"

1:09:571:10:00

Which was the 24th.

1:10:001:10:02

My darlings, I am well and full of confidence as usual.

1:10:051:10:12

Next instalment next month.

1:10:121:10:15

Bless you all, Roger.

1:10:151:10:18

This was the last letter Roger wrote,

1:10:211:10:25

the last letter ever received by the family.

1:10:251:10:28

The tunnel was opened up and the escape began.

1:10:311:10:36

When you got to the very end,

1:10:431:10:45

where you were actually doing the escape,

1:10:451:10:47

that had to be very carefully done.

1:10:471:10:50

Then that just went straight up

1:10:501:10:53

and we had sort of a ladder to go up and get out.

1:10:531:10:59

Oh, it was wonderful.

1:10:591:11:02

The fresh air that came in when you opened the top,

1:11:021:11:05

it was a wonderful feeling.

1:11:051:11:08

It absolutely gushed down.

1:11:081:11:10

I came out onto the snow and it was jolly cold.

1:11:101:11:13

You had to get across a little bit of open space

1:11:131:11:18

before you could get something to conceal you.

1:11:181:11:21

I made the wood and I thought,

1:11:231:11:25

"Ah, freedom at last, first time for four years."

1:11:251:11:29

Roger was the fourth man out of the tunnel.

1:11:321:11:36

He chose Bernard Scheidauer,

1:11:361:11:38

whose family were in the French Resistance, as his partner.

1:11:381:11:42

They moved swiftly through the woods

1:11:451:11:47

and arrived at Zagan station, where Roger bought two tickets to Breslau.

1:11:471:11:52

100 miles away, the RAF began to bomb Berlin.

1:11:561:12:01

Roger was dressed in a well-cut tweed suit with Trilby hat,

1:12:101:12:14

a greatcoat and a small attache case.

1:12:141:12:18

He looked exactly the part of a prosperous French businessman

1:12:181:12:21

and he was in very good spirits

1:12:211:12:24

and convinced he was going to get home.

1:12:241:12:27

A train came in.

1:12:281:12:30

Several escapees hastily boarded it.

1:12:301:12:34

The driver was in a hurry.

1:12:341:12:35

Des Plunkett tells how Roger, without a flicker of recognition,

1:12:371:12:41

walked down the carriage and squeezed his hand,

1:12:411:12:43

indicating they were all still in charge.

1:12:431:12:47

Back at the camp, 76 men had escaped by 5.00am,

1:12:501:12:54

when a guard finally saw one of them, by virtually bumping into him.

1:12:541:12:59

A single shot rang out but nobody was hurt.

1:12:591:13:02

Hitler was immediately informed.

1:13:031:13:07

He flew into a rage

1:13:071:13:09

and ordered that every single re-captured prisoner was to be shot.

1:13:091:13:13

Cautioned that this would cause an international outcry,

1:13:131:13:17

he reduced the number to 50.

1:13:171:13:19

The reason to be given

1:13:201:13:22

was that prisoners were shot while trying to escape.

1:13:221:13:25

This order went out to every Gestapo office in the country.

1:13:261:13:30

By 8.00am almost every railway station,

1:13:311:13:35

every crossing, was alerted.

1:13:351:13:38

It was later estimated that five million Germans were deployed

1:13:381:13:42

to find the men.

1:13:421:13:44

At Breslau, Roger bought two tickets to Paris.

1:13:441:13:49

He and Scheidhauer crossed Germany and arrived at Saarbrucken,

1:13:491:13:53

within walking distance of the French border.

1:13:531:13:55

Flight Lieutenant van Wymeersch, another escapee,

1:13:561:14:01

saw them board the train at Breslau.

1:14:011:14:03

Later in the day, he himself was arrested at Metz.

1:14:051:14:08

The Gestapo officer was immensely impressed with his forged papers,

1:14:081:14:13

but, he added triumphantly...

1:14:131:14:16

"You do not have the new special mark.

1:14:161:14:19

"Every week, every day sometimes now,

1:14:191:14:21

"we add a small special mark to a document.

1:14:211:14:25

"You're not the first one to be caught.

1:14:251:14:27

"We caught two very clever ones, smartly dressed, in good suits,

1:14:271:14:32

"briefcases, perfect French and German,

1:14:321:14:35

"business executives travelling to Paris.

1:14:351:14:38

"No special mark. We have them."

1:14:381:14:42

Roger Bushell and Bernhard Scheidhauer.

1:14:471:14:53

In Saarbrucken, the regional chief of the Gestapo, Dr Leopold Spann,

1:15:011:15:07

ushered Roger and Bernard Scheidauer into his office.

1:15:071:15:10

His secretary, Gertrude Schmidt,

1:15:101:15:13

noticed that they were hand-cuffed in front.

1:15:131:15:16

A few minutes later, Dr Spann came out.

1:15:171:15:20

He ordered her to type two death certificates.

1:15:201:15:23

Around 4.00am he rang his chauffeur, Walter Breithaupt,

1:15:291:15:34

to pick him up with his deputy, Emil Schulz.

1:15:341:15:37

Roger and Bernard were then collected from the Kripo prison.

1:15:391:15:44

The chauffeur, Walter Breithaupt, remembers...

1:15:441:15:47

Schulz fastened the hands of each prisoner with handcuffs

1:15:501:15:53

and sat between them.

1:15:531:15:55

The bigger of the two, Bushell, said to Schulz in German,

1:15:551:16:00

that this was not compatible with the honour of an officer.

1:16:001:16:04

I drove 40km and then turned on to the autobahn towards Mannheim.

1:16:041:16:09

Nobody spoke during the drive.

1:16:111:16:14

After about 4km to 5km, Spann ordered me to stop the car.

1:16:141:16:20

He got out with Schulz.

1:16:261:16:28

Both lit cigarettes and moved out of hearing.

1:16:281:16:30

They returned and one of them said to the prisoners

1:16:321:16:35

that they could get out and relieve themselves.

1:16:351:16:40

Spann told them they would get shot if they tried to escape.

1:16:401:16:44

I stood next to the car by the driver's seat.

1:16:451:16:47

Both prisoners stood about two meters off the road

1:16:471:16:50

to relieve themselves.

1:16:501:16:51

While Spann and Schulz stood a metre behind them

1:16:511:16:54

with their pistols in their hands.

1:16:541:16:56

TWO GUNSHOTS

1:17:071:17:10

When I found out Roger was shot

1:17:271:17:31

was because it was all over the newspaper.

1:17:311:17:35

It was reported in the newspaper

1:17:351:17:39

that 72 escapees escaped,

1:17:391:17:45

that it was quite successful

1:17:451:17:47

and that time I heard that nobody made it back but then, after the war,

1:17:471:17:52

it was found out that about three or four actually made it.

1:17:521:17:58

Hitler's orders were obeyed.

1:17:591:18:02

Over the next few days, 50 re-captured men were shot.

1:18:021:18:07

We saw a little paragraph in the Voelkischer Beobachter,

1:18:201:18:24

saying that Anthony Eden had made a protest in the House of Commons

1:18:241:18:29

about these 50 officers who had been shot

1:18:291:18:33

trying to escape and he made the protest to the German government.

1:18:331:18:39

Well, it could only have been our friends.

1:18:401:18:47

You rather wonder why the hell you yourself weren't shot.

1:18:511:18:56

That's what Jimmy and I felt, anyway.

1:18:561:18:59

Why we weren't shot.

1:18:591:19:02

We could have been.

1:19:021:19:04

It was just luck.

1:19:041:19:07

And...

1:19:071:19:08

..pretty terrible.

1:19:101:19:12

And it was a nasty shock all round

1:19:171:19:20

because they were all prisoners of war

1:19:201:19:22

and under the Geneva Convention

1:19:221:19:25

were bound to be preserved by the captive power.

1:19:251:19:28

And we now know they were shot on Hitler's personal order.

1:19:281:19:33

23 were returned to prisoner-of-war camps.

1:19:361:19:40

Jens Mueller and Per Bergsland got all the way home to Norway

1:19:401:19:45

and Bram van der Stock to England.

1:19:451:19:48

True to form, the Gestapo cremated the bodies of the 50 who were shot

1:19:511:19:55

and returned their ashes to the camp in caskets.

1:19:551:19:59

Roger's brave stance for freedom against tyranny,

1:20:021:20:06

for which he was prepared to die, was not lost on us

1:20:061:20:11

as we played in my grandfather's study.

1:20:111:20:13

In the scramble of advancing armies,

1:20:221:20:26

Roger's casket was broken,

1:20:261:20:29

so his ashes lie here,

1:20:291:20:32

in this place,

1:20:321:20:34

in this forest.

1:20:341:20:36

My grandmother wrote a poem.

1:20:391:20:42

To Roger Bushell, squadron leader in the RAF,

1:20:421:20:47

and 49 gallant comrades who died with him.

1:20:471:20:51

With bare, earth-stained hands

1:20:531:20:55

And their brave hearts

1:20:551:20:57

They faced, unarmed, the bestial Nazi rage

1:20:571:21:01

Their young bodies fell, riddled with steel

1:21:041:21:06

To rest together in a common grave

1:21:061:21:09

But with joy their spirits claimed their freedom

1:21:091:21:12

From frustration, longing, prison bars

1:21:121:21:15

With glad shouts, they fled across the border

1:21:161:21:19

To that new life where they can earn God's wage.

1:21:191:21:22

They will be paid for service with that peace

1:21:231:21:26

Which passeth all our human understanding

1:21:261:21:30

With love that has no earthly dross to cloud it

1:21:301:21:34

With knowledge woven from celestial strands

1:21:341:21:38

And we, left here, who so well knew and loved them

1:21:381:21:42

Must rise above the cruel loss and pain

1:21:421:21:46

With courage, we must follow in their footsteps

1:21:471:21:50

So that, in freedom, we may meet again.

1:21:501:21:54

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