British, NZ & Aust POWs arrive from Crete & Salonika, 1941

Stalag VIIA in Moosburg Germany was set up initially for French prisoners of war.  After their forced surrender at the Battle of Crete in 1941 my father, Steve McDougal and some of the soldiers of his army unit, the 2/3^rd Field Regiment found themselves at Stalag VIIA and then at Westend Labour Camp, Munich.

Stalag VIIA Sign – Prisoner of War Camp – Enlisted Men’s Camp

My last blog told of Steve McDougal’s escape attempt from the labour camp.

He wasn’t the only one with escape on his mind!

Escape is the dream, the obligation, the driving force of so many who find themselves in a POW camp.  But how to get out?  If the camp has a thriving black market of the type that operated in Stalag VIIA then maybe, just maybe, one might find an item that could be used.   Then, all that is needed is something to exchange for the item and lots of imagination and daring.  And of course, luck!

A humble tape measure might be easily overlooked as a way to quit the camp.  But two French prisoners simply asked the guard at the gate to let them through as they had to survey the road.  They held their nerve and ‘measured’ their way down the road, our of sight and were never seen again!

Stalag VIIA Entrance

A ladder might seem obvious but if it was carried through the gate with confidence, then who knows how far two men might go?  In this case about 10kms from the border before two men were questioned and returned to camp. 

French POW still in women’s clothes after his failed escape attempt

Also out of luck and sent back to camp were two prisoners dressed as women.  In their case women’s clothing and a bicycle was all it took for the two prisoners to cycle their way as far as Yugoslavia before they too were caught.  They were returned to camp still in their women’s garb but with a healthy growth of facial hair!

Would twine be useful?  An Australian and a Welshman thought so.  Over many months they collected lots of it, wove it carefully into a hammock.  Then, on the allotted day, one of them wound the hammock around his waist and under his great coat.  The two men slipped away from a working party, then crawled along the nearby railway track to the station where a train headed for Switzerland was about to leave.  Slinging the hammock beneath the train with barely enough time to get into it as the train started up, the two men lay in their cocoon, hardly daring to move in case they were tipped out.  Hour after hour they suffered the cold and the stones, mud and debris that were thrown up at them.  Worse than that though was the tension they felt as the train was searched at each station but especially at the border where the Gestapo was particularly thorough.  Searching slowly through the interior including the engine and guard van, the guards then shone their torchlight under the train, starting at the rear and making their way slowly but inevitably towards the two men who were now resigned to their fate….except, that suddenly the train lurched forward and with it the men’s relief and realisation that they really were going to make it as the train sped on into Switzerland and freedom.

St Margrathen Railway Station, Swiss Border

But a map – that’s the thing that was always uppermost in the minds of those who were set on escape.  My next blog tells the story of how Steve McDougal, whilst in Stalag VIIA and then Westend Labour Camp, managed to gather together his precious items for his escape attempt .

Stuff you might need to escape a POW camp – Part II

The story continues of my father, Steve McDougal and his escape and eventual capture from a German Prisoner of War Labour Camp.

A map – that most sought after and hard to come by item – so essential for escape.  Steve McDougal managed to get hold of two!  The first, acquired in Stalag VIIA from a French prisoner was a very small yet detailed sketch of the German frontier in the area west of the Austrian town Bludenz.  On the back of the map the man included detailed instructions.   The other, which came from a street sweeping party near the Westend camp, was a military map for which my father paid a high price in tea, chocolates, soap and cigarettes.

Now, with two maps my father’s escape seemed feasible.  All he had to do was collect and hide food and steal clothing so that he could pass himself off as a civilian worker.  But hiding things was not easy.  The barracks were often searched to discourage hoarding which was a sure sign of an escape attempt.  The POWs often returned from a hard day’s work to find their barracks turned upside down.  This was always unpleasant but there was a worse deterrent for would-be escapees.  The prisoners presented their food bowls with their Red Cross food parcels, then were ordered to open each can of food and tip it in.  In went the packet of tea, then cocoa,

Stalag VIIA Meal Distribution

pieces of chocolate, perhaps soap, then biscuits, sardines or herrings with condensed milk poured over the top!  Fortunately for the prisoners, the Germans did not persist with this sadistic game.

But Steve McDougal managed to collect tins of bully beef, chocolate, raisins, army biscuits and hid them around the yard ‘like a dog’.  From civilian workers he swapped tea and soap for a water bottle and ‘meta’ tablets which he would use as fuel.  An empty tin of powdered milk filled with water and bonox cubes could be heated with the tablets and make a satisfying, hot drink.

Now the final decision – to go with a mate or to go alone.  He had friends who had escaped in twos or threes only to get as far as nearby Munich because of the mistake or carelessness of one.  And so, he decided to go alone.

At a final briefing from the padre and doctor this is what he was told:  all decisions would be his and he would stand or fall by them.  With no-one to talk things over loneliness would be his constant companion.  In the hostile environment out there no person could be trusted.  He was told to double and treble his precautions as he neared the border.  By then his nerves would be on edge and he probably would not have eaten over much.  If, in the unfortunate situation he was caught on no account was he to give up his identity tags, his most valuable link.  As he would be in civilian clothing he would almost certainly be labelled a saboteur and therefore not under the protection of the Red Cross.  How prophetic these words!

And so, Steve McDougal was caught at the border and was accused of being a spy and a saboteur.  His interrogator argued he could not be a POW not only because of his clothing but also because no British or Australian soldier had been caught in the area before.  He had taped the sketch of the border area to the underside of his left foot.  The map, if found would further incriminate him.  But it was not found.  He was interrogated ‘naked and shivering’ .  Why was the map not found?  Because the guards did not look under his left foot but under his right foot – twice!

Forty-four years later my father wrote of his escape attempt and was able to recall, no doubt with word-perfect accuracy, those instructions hidden under his foot and which were given to him by the Frenchman in Stalag VIIA:

‘Leave Bludenz between 3.30 – 4.00am.  Seek out the main Autobahn which is adjacent to and on the left of the railway line.  Follow the Autobahn which runs in a north-westerly direction for 6.5 kilometres until sighting four small farm buildings.  A secondary road branches off to the south (left) at this point.  This is just prior to the Autobahn crossing – a swift stream by means of a small bridge.  Follow this secondary road.  It will gently climb and then pass through a small village.  It is the main and only street in the village.  After passing through the village the road dwindles to a cart track.  The stream will be on your right hand side.  The cart track will continue to rise in a west-south-westerly direction.  Eventually the cart track will become just a foot track.  You will climb very steeply with the river far below.  Take particular care as landslides could have cut the track or, if on the wrong track, it is possible to walk over the edge.  You should be in the area in the dark of the morning.  Stop well before coming to the actual frontier, which will be easily identifiable.  Observe the frontier posts all through the day.  Cross at the point where indicated but not before 8.00pm.  Take extreme care even when over the frontier for if observed a frontier patrol will try to bring you back.  They could succeed.  Or they will shoot you.  Use the edge of the glacier which is part in Liechtenstein and make your way to Switzerland.  Aim to cross the frontier mid to late November.  The patrols are weakened for the winter and if possible before the heavy falls of snow’.

And now, here I am 76 years later looking at a map where I can see the railway line and the autobahn running west of Bludenz.  Not a paper map of the type that could be folded to fit into a pocket or a tiny 4×6 inch sketch that could be hidden under a foot but one devised by technology – Google Earth.

As I zoom in I wonder, could Brand village be the village through which my father crawled along the narrow cobblestone street at 4am, his boots ‘high from the ground’ so as not to wake the domestic dogs?  And might that be the church where the border patrol took him and placed him in a cell?  And will Google Earth allow me a street-view, so I can take a virtual walk through this village?  No as it turns out but one day I hope the technology will let me take that walk.

Brand Village, Austria

And wouldn’t my father be amazed to see me sitting at my computer pondering such an idea?  But that’s the magic of maps.

Finally, how did my father make his escape?  He put the stolen jacket on under his great coat in whose pockets he had put the scarf, cap and some food.  His working party travelled a short distance to their daily place of work as fettlers in a railway yard.  When they arrived at the work hut the men placed their midday meal of soup on the large table, removed tools from a long wooden box and my father got into it.  One of the guards came in, glanced around to see if all was in order and then the party moved off.  Stuffing all the things from the pockets of the great coat into his rucksack and pockets of the jacket, my father tossed the great coat into the box and made for the door.  No-one around so he slipped along the side of the hut, gathered up the rest of the stashed food then made his way to a nearby stone quarry where he spent the day overlooking the hut until the working party left in the evening.  By then his absence had been noted but he was safe and once he left that quarry he could pass himself off, if not as a German worker, then at least a foreign civilian worker and in this disguise and with his precious maps, made his way through Germany to Austria and the Swiss border.

References:

McDougal, Stephen Walter, Grab for Freedom, Good Weekend, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 August 1989.

McDougal, SW, Untitled, unfinished and unpublished article.  June-July 1986.

Thomas, Vince  in: The Unofficial History of the 2/3^rd Field Regiment, Lind, Lew (ed),  Chapter XIV 1976, pp22-25.

Wilson, Rupert  in:  The Unofficial History of the 2/3^rd Field Regiment, Lind L (ed), Chapter XIV 1976, p.21.

Photos – from Moosburg online – www.moosburg.org and the Australian War Memorial website – https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/complex-story-australian-prisoners-war.  Brand village from https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/brand-bludenz-vorarlberg-austria-april-30-635136956