Partners for yet another of what i know will be a compelling presentation. These guys are money. As many of you know. We are so fortunate and privileged to be associated with them. Tonight we welcome our two guests. They had me in grade school. I was a fourthgrader when hollywood released the great escape starring james Steve Mcqueen and james garner and charles bronson, among others. All of the guys in my class fell in love with it. All of us wanted to be mcqueen. He survives. The movie was based on a true story. The escape of 76 allied soldiers escape from germany in 1944. The film pretty much gave us the real life tragic ending to that story, only three of those men who escaped state escaped. Two norwegian pilots, and another pilot from the netherlands. No americans. The other 73 were killed or recaptured, more than two thirds of them were executed. The fact is, escaping was hard. And it wasnt often try during world war ii in particular. When it was, it often didnt succeed. When it did, it really was an inspiration. It was often hollywood stuff. The book cias in iran, during the 1979 iran hostage crisis which was the basis for the best picture oscar winner, argo. This is, i think, the third time that david has spoken here the library. The last was a little less than a year ago, when he talked about yuck eisenhower and george marshall. Hes an assistant professor of military history at general staff college. Kayla, a former kansas city resident, is here from where she now lives in working ton, minnesota, where she is the dean of institutional effectiveness in liberal arts, at the Minnesota West Community of technical college. Thanks so much for making the trip. Please join me in welcoming both of them. David mills and kayla western. Good evening everybody, thanks for coming out. Looks like the weather is cooperating, if you remember from last year, we were supposed to have a couple of different presentations and eventually they got canceled because the weather, its great to see everybody. Thanks for coming out. Im dave mills, this is my good friend, kayla west drug, we have been friends for about ten years. We Work Together administer to west Community College up until a few years ago, when i took a position down here but a few years ago kayla and i decided to write this book about p. O. W. Escapes and rescues, many of you probably remember the bug man who was instrumental in orchestrating many of the discussions and the talk about world war ii down here, when i told him about our book, he asked us to and talk about a number of these episodes. You this evening, were going to start off talking about the history of prisoners and their treatment. Then we will talk about why its so hard to make a successful escape, then we are going to talk about specific episodes of the prisoners and the escapes attempts that they made. We have a variety of stories for you tonight, we are going to talk about the great escape in a little bit more detail, were going to talk about a prison camp in the philippines, where the entire prison camp was rescued. And then we are going to talk about a number of individual states, that include american, french, german and british officers. I hope you enjoy it. So in 2004, when tom coined the phrase the greatest generation, he was talking about those who grew up in the depression era and who served in world war ii or who had stayed at home and labored for that effort in world war ii. It was at a time when we still had a number of those people in our midst. But 15 years later, we are seeing fewer and fewer that generation, we are losing their generation. And this is my dad. This is my dad. My dad wouldve gotten such a kick out of that he had a great sense of humor. My dad was part of that greatest integration. He served in world war ii as well. As we talk about these escapes and rescues, we focus today on a couple of episodes. When we were working on this book, i purposely did not watch the movies. And so i am a movie buff, and i know a lot of movies, but i purposely did not track down movies on these, because as entertaining as they are, they are not always aligned with history, as you know. I am not anti movie, i use movies, im an english teacher by trade so i use movies to get students excited about history and different things. But we must think beyond with the movie tells us to get the real story. I can tell you from the research that we did, that there is very little glamour in many of these escapes and rescues. Very little victory against all odds. Its really important we tell the stories, and retelling them is critical to remembering people in their efforts, as well as all those untold stories. Especially from those who did not get out. I want to take you back to actually my favorite time period, which is the middle ages, dave has working a little bit, brought me over to world war ii. But to understand a little bit more about p. O. W. s, you should understand just a little bit about where this concept came from. In the middle ages, there were very few prisoners of war, mostly because, unless you are noble, you werent worth a whole lot. If you are noble, you might be ransom defect your family but if you are common or, they didnt have much use for you. So they will probably either kill you off or in slave you or massacre you. There wasnt any point in trying to keep you around. And then we have the french wars in the 14th century, then we have changes in tactics and weaponry, Army Composition changed. Armies became larger and more lethal. The common soldiers actually became a little more important, because they were fighting with pikes and long bows and eventually rifles. It was at this point that accommodate could actually kill a noble, if they could get close enough and do some damage. So the value of that common soldier increased. And then nobles refined the rules of engagement a little bit more. In 16th and 17th centuries, armies are numbered in the thousand. As you can imagine, taking care of prison of war on that scale became difficult. By the mid 18th century, we went to more national armies, and soldiers who fought for ideology, for an idea. It became more difficult to get meant to switch sides, that was a common tactic in the middle ages. How about you fight for us and we wont kill you, was a pretty strong argument. And then of course, more men were needed if you are keeping these prisoners of war, so it became a time where they had to write down some rules of engagement and how things were going to be handled. The term has been used for centuries, prisoner of war became illegal status only after the hague peace conference in 1899. The provisions for the treatment of prisoners or extensive, but in some it guaranteed humane treatment, it specified what work prisoners could do. The agreement also required each prisoner to divulge true name, rank, date of birth and service number, if they had one. The geneva peace conferences for the refined the treatment of prisoners and place responsibility for the protection of prisoners on the leadership of the powers that had captured them. Torture was specifically outlawed as a means of extracting information, but as we know, the communist forces in korea and vietnam notoriously violated that provision. So you are going to go ahead and advance my slide for me and point out that i was supposed to do that first. Thanks. Escape. It sounds like it ought to be a nobrainer. It sounds like everybody would want to try and escape, but there are a number of problems that you have to consider if you are going to try and escape from a prison. The first one is, probably, first and foremost, you know you can be shot upon escape or upon recapture. The kind of thing happened. It was not a decision to be taken lightly. But once a prisoner decided that he or she was going to try and escape, there were a number of questions that have to be answered. The first question is, how are you going to get out of prison . Youve got a lot of really smart people who put together a prison in order to keep you inside of it. So there are some considerations that you need to think about, like guards and dogs and electrified barbed wire fences. And searchlights and watchtowers and land mines. A number of obstacles designed to keep you in. Lets assume that you do get out of the prison. What is the next question you probably need to ask yourself . How are you going to travel and where are you going to go . Walking takes a lot of time and a lot of energy. And prisoners would probably want to avoid the public. They could attract suspicion and maybe the attention of the police. A prisoner did not have money to purchase a ticket on an airplane, train, ship or any other kind of mode of transportation. And they probably did not speak the local language. So a number of problems need to be overcome. The third major issue is one of logistics. For most prisoners, the clothes that they were be wearing were out of the ordinary, most soldiers are captured in their uniforms and enemy uniforms or enemy personnel walking down the street are undoubtedly going to attract the wrong kind of attention. What about identification papers . Everybody in europe was required to carry them. How would you eat . You have no money. You want to avoid the local population, you cant just walk into a local dannys and order up some grub. The fourth major issue is, in either germany or japan, is the problem fitting in. This is particularly obvious obvious with an american in the pacific theater, where the japanese would have control of the philippines and other ride islands and other territories. But even in germany, i lived in germany and russia for a number of years, and nobody ever mistook me for a local. I dont know how they knew that i was an american, but they always did. The last question is one of physical limitations. As you can see, a whole lot of these guys are not treated particularly well. The idea of getting out of a prison camp and putting some distance between themselves and the guards who would be probably be looking for them rather quickly, raises some obvious. Problems so there are a number of issues that you have to think through before you can even consider the idea of escape. And so, one of the things that you might want to do is get some help in your escape efforts. And for these reasons, every escapee had to have the help of other prisoners. So large prison camps would have escaped committees. They are usually made up of the highest ranking folks in the prison camp itself, and if you are a prisoner and you have an idea that you are going to escape from prison, you would need to go to the escape committee and present your plan. So remember, this is a military organization and the idea of hierarchy is one that is embraced. So if you have a plan, you go to the Skate Committee and brief them, and the committee can either approve or disapprove it. One of the reasons the escape committee might disapprove of your plan and say no, you cannot escape in that manner at that time in that way that you have described. You need to put your plans on the backburner. One of the reasons that might be the case is you might interfere with another escape plan thats already in the works. So you need to coordinate that. The last thing you would want is to mess up one plan because you stumbled into something. Another reason that the escape might be disapproved is that it had little chance of success. So the escape committee might look at this idea and say, you know, all you are going to do is bring a whole lot of scrutiny and attention to the prisoners and the idea of escaping, which May Institute new rules and regulations that will make it harder for everybody else. And so you really did need to have some semblance or chance of success in getting out. Now, if the Committee Approved your escape plan, that meant that the entire committee and most likely a whole lot of folks within the prison itself were going to help you out and assist in your escape. So there is not a lot that folks could do, but maybe a distraction to draw attention away from whatever area you are going to be focused on and getting out of in the prison. And there used to be a number of civilian occupations that would help in a prisoner escape. There used to be a whole lot of folks who are printers and did ink and paper and were able to make and forge a dentification papers. Artists were also very good at helping with the more intricate details of faking identification papers. Tailors is another one where they might be able to take your uniform and make it look more like a civilian suit that an army uniform, especially if it was died. So bribing guards is another thing that the prison system would do. Everybody would be checking. So how vulnerable is this new guard . Can i bribe . Them can i buy some things from him . How amenable is this person to making a trade of some sort . So oftentimes, the only way that you could get really critical equipment like a typewriter or a camera to take pictures of people, to make these fake eddie papers, was to bribe guards. Lots of folks didnt even know exactly where they were in the prison camps system. But information could be had from guards. You could also bribe guards to get money so that prisoners, once they escaped, would actually have some currency, maybe if they spoke the language well enough they could try to purchase a ticket and that sort of thing. On one hand, escape would be difficult, but if you can try to leverage the knowledge and the expertise of folks within the prison, a lot of times you have a good shot at least of getting away a little bit. And so, with that, i am going to advance the slide and turn it back over to caleb. He is train a bill and thats why we are friends. A little bit of my thunder was stolen, but i can talk about the great escape today. I have assume a lot of you know this, but for those who dont, dave was talking about all the logistics of getting out of the camp. The men still tried to escape, even with all of those issues that they had. In fact, the l. A. Prisoners were notorious for trying to escape from their german captors. The germans put the worst of the offenders and their best camps in the most secure camps. That camp primarily held allied air force personnel and was located in poland, about 100 miles southeast of berlin. As you can see in the image on the left side, the barracks were built off the ground, tunneling efforts difficult. There was also some sand underneath the topsoil that had a distinct golden color. As they were trying to tunnel, de had to put that sand somewhere. And quite, often they would put it in socks and take it up above and try to walk around and get rid of it. But when its golden and its on top, it is noticeable. The tunnels also had to be long because the barracks were back from the fence along ways. So in order to tunnel, they had to hide what they were working on and they actually here being a little humorous, they named them the tom, dick, and harry, tunnels. They were built in the corner of one of the barracks. The harry was under a stove and the last, one the dick tunnel, was in the shower room underneath the drain. Each tunnel went right down for about 40 feet, which enabled them to avoid the microphones that they had in place so that they could hear the tunneling. And then of course that sandy soil, as we talked about. Eventually, they ran out of places to put the sand and they decided they would sacrifice one of the tunnels, the dick title, and fill that with sand and with all the supplies they needed for once they got out. Shortly after, that the germans found the tom tunnel. To the tunnels were compromised. And so they began working on the last tunnel, the harry tunnel, with renewed enthusiasm. They heard they would be shipped to a more secure camp because of their shenanigans and so they wanted to get this moving and get out as soon as they could. They finished this tunnel about mid march and it took them about 15 months to complete one of the tunnels. And they had to wait for a moonless night in order to get out. The plan was 40 feet down, 300 past the fence, and then into the woods. The first one is out. We and then they had a lottery for the next hundred and thought they could get about 200 men out in a single night. At 10 30 that night, the first man made it through the tunnel and found that the tunnel cleared the fence, went under, it but did not make it to the woods. This was something they hadnt accounted for. The exit of the tunnel could be seen from the guard tower and a greatly slowed down the process of getting the men out. We complicate things about midnight, so it started at 10 30, had, midnight the aerate sirens went off. And of course, those americans had plugged into the electricity system in the tunnel. When the air raids went off, they cut the power. So they had to stop. The power came back on and then one of the braces let loose and the tunnel collapsed and they had to dig that part out again. It 5 00 in the morning, they have gotten 76 of those 100 men out. The 77th one was caught. The men who got out all ran into the forest. They thought theyd be able to find their way to the rail station with all of their papers. It was not as easy as they thought. There is also a lot of snow, so even traveling around was pretty difficult. All but three of them, as you mentioned, were caught and rounded up within two weeks. The germans executed 50 of those 76 within two weeks. The three who made it back to their homes, as you mentioned, were two norwegian pilots and one dutch pilot. Some of you know the story. Probably some parts of it or from the great escape. It was pretty fictionalized. But an entertaining one nonetheless. He we and you mentioned the cooler king, and i am glad you did. This is the character that Steve Mcqueen was based upon. He was known as the cooler king because he was captured several times. He was the basis for the Steve Mcqueen character. He was a native texan who had volunteered for the Royal Canadian air force in june of 1940. Here and its pilots wings and went to britain to fly spit fires. He was shot down near kelly in france. He was one of the most heavily punished prisoners in world war ii, spending over six months in solitary confinement. His first stint came after a prank against the german guards. The guards were trying to count the prisoners as they often did and several of the men, including ash, started milling around. If you have ever tried to count kindergartners, you can imagine it is very similar. The guards did not find it is funny and ash ended up in the cooler. That was his First Experience in the cooler. Then he tried to escape. He was caught hiding in the shower room and was hoping they wouldnt notice he was gone, but they counted prisoners and he got two weeks in the cooler. The camp came overcrowded. He was sent to another capital about 150 miles to the northeast in poland. The day he got, there he tried to escape again. He was unloading a train and rolled underneath it to get to the other side and ran and they caught him and put him in the cooler again for a couple of weeks. During this time, he had actually secured a little nail file and was trying to get out of the cell when they called him a second time. Another two weeks for that. You see a pattern here with william ash. He gets out of the cooler and then he tries to cut through the fence with wire cutters. That, time he did not get caught, but his two compiled raise did. He also tunneled out, and again was caught. He spent about ten days in the cooler for that one we. He was on the list for a couple of weeks and was caught, this time they said they would execute him because he was a bit problematic. But instead, they sent him back with three. And while he was in the cooler that, time here is when the great escape took place. He couldnt participate in the great escape because he was in the cooler at the time. After they executed those 50, man he decided his career was over is an escape artist. As i was researching him, i couldnt help but think of all of the hogans heroes i had watched as a kid. The prisoners and their guards and this fun rivalry back and forth, but there were no charming colonel hogans or daft Sergeant Schultz is i dont think in the real german p. O. W. Camps, as fun as they were to watch on tv. Certainly, thats not what was depicted in real life. So if there was an award for the prisoner demonstrating the greatest amount of coolness under pressure, that award would probably have to go to george crimson. He was a british Radio Operator on a british bomber and he was shot down july 15th 1940. He was transferred to a number of different prison camps until he settled permanently at stall log three, that kayla was just talking about. Grim sin was a serial escape, are kind of like william ash. He learned to speak german very well, with very little accent. But it was his confidence and bluster that were his greatest essence. He twice escaped from prison by dressing as a german officer and simply walking out the front gates. Both times he was on a train headed north and he attracted the attention of the gestapo and the police, and so he was quickly sent back to the prison camps. But grim since most daring escape came when he pretended to be a german electrician so that he could get near the electrified fence. He disguise himself by wearing a Blue Jumpsuit and died his air force kept loose so that he would resemble a German Air Force enlisted man. And he carried a leather belt with his tools. He had a bag with all of these wires hanging out. He had a fake electrical meter. And fake identity papers as well in his clothes. So he started away from the camp. This is a depiction of the camp. And you can see right here. This is a gate. Its not the main gate, but this is a german or sorry a, this is the prison, the prisoner section of where the allied prisoners were kept. But this is the german section of the camp. So this is where all of the guards were. And so, in order to get out of the prison, you would have to go through this main gate here from the prisoner section into the german section and then right out the main gate here. This is your final objective. So what George Grimson did, was he started out as an electrician back here. He wasnt even close to the main gate so he would detracts patient of the gate guards. He is dressed up as an electrician. He walks to the back end of the prison and kind of looks up at the watchtower and gets permission from the guard tower to start checking the fence. So he has this fake electrical meter. He is checking the barbed wire, the electrified fence. It is a wonder he didnt electrocute himself because i dont know how he was faking it. But they bought it. So until he moved, he begins working his way down the prison fence until he gets right to the watchtower, right under the watch our, right here. So he is right beside the gates. He is right under the watchtower. And then, wouldnt you know it, he accidentally drops his electrical meter on the other side of the fence. So he looks up at the watchtower and he swears loudly and the soldier in the guard tower kind of laughs at him and he says go ahead go get it. He walks right out the main gate. He stops, picks up his electrical meter and just keeps going. Nobody really questions him because he is obviously a German Air Force enlisted man. He walks out, he takes off his jumpsuit, underneath, he has gotten a suit from the escape committee. And so he is on the loose for a while, anyway. He bluffs is way onto a train headed for the baltics sea. Again, he attracts the attention of the train police, whoever it is. He is rounded up, he is sent to another prison camp. Next, after this escape attempt, he is actually sent to lithuania. It is not too long until he has decided hes going to escape again. Whats interesting is that they have got the tally hole network, which is a series or a number of Prison Guards who are very bribe all, very susceptible to bribes. In the prison system, the escape committee has bought a number of prison guard uniforms, a number right any papers, a number of passes, so they can see exactly what the paperwork looks like that they have got to recreate. And so George Grimson goes to you the escape committee and says, i want to escape. They say, that is good, because we have a job for you. One of the biggest problem is that almost anybody who escapes is almost certain to be caught, without any help on the outside. With the prison escape Committee Asks grimson to do is, we want you to escape but stay in the local area and work with the polish underground so that when other people escape, you can help them on their way. Says he agrees. He is set up outside the prison, working with the polish underground, for about three months until he just disappears. Nobody knows what happens to him. To this day, nobody is really sure. Most likely, what happened, is the germans figured out that their Prison Guards were corrupted and they were certainly arrested. They would have been executed, but most likely, those Prison Guards were tortured before they were executed and most likely told the germans about George Grimson and his operations right outside the prison walls. Grimson helped three soldiers to escape and they made it all the way back to england. But most likely, the gestapo heard about grimson working in the local area, he was arrested and executed although there is no record of it anywhere. A great book about grimson is called the sergeant coup escapers its about a number of different episodes but his story is in there if you are interested. The story about George Grimson was one of bluff and courage, this next episode uses a lot of those same factors. The story is about a german prisoner who made one of the longest escapes ever during world war ii. Says the person we want to talk about is a german Fighter Pilot shot down over england, september 5th, 1940. He was taken prisoner within minutes of crashing. He was interrogated for several weeks, then transferred to a p. O. W. Camp. The great thing about him is that he spoke english very, very well. Slight accent, but he spoke english very well. On october 7th, 1940, he makes his first escape attempt. The british used to take prisoners on long hikes through the countryside. Theyre in england, youve got the atlantic on the left and the English Channel on the right, where youre going to go . Still it is kind of a pain to trying around these fellows up as often as they tried to escape. Werra was one of those guys. Out on one of these long nature hikes, some of his buddies start a fight to distract the guards. He jumps off a bridge, runs into some woods, and he is at large for about six days before they finally track him down in some of the High Mountain meadows where the sheep are grazing. He was pretty hungry and pretty cold, so he really didnt resist too much when he was arrested again. He was also a serial escaper. That is not the end of our story. Soon, he was at it again. He was transferred to a tougher prison camp where werra and four other guys proceeded to tunnel out of their barracks under the fence, even under the road until they popped out into the woods. Says werra and these four guys go their separate ways. You werra is a pilot and he has got the idea that he is going to sneak onto a Royal Air Force base, steal a plane and fly it back to germany. Sounds crazy, right . Well nobody ever accused him of being incredibly sane. Says he decides to give it the Old Middle School try. He has to get to a base, he follows the sounds of a train whistle until he comes to a small railroad station. He comes up to the clerk with a bit of an accident, he is not from around here, he told the clerk that he is a dutch Fighter Pilot, shot down the night before, and i need to get to my base quickly. The clerk is rather suspicious. He is listening to the story, i didnt hear anything about a plane being shot down around here. He calls the police. Werra, as charming as he is courageous, within a few minutes, he has talked to the clerk down off the ledge and has convinced him that he really is a dutch Fighter Pilot, and i got to get back to my base. He calls the local base and they say, we will send a car. Now you have the Police Coming and the air force coming. You can be sure werra is hoping that the air force gets there first. But as luck would have it, it is the police. To cross the old detective show up and they start questioning him. They are pretty suspicious as well. But that does not deter him. He is as charming and as polite and as flattering as he can be, and pretty soon he has turned these two detectives, they believe him. The air force is on their way. We will stay here and just chat with our allied Fighter Pilot and passed the time. Eventually, says the air force does send a card to pick up werra and police are waving at him, they Exchange Numbers are addresses i guess and promise to stay in touch. I made up that last part. But you get the idea. These two cross the old Police Detectives totally bought the story. So now, he goes to this air force base. Where he walks into the Administration Office and says, i am from this other base and i would like to borrow a plane so i can get back to my unit. And the air force guys are not buying it for a second. There are like, where are you from again . What did you say your name was . Where were you shot down . No reports of any planes being shot down there. We are going to go ahead and call your unit and check up on you. They are trying to get through, they pick up the phone. You werra simply stands up and he walks out of the office, hes going to look for a plane. It is not too long before he wanders through the gate, blusters is way through the guard gates, he goes and finds a brandnew hawk or hurricane airplane sitting next to the runway. He climbs inside, looks at the instruments and has no earthly idea how to start this thing. He gets out of the plane, walks around, finds a mechanic, this German Air Force officer finds a british mechanic to come explain to him how to start this british airplane. And he does it. The mechanic does and says heres what youve got to do. You have to turn the switch and flip that lever. Got it. I understand how to fly the plane. Says werra is sitting there, excited, moments away from freedom until he realizes you cant just start this thing by pressing a button, you need an external power supply. Would you mind going to get one . Sure. The mechanic leaves to go get this power supply to start up the airplane, again, moments away from freedom, all he needs to start the engine until he hears the words, get out. He has been discovered. He is arrested, he is transferred back to another prison camp. But thats not the end of our story. Werra is soon selected to go to a prison camp in canada. Hes put on a ship for halifax, nova scotia, the prisoners get to canada, they are loaded on trains for the ride to the prison camp. The guards believe that the train is escape proof because the windows have all frozen shot. This is in january of 1941. With all of those prisoners crammed into this railroad car and each car has a small, in effect event inefficient heater, but it has got one. And with werra scraping on the window, as persistently as he does, it is not long before he has opened up the window where everybody has assumed that this rail car is escape proof. His plan is, as soon as this train start slowing down, im going to jump. The train slows down, comes into a small station and pretty soon, it is starting back up again. As the train pulls away from the station, werra lifts up the window gets his buddies to give him a boost and he jumps out, and he falls into a snowbank that breaks his fall. The place that is circled, this intersection, that is where he has jumped out of the train. You can see where i have highlighted, or placing google maps, this town of augsburg. New york thats about 30 miles between the point where he jumps out of the plane and where he crosses over into the United States. So he is pretty cold, as you can imagine. There is a newspaper article there that shows his band dated and frostbitten ears. He is hoping that the st. Lawrence river between canada and the United States is frozen over. It is not. He has to spend a few more hours. He finds about. But eventually, he gets across the river and into the United States and finds a road and just starts walking until he finds himself in dogged in bergh new york. And so, the first thing that he does is turn himself in to local police officials. He is charged with illegal entry into the United States, but other than that, no one really knows what to do with him. So he is allowed to roam free on the previous page there was an article about german p. O. W. s seeing the sites in new york city and living it up and so forth. He is not sure of is what the americans will do. Will they ship him back to canada . He wont wait to find out. Remember, we are not at war yet. This is january of 1941. We are not at war until december. German intelligence is operating in the United States kind of freely and they get into mexico. Lets, there he makes his way to buenos aires, or brazil. From brazil, he catches an ocean liner to spain and then he takes his way to italy and then he goes back to germany. This is about april. It takes about four months to get back to germany. Upon his return in april of 1940, one adolf hitler returns him with the nights cross of the iron cross. By july of 1940, juan hitler has invaded the soviet union. Bera is on the front lines with his air force unit. It is a couple of months later that he is transferred back to germany. His squadron gets brandnew fighters. So they are testing these things out in new holland. On october 25th 1941, very takes off in his brandon fighter. He is going to get tested out over the atlantic. For whatever reason, the engine seizes up. And he has to crash land into the atlantic. And he is killed. He was a german, right . But after all of that, its kind of a sad story. So he dies, but his body is never recovered. A great book all about their is exploits is called the one that got away. It was written in 1957. And there was even a movie that was created in 2002 by the same name. We have had confidence and charm, and now we have longevity. Henry truro was a french soldier and he was one of the few that served in both world war i and world war ii. Is the only one i could find. I am sure there are more, but he was the only one i could find that escape from both world war i and world war ii encampments. He was a captain in world war i and he was captured during a bayonet purge at the battle of st. Clinton in 1914. He spent a couple months in german captivity. He escaped and joined the circus. I am not making that up. But then he got the help of ediths network. If you havent read any of the work about edith cabal, it is just fascinating, her role in world war i. He escaped back to the netherlands in the back to france. Just over 25 years later, he was 61. He was a five star general. He was fighting in france it was captured again by the germans. During his long military career, he had honed his expertise in the german language. He spoke at very well. He also knew about their tactics quite well. So he wasnt surprised when they sent him to a prisoner of war camp on a cliff face with guarded entrances. They had a pretty good idea that he was quite the fellow. They didnt think hed be able to escape. So for two, years he looked for ways to escape. He kept learning his german. He memorized the area. He stole the map. But he was also an officer and being an officer, he had privileges those did not. And he got all of the other things that he needed like rope. It took him to, years but he did. And he also got to go on a daily walk. We mentioned that being in england and going on walks, he was allowed that privilege as well because of his rank. On april 17th, in 1942, he climbed down 150 foot cliff face and escaped. For any man, or, woman climbing down 15 stories is quite a feat. But he was 63. He made it to the cliff base, shaved his mustache, and put on a had and raincoat and basically walked away from the camp. His escape consisted of two parts. First, he met a young man who had papers and clothing for him. His wife had arranged this and a prearrange meeting. Part two of the escape was a bit trickier. He got on a train, avoided the gestapo, and bluffed his way through the various checkpoints. He crossed the border into occupied france. So he made it through all of those checkpoints, even though the guards were supposed to stop anyone over five foot 11. Henry was six feet tall. In 1914, he sent a telegram to his wife about his escape. He sent the same telegram in his second escape. Business concluded. He was an excellent health. This was probably the hardest story for me to tell, just because it was so moving when i was researching it. But one of the most extensive prisoner of war camps escapes in world war ii happened in october 1943 and one of three death camps in poland. So bore was located at the eastern border of poland. And not many documents have survived because the germans tried to erase the history of what happened at the camp. It opened in the spring of 1942 knows built expressly for the purpose of killing jews. The area was remote and the land was not, good but it did have a rail line. Jews arrived by the trainload, usually ten boxcars at a time, carrying about 2000 people. And every jew sent to sobibor was gassed within 24 hours. Those arriving were told they were at a transfer station. Their valuables and clothing were taking from them. Their hair was cut before they were sent through to the showers, which as we, know the showers with the gas chambers. Some jews were retained to work, and those who work there knew what they were involved in. This caused them great distress. They had to clean up the remains after each trainload was gassed. They had to bury the people in the mass graves. The jewish workers were expected to herd these people through the train, through the, camp and to their death. And they were told not to speak up. While there was some knowledge about civil war that reached people in london and washington, leaders did not intervene. By the spring of 1943, most polish jews were dead. In the summer of 1943, the dutch jews were brought in and killed. By september 1943, there were a few, if, any trains arriving in sobibor. The workers who are there were pretty worried about when they were going to be gassed. In late september 1943, the russian jews arrived. Among that group, sauna. Rumors within so bore or focused on when the camp would close. And when that happened, that all the remaining jews would be killed. So they had to act quickly. Within 20, days they made a plan. There was still about 600 prisoners at sobibor at that time. On october 14th, 1943, about 300 of them escape, making it one of the largest escapes during world war ii. The other members on the committee killed 11 german officers, overpowered the camp guards, and sees the armory. Their plan was then to walk out, but it turned into a very chaotic event that night. Some of the escapees were caught right away, many were helped by farmers, he lived for several months in a farmers barn. Those who did not escape were shot. Within days of the escape, the ss ordered the count taken down because they did not want the world to see what they were doing. Approximately 260,000 people were murdered. Many of those who escaped spoke widely about his experience at that camp, he passed away not too long ago. We had not originally planned to talk about auschwitz today, but yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the liberation. It seems fitting that we talk about this, particularly one of the escapes from this camp. So at the height of the concentration camp operations in 1944, the germans were executing about 12,000 people per day. Hardly anyone outside of the camps knew what was going on. Two young men would eventually make their escape and tell the world what was happening at auschwitz and other concentration camps. One was 17 when he was sent to auschwitz. He believed that if he could get the truth out about the camps than people would stop getting on trains and stop leaving what they were being told. He was determined to tell people what was going on. He turned to a 25yearold man named alfred for help, he was from the same town and slovakia. He was connected in the camp, and he got the other a new job, in an office, where he was running down the names of the people who were sent to the showers. He had access to all those german records. All of the prisoners that were killed, and he also had the determination to escape. In 1944, he was now 19 and the other man was 27, hit inside a hollow of wood pile and covered themselves in gas soaked tobacco leave so that the dogs wouldnt find them. They knew from past experience that it would only take three days before the guards quit looking for them. They waited for three days and days in that would pile. Then they walked 15 days, threw 85 miles of occupied poland the slovakian border and they arrived at the Jewish Council headquarters. Those of the organization knew that the concentration camps were bad, but they had no idea of the atrocities that were going on there. In fact, they were so stunned by the stories, they were not sure they could believe them. It wasnt until one man started reciting the names of hundreds of exterminator jews, the names of those that he had written down in those books, what work in the office, but they finally believed them. They had knowledge of conditions that would only be known to somebody who had been there. Soon afterwards, the papers around the world picked up the stories and their vowed to tell people what was happening at auschwitz was fulfilled. Our last episode of the night is about the prison rescue. This episode is unique in that its actually a rescue, not an escape, it takes place in the pacific theater. So the japanese have taken many prisoners of war through the battles of the pacific, by 1944, they are losing the war and they are losing territory. And they feared that many of the prisoners that they had taken would be liberated by the advancing allied armies, japanese officials gave orders that no prisoner is ever to be lost to the allies, they should be executed first. In december of 1944, allied forces are approaching a japanese prison camp in the philippines. When the japanese realized how close the allies were, they took 150 allied prisoners and put them in a ditch, put gasoline in their, set it on fire folks who are trying to jump out, they would be shot. 11 out of the hundred and 50 actually made it out of the ditch into the woods and were able to relate to this story once they were behind friendly lines, which gave more impetus to the idea of liberating these prison camps before the allies got to close. The next japanese prison camp that was likely to be massacred were prisoners at this prison camp, also in the philippines, where over 500 allied prisoners were being held. Many american and filipino soldiers were veterans of a death march and were in pretty rough shape, making this rescue all the more problematic. That the idea that the prison camp was about 30 miles behind friendly lines only added to the complexity of this problem. Companies of the sixth ranger battalion under the command of Lieutenant Colonel henry mucci, were tasked with the order to liberate the camp. 125 rangers left their encampments and on the way, they picked up philippine alamo scouts and guerrilla fighters until their numbers reached about 450 soldiers altogether. The plan called for Charlie Company to set up at the front of the camp and Foxtrot Company to go around behind the camp and the signal for the start of the attack was one Foxtrot Company was in place, they would initiate the attack. As you can imagine, the prisoners were pretty confused. What is going on . Are we all being executed . Confusion reigns. But pretty quickly, they figure out that these americans in uniform are there to rescue them. , within about 30 minutes, from start to finish, from the start of the attack until 30 minutes later, all 513 allied prisoners of war were outside of the camp and on their way back to friendly lines. As i told you, a whole lot of these folks are in pretty rough shape. So the guerrilla fighters, the alamo scouts had coordinated with local villagers to come give a hand and get these folks out of the prison camps and back behind friendly lines. Many of the philippine villagers brought their water buffalo, hooked up with carts, and for those prisoners that could not walk, they had a right, 30 miles back to the friendly lines. It took almost a week with folks who were in pretty rough shape to get everybody back. But they did. All 513. Within about a week, the american soldiers were put on ships and were headed back home. Probably the best book that i have read on this is called ghost soldiers. It goes into detail, if you are interested. To wrap up, lots . Always, i always have thoughts. It was really a privilege to work on these stories and to do research. I am a student of history, dave is a professor of history. I am the writer and the editor. It was really encouraging for me to read all these wonderful stories of people helping each other. I think the hardest part, for me, was all the people who did not make it out. I would agree. Got it was a really rewarding experience to read about the courage of ordinary people an ordinary people helping other ordinary people. The maybe we can go forward and try to exercise that a little bit in our own lives. All right . So, we have a couple more presentations coming up in the next six months. As part of this world war ii exhibit or series. You can see, we will talk about iwo jima, liberation of manila, death of fdr, that of hitler. The occupation of germany . I will be back. If you are interested, if you can make it. June 9th, shouldnt be a lot of problems with snow. Its kansas, you never know. Then my boss is coming to talk about macarthur. With that, we have a couple microphones that are being placed in the aisles. If anybody has questions, come on up to the microphones and feel free to ask. I will most likely turn it over to my coauthor to answer your questions. [applause] as teachers of history, you can appreciate multiple choice questions. I have three questions, choose one. If you have a comment about raids on hollenberg. The third was about the one legged man who escaped. Any of those three would be great. One was about how one got a ticket into colditz. These guys who escaped, colditz was supposed to be the highest security german camp. How did one got there as opposed to being sent back to one of the regular one . There is a great story in the book about that. You could earn a ticket to get into colditz, which is difficult, physical place to get in and out of. They still managed to escape from there, which was incredible. A number of people, you did get a ticket to there. They tried to move those managed to escape americans to places where they would stay put. Thank you so much. This is fascinating. I write for our american greatness in the federalist. When i was in the university of kansas, i heard a story that the chapel was constructed by german prisoners of war. I think during world war ii. Have you heard stories about shenanigans of german prisoners of war that came to america, held in america, escaping or stirring up trouble over here . I have not heard a lot of stories about prisoners creating problems. In fact, most prisoners had a good idea what life was like back home. At the end of world war ii, by the last year, the soviet union is overrunning russia and ukraine. That is the breadbasket of europe. All of that food had been cut off. In order for a german prisoner of war, in the United States and there were hundreds of thousands of them all over the United States those prisoners of war were generally working on farms. And they got to it pretty well. Most of them were pretty grateful to be working on farms. They would literally go live with farm families and do the work every day. That is an area that is wide open for a whole lot more research. What is it that prisoners were doing . It would not surprise me that they built that chapel, i just dont know for sure if they did. They were engaged in all kinds of work. At a pretty reasonable price, i think it cost about if a farmer wanted to hire german p. O. W. , i think it cost about ten cents a day if the government was going to feed them or a farmer could simply feed them out of what he had on hand. You have some thoughts . Law not necessarily related to that, but i have been doing some work on minnesota history. The total wars of 1862, after the hanging, a lot of the dakota men were sent to iowa on a camp there. They did not try to escape because of the threat of what would happen to their families, which were on the reservation. There were some other things at play other than just trying to escape. They were working, and food was good, and the promise was that their families were taking care of as long as they stayed put. Look whos regarding that topic, if you go to fort robinson, nebraska, which is in the panhandle, there was an army Cavalry Center in the thirties. It was a huge p. O. W. Camp. And they put on place there, its an interesting place to go to. If you are on route six, there is a historical sign. , some on the brakes, Historical Marker. There was a big p. O. W. Camp, they were mostly mostly african p. O. W. s. The scene from the great escape, i know its fictionalized was one british monster was having dinner with his german home and hes passing by, hes eating and hes eating in a british way, hes using his fork in his left hand, poking the meat, carving to meet with the right hand that is how my grandparents who were english would eat, that is how i tend to eat. That gave him away. You had to think about stuff like that, even if you spoke perfect german, yeah. Interesting. Thank you. Yes sir. I want to thank you most of all for putting a german prisoner of war camps in the same lecture with concentration camps. I think its important to know the difference and that with that in mind if you are in a air forced prison work camp and you escape, its probably going to be incentive to stop all that pursues you enter takes you to custody. That brings you me to my question. If youre a prisoner at a war camp and youre being treated reasonably well, i wont say good but certainly better the japanese in the philippines. My question is with that in mind, you are in the custody of move waffle personnel who i will say a reasonably humane, youre gonna be liberated anyway because were winning it worth. If youre a prisoner at a war camp being treated reasonably well, and yet few escape you can have the same people if there was a case to be meet wouldnt it be better for them to sit quiet and be liberated . Save lives. Wouldnt that be better . Absolutely which is why the number of people who attempted to escape was less than 1 . Most people work perfectly happy to without the work. Youre taking your life into your whole own hands by trying to escape. Thanks for putting those two things together. Thats important. I have a question but also a comment about the german prisoners of war here. I have a very good friend whose father was an ss officer and was imprisoned in i believe kansas and he loved the United States so much that as soon as he could he brought his family to the United States and thats how my friend and the whole family became wonderful u. S. Citizens fully the work. My question is this, these serial escapists, considering some of the other terrible things that germans did to people, why were they allowed to be put back in the cooler and then back in the cooler and then back in the cooler again . I mean, was it kind of entertaining . Or did they in a way grudgingly respect them . Why dont they just get rid of those because they were always a problem . I think it was partly because of the war and how they were supposed to be executed, they were supposed to be executed. When he shot 50 of them when they came back but part of it is trying to be humane treatment. Im sure they were annoyed. Maybe entertained, i dont know. The last five. I have a followup to the gentleman that was in front of me we talked about why you would escape and then of course we no doubt know from the author, Winston Churchill, his great escape from the war, did that and his romance . Obviously history, being a great journalist was out, there his rise in fame. Did that affect, when you did your research does that affect the mindset of some of these prisoners . Are you talking about Winston Churchill . So Winston Churchill escapes late 1890 as i recall. So the bowler war. Yes. Theres a local artist, local author, i cant remember her name. Yes we include that episode of Winston Churchill and our buck as well. So yeah Winston Churchill escapes. He has to walk essentially across the desert, hes nearly killed a number of times. And its something, hes a politician, and a writer, prolific writer, whos he going to write about beside him self . So its a great way to gain publicity, and there are those, one of the arguments is thats how he gets into politics. By playing this veterans kurd and the hero card, to its maximum. And it works pretty well for him. Yes sir. How did you go about identifying the sources for all of the research that you did . And how did you pull it together . Was it from military sources, civilian sources, what . Yes. Long answer. We are fortunate to have access to military records which give us access to things we can have access to yet. As well as having as many primary sources as possible, certainly we call them the military records that you have access to. So this was a pretty big project. I think we had 77 different episodes in the book. Each one had to be individually researched, so we relied a whole lot on secondary sources as well. If we could find a book where someone had run it, and we found some military records, but it would have been forever trying to get to the National Archives and research that way, so largely, a lot of these, we would have four, five, six different sources for things and lining up so we can be thinks as accurate as we could. So the sources came from all over. Yeah. Yes maam. I just want to see that 75 years today, 75 years ago my dad was captured near st. Beth in belgium, it was like a month and a half after the union, and he was taken to bad orb, it was stalin 9b. My husband and i went there and at the time the format of the campus somewhat similar to the pitch of the camp he showed early on. It was a childrens camp then, the buildings were some of the same, buildings that you showed, and on the outside of the camp there was a Historical Marker saying that this had been stolen 9b. There were graves inside attributed to the war. Then in 2017 we were taking our grandchildren, there at that time were we knew where the camp had been but we passed because it was totally different. Now it was a very kind of all against school, i think people would commit to study certain things. Their attitude towards us, asking us questions, they kind of brush we often want to talk to me. Im just wondering when was the transition internally where theyre trying to you know, i mean i can understand that its a long time since the war and its probably not a proud history of those camps, but you know when they started the history in world war ii in germany is pretty problematic. We get german officers at the school who you know have to be very careful about some of the things that they have to say in class. We take a number of students over to germany and we do a joint staff writer, American Students and german students, and we talk about the battle of the, but we have to be very careful about the things that we study in the zone that we see. The government is very cognizant of the nazi past and how cognizant that is. So it doesnt surprise me that theyre not kind of amplifying that hold thing. The third kind of just letting it go. I believe your story. Yeah. Thank you. Sir. Very nice presentation. Wonderful. As weve been reminded in this last, week and as weve been reminded but some of the people speaking of the jewish holocaust. Were also reminded that nazis killed probably half 1 million roma, homosexuals, lots of different groups. Was one of the worst if not the worst. Did you run into research about henry other groups of where they were when this keeps happened . The last escape. The sheer volume that went through there was overwhelming the research. The other were a lot of Political Prisoners early on. There were, as the germans went east, the hungarians, the romanian,s different ethnic groups were showing up at different times, but the good news is i dont have it on my list here but dave qatar is gonna be coming in and talking about the holocaust in a little more depth. Hes going to talk about the persistent holocaust which was even after the war was over there was persecution against the jews and a number of them were killed. That sort of thing. It was anyone that didnt support them and was for whatever reason deemed unworthy. French, italian, if you anywhere oppose the regime you were probably going to end up in a concentration camp. Americans and it up and concentration camps. Political prisoners, anyone considered not in support of whats going to end up in concentration camp. What could be the advantage of a prison guard taking a bribe like that in nazi germany . What would the bribe them with . Food at of red cross packages mostly. Very dangerous when it . Absolutely. Human nature. For the, guards i dont have a lot of information, the best speculation is when they were arrested, and they were tortured before their execution thats probably when the gave george. In passing we know that the scheme was uncovered and they were punished for it. Yes. Thank you. applause thank you. noise youre watching American History tv. Every weekend on cspan three. Explore our nations past. Cspan 3. Created by americans Cable Company and brought to you by your cable provider. Weeknights this month were featuring American History tv programs as whats available thursday night a look at civil war objects. Historians harold holds her and valerie host a series of online talks about artifacts in their joint application, the civil war, they discussed a pike ordered by abolitionist john brown and a model of abraham lincolns hand. Watch thursday night beginning at eight eastern. Enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan three. Sunday at 4 pm eastern, on real america. Three films on the 1976 elections, produced by the u. S. Information agency for an international audience. Then at a pm eastern on the presidency, acceptance speeches from five president ial nominees. But as an, hour john f. Kennedy, and richard nixon. Exploring the american story, watch american tv, on cspan three. On august 25th, u. S. Soldiers liberty paris after four years of german occupation. Next on American History tv, harry chronicles the operation hosted by the Kansas City Public Library in the u. S. Command and staff college. This is an hour. Good evening everyone, im kelly evans, and part of the Public Affairs team at the Kansas City Public Library. Thrilled to have you here today,