Escape from Bieberach

Escape from Biberach

 

Duncan's the name – I'm a prisoner now

Along with 300 brave Brits

The nine months we've rotted is nine months too long.

Soon rebirth for those who are fit.

 

Our birthing tunnel we've carved every day

With spoons and tiles and such.

So far we think our secret is safe

Stored in the roofs of our huts.

 

We're heard that soon we'll be leaving this camp

To a Stalag some miles away

Tho our tunnel's far short of its intended length

We must go off without a delay

 

We waited till dark then took off our clothes

Made a pack of our gear and our food.

The tunnel would come up a foot from the fence,

Our chances were not very good.

 

The idea being mine, I took the first place

And crawled through the walls very neat.

My breath was cut short, through panic or not

But I tapped up the last several feet.

 

The guards were not looking, how lucky that was.

I crawled as fast as I could

To some shelter – at least a partial hideout

But we needed the cover of woods.

 

Barry came second, I heard him emerge.

He saw me, but his progress was slow.

We'd planned our escape to the nth degree,

We knew just where we would go.

 

The border lay South, they'd be looking for us

So we wearily wended north west.

We walked and we limped for the rest of the night

And when it grew light, we took rest.

 

Later we heard that ninety - six had got out -

Ninety-two did not last the course.

They were captured again by the end of the week

And back to the camp, no doubt worse.

 

It took us a fortnight, by walking at night

Of sleeping by day, if we could.

We managed to evade any curious eyes

And slowly our destiny stood.

 

Our rations of chocolate and porridgy-mix

Lasted our long trip through

But when we emerged in Swissland at last

We gobbled their wonderful food.

 

It took two more months to get us home

The Swiss were neutral you see.

They couldn't let us do other than stay

In safely, but not really free.

 

So we found our way from there to France

And then we went into Spain

We got to Gibralter, that wonderful rock

And from there we reached home again.

(Michael Duncan, whose escape diary I have a copy of) was my father-in-law's cousin.)

 

ESCAPE
FROM OFLAG VB BIBERACH. By
Stefan Rasser. From the National Ex-Prisoner of War Association, Winter 2011
Newsletter

 

The most successful escape by British POWs in Germany during WW 2.

 

“On 13th September 1941, 26 British officers escaped from the OFLAG VB
camp in Biberach, Southern Germany, and two weeks later four officers
(15%) finally made it to Switzerland. The numerically much larger and
maybe more spectacular Great Escape in March 1944, “only” had
three home runs. In Biberach, organised by Lt. Col. Michael Duncan,
the group of officers started to dig a tunnel from hut number 6 right
underneath a slow combustion stove, which could always be moved back
to its original position in case of unwanted “visitors”. From
what we can tell today, the total distance to the exit was more than
50 meters. During the night of Friday -  Saturday 13th/14th September 1941 altogether 26 officers, one by one went through the
tunnel into freedom. It was decided to move in pairs and in different
directions to make it more difficult for the German authorities to
catch up with them.

         
“Many details are already known. Lt. Col. Michael Duncan published a book
titled “Underground from Posen”, and the four successful officers
were interviewed back home (reports filed in the National Archives in
Kew). In Biberach four decades after the war, local Germans started
to search into the escape and the Oflag in general. Among others
however, one important detail was never discovered; where was the
exit? The escapees obviously had more important things to do, than
measuring the actual distance from the fence. In August 1981 during
road works alongside the camp fence, a heavy truck dropped down a
meter or so and suddenly a section of the tunnel was visible. Unfortunately,

the road was built on top of it and no one
investigated any further about the exit.