The Great Escapes by Dr Tim Kelly

My Grandpa had war stories which others have heard and read about. I remember watching "The Great Escape" with him once. At various points in the movie during the digging of the tunnel he would update me on the strategies he and his POW mates had used when they were digging tunnels.  I remember when they were dropping the dirt out of holes in their trousers as they were walking around the exercise yard, grandpa said "we weren't that subtle, we made a cricket pitch out of some of the dirt we dug up!"

He was a Field Ambulance driver and captured in North Africa.  He made several attempts to escape, the first being on the first night of his capture.  They were being held in the desert, with the German soldiers forming a ring around them.  They were stumbled upon by allied soldiers and a battle ensued.  In the noise and confusion Grandpa crawled out between 2 of the soldiers on the perimeter, and was about to sneak off into the desert.  He took a breath, looked at all the tracer bullets flying around, thought about how he would survive in the desert, he turned around and crawled back into the camp.

On another occasion he did escape into the desert but sold out by Bedouin and given back to the Germans.  For a time he was kept in North Africa, and once with his friend Snow Campbell, escaped from the camp in Derna, stole a boat and using makeshift oars they rowed out of the harbour and into the Mediterranean, aiming for Tobruk which could only be reached from the sea at that time.  Over 3 nights they covered 100 miles, and laid up each day.  They felt sure they were far enough to be behind allied lines, they saw a British truck by the shore with soldiers swimming so they rowed across.  Unfortunately the truck had been seized by Germans and they were once again prisoners, they had been 3 miles short of their goal.  On another occasion, he volunteered to help the Germans with his mechanical knowledge, and helped them to service trucks in return for more favourable conditions in the camp.  This was viewed with disdain by his fellow prisoners who were not aware that he was adding valve grinding paste every time he changed the oil, to erode the engines from within.

He was moved to a POW camp in near Udine, in North Eastern Italy and spent the next 3 years there.  He told stories of humour, resilience and mateship, all the while you could tell that he was understated and that conditions were tough.  There was an elaborate tunnel excavated during his time there.  A great deal of ingenuity and skill was needed to perform the digging unnoticed, hide the dirt, ensure the stability of the tunnel against the frequent collapses, and send light and air down the tunnel as it grew longer.  The time came for their escape and it was decided to send a man down to the end to dig up to the surface and poke a stick up so they could see exactly where the exit was for their escape that night.  There was a need for several men to relay messages down the tunnel due to its length.  The big wigs in the hut where the tunnel commenced look out of the window into the shaded woods where the tunnel was expected to be.  "Tell him to poke the stick up now" was relayed down the tunnel, taking a full half a minute to reach the intended recipient.  Not seeing the stick, the next message was "Poke it up a bit more".  You can imagine the scene, eventually the guy has his whole arm out of the ground waving the stick around, when someone looks off to the side and sees him, in a completely unexpected location and in full view of the guard tower! "Pull your arm in!!" and it took another full 30 seconds of exquisite anguish for the observers before the arm and stick were retracted, fortunately without detection.  Grandpa decided not to participate in the escape, because he had just been informed of his imminent repatriation as he had a Red Cross stamp due to his ambulance duties.  One Australian was being exchanged for each 6 Italian POWs - the Aussies thought that was about right!  19 of Grandpas compound did escape through the tunnel that night, the Camp Superintendent, who had previously strutted around bragging his camp was inescapable had to change his tune.  Unfortunately all were recaptured, but not submitted to the same fate as those in the movie.

When Grandpa eventually made it back home to his farm and family, his old sheep dog welcomed him, they both sat down and cried together.  Also of note is that he spent a couple of years back in Libya in the 70s, near the scene of his initial internment working with the community to improve dry land farming methods.  Many of the paddocks on our farm carry names of the Libyan towns and ports that featured in his journey.