In the last days of February, when Tunnel “Harry” was 100 feet short of its completed run underground beyond the wire, the escape committee at Stalag Luft III learned valuable information. One of X Organization’s nemeses, anti-tunnelling guard Unteroffizier Karl Griese, was about to go on leave.
In the weeks before his rest time away from the compound, Griese (whom the POWs nicknamed “Rubberneck,”) had been snooping more suspiciously than usual around the North Compound barracks. He had periodically ordered impromptu appells, when POWs had to line up across the sports grounds beyond the theatre for roll calls (presumably to catch any kriegies who might be absent and in a tunnel).
In the ongoing cat-and-mouse game between Rubberneck and the POWs, when the spot searches came, the kriegies made sure they dawdled en route to the assembly area, to allow tunnel crews enough time to be pulled from “Harry” and cleaned up before appell.
During this same period – as the end of February approached – Rubberneck sprang a sudden search in Hut 104 (where the entrance to “Harry” was located,) then one in Hut 110. Then, he assembled Wally Floody, George Harsh, Wings Day and Roger Bushell and strip-searched them.
Then on Feb. 29, 1944 (70 years ago today), Rubberneck delivered a nearly fatal blow to the escape committee before taking his leave. That day, during morning appell, the pesky ferret appeared with 30 additional guards. They called out the names of 19 kriegies, including Floody, Harsh, Peter Fanshawe, Kingsley Brown, MacKinnon “Mac Jarrell, Gordon “Nic Nicholl, Robert Stanford Tuck, Jim Tyrie and Gwyn Martin. The 19 were searched for two hours and then marched under guard through the main gate (no time to retrieve any belongings) and down the road to a satellite POW camp at Belaria for good.
“They just wanted to get rid of us,” Floody said. “But they had a pretty good shot at it, because they got the man in charge of sand dispersal (Fanshawe), the man in charge of security (Harsh), an intelligence specialist (Brown) and myself, a tunnel digger.”
