At the end of the first week of March 1944, the inner circle of X Organization was buoyed by progress reports from diggers up Tunnel “Harry.” Based on underground measurements, the tunnel was over 300 feet long, putting the face of the excavation nearly beyond the North Compound wire.
And though department heads could not share specifics of “Harry’s” progress, any of the kriegies who saw the continuous parade of penguins hauling sand to the theatre late at night, knew the escape project was making critical headway.
For some who had been inside German POW camps for years, completing the job couldn’t come soon enough. Hurricane pilot Don Edy considered himself in that category. In February of 1942 – while strafing a truck convoy near Msus, Libya – he took return fire, crash-landed and was captured. First imprisoned in Tripoli, then in Sicily, then Stalag VII-A at Mossburg, Oflag V-A at Weinsberg and finally Stalag Luft III, Edy articulated what perhaps many inside the wire could not.
“I doubt if there is a lonelier feeling in the world than when taken prisoner,” Edy wrote in November 1943. “Everything seems completely hopeless and the thought of being behind barbed wire for God knows how long, maybe years, brings on an immediate depression.”
Most kriegies recognized in themselves and fellow POWs the pent-up frustration of extended imprisonment in the German Straflager system. When life boiled down to twice-a-day roll calls, scrounging for food, and shivering inside poorly insulated barracks, men saw comrades become “barbed-wire happy,” obsessed with getting out.
And so, Don Edy fought off his demons by taking on the role of permanent cook in Room 11 of Hut 123 – preparing meals, working out rations from Red Cross packages, and building kitchen utensils, including a coffee percolator that lasted a year! He also joined numerous casts in stage productions at the theatre. Edy considered his focus on kriegie work a life saver.