Even as the upper echelon of the escape committee contemplated its last crucial decision – exactly what night the breakout would occur – the jostling of X Organization personnel for positions in the order of escape seemed to change daily.
For Canadian Fleet Air Arm pilot Dick Bartlett – the officer in charge of hiding the shortwave radio inside various POW camps since being shot down in 1940 – it seemed he would be a high-priority escaper. He’d even been assigned position number 16 in escape list and paired with Norwegian pilot officer Halldor Espelid, who was 15th. Then, suddenly, Nils Fugelsang, another Norwegian officer, arrived in the North Compound, and Bartlett offered to give up his spot to Fugelsang, who with Espelid, the committee figured, would have a better chance of getting all the way back to England.
(For those paying close attention, ironically, in the movie script, the Roger Bushell character was renamed “Roger Bartlett.”)
The situation turned out to be more cut and dry for the pilot Barry Davidson. Among the longest serving members of the escape committee, the scrounger initially was given the number 78th position in the list going through the tunnel. But suddenly there was a problem with Davidson’s profile in the North Compound.
“I had been seen talking to one of the guards, shortly before the escape,” Davidson said. “He hated the Nazis and had sympathy for the POWs. We had such a good security system that (X Organization) knew the Germans had seen me talking to him… My relationship with this guard would have risked his life had I gone. So Roger Bushell asked me if I’d step back and not go out.” Reluctantly, Davidson agreed.
