Last week, we lost another hero of the Second World War. RAF Squadron Leader Bertram "Jimmy" James died. He was 93. By rights, he should have been gone more than 60 years ago.
James was shot down by the Luftwaffe in June of 1940. He survived, but was captured and sent to Luft Stalag 1 on the Baltic Sea. From the moment he was deposited there, he began his escape attempts. He once tried to walk out of the front gate in disguise. On another occasion, he tunneled out of solitary confinement.
His persistence got him a transfer into what was the toughest POW camp in Germany, Luft Stalag 3, in 1943. Supposedly escape-proof. It was from here that James joined an incredible 200 other prisoners in the most elaborate escape scheme of the war. It was the true life story behind the Hollywood epic, The Great Escape. James was the “sand man”; responsible for transferring sand dug from the 365 foot tunnel code-named “Harry”, out to the prison yard.
On the freezing night in March 1944, he was the 39th man to got through the tunnel. As in the movie, it really did end up 30 feet short of a wooded area they wanted to emerge from. Still, he and 75 others did escape that night.
James was disguised as a foreign worker, and headed for the Czech border, but was recaptured within two weeks and sent to the Sachsenhausen death camp. He was one of the lucky ones. Fifty others recaptured were promptly executed by the Gestapo. Only three made it back to England.
Even Sachsenhausen couldn’t contain James. He escaped from there and was recaptured once more, and this time sent to Dachau, where his death sentence was to have been carried out immediately. Only the American liberation of the camp saved him, and so on May 3, 1945 he was finally free. After the war, he joined the British Diplomatic Corps.
James made a total of 13 escape attempts. Of that, all he would say was “I was no hero. I was just a guy who wanted to get home.” He finally has. God Bless Jimmy James. A hero.
1 comment:
These RAF lads are quite a group. The escape story described here reminded me of the 'flight' that was to have been made from Colditz by Bill Goldfinch who also recently died.
Great stuff. Great men.
"Flight Lieutenant Bill Goldfinch, who died on October 2 aged 91, designed the glider built in the eaves of Colditz Castle, as part of the most audacious of all the projected escapes from the Second World War's most famous prison camp.
He and one of his fellow prisoners, Tony Rolt, a racing driver, realised separately that the roof of the 11th-century Saxon fortress, several hundred feet above the local town, would make a perfect launching point."
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