Chapter One

The First Try

On a summer morning in 1942, Bill Ash joined the other prisoners trudging across the sandy ground toward a small concrete building. The men were being held at a German prisoner-of-war (POW) camp called Stalag Luft III. Now they were supposed to take their weekly hot shower. But Ash and his friend Paddy Barthropp had other plans.

Ash had arrived at Stalag Luft III just a few weeks before, in early June. The camp, located outside Sagan, Germany, was built in April of that year, and the Germans considered it escape-proof. We’ll see about that, Ash had thought when he first heard that claim. To Ash and most of the other prisoners, trying to escape was part of their duty as military officers. There was no other choice. Ash was not planning to spend the rest of the war rotting in this place. He had decided his weekly shower was going to give him a chance to win his freedom.

“Are you ready?” Ash whispered to Barthropp, who walked next to him. The blond-haired pilot nodded. He and Ash had arrived at Stalag Luft III together, and now they would leave together—if their escape went according to plan.

The two friends had traveled different paths to end up together as prisoners of war. Barthropp, the son of a wealthy British family, had joined Great Britain’s Royal Air Force (the RAF) before the war began. Ash, a poor, twenty-four-year-old Texan, had volunteered to fight, first for Canada then for the British, once the war broke out. Despite their different backgrounds, Ash knew that he and Barthropp had a lot in common. They both loved the thrill of flying fighter planes at more than 350 miles per hour. They both hated the Nazis, who had taken control of Germany, and the war they had started to try to take over most of Europe. And perhaps most importantly, the two were ready to risk their lives rather than let the Nazis keep them imprisoned.

Ash kept his head down as he followed the other prisoners into the concrete building. They showered together, standing in a large open space under the faucets that lined the wall. The Germans gave the men a short burst of water, time to soap up, and then a second blast of water to rinse.

Ash and Barthropp joined the others in taking off their clothes. But instead of taking a shower, while the guards waited outside, the two men made their way to a trapdoor in the floor. The door led to a small space that contained the valves for turning off the main water supply to the showers. Ash had noticed the door several weeks earlier, and it gave him an idea.

“We can hide in that space beneath the trapdoor,” he had told Barthropp. “The other men can distract the goons so they can’t get a good head count after the shower. That way, they won’t miss us while we hide. Then at night, we can sneak out of the shower building, cut the barbed wire, and run to freedom.”

Fearing escape attempts, the German guards, called “goons” by the prisoners, always counted the number of prisoners both before and after each shower to make sure no one was missing.

“I like it,” Barthropp had said with a nod. “But will the escape committee?”

Because the prisoners of Stalag Luft III had plenty of free time and opportunities to meet, they had the chance to create a committee to review any escape plan. These officers had to give their okay for the plan to go forward. If the committee approved, they helped the men with food, maps, and other supplies. When Ash and Barthropp told the committee about their plan, the officers agreed to support it. Now, Ash and Barthropp had to put their plan into action.

They knew escaping would not be easy. The Germans built Stalag Luft III in an isolated spot, as far as possible from neighboring Poland, so no one there could help an escaping prisoner. Two separate barbed-wire fences surrounded the camp. Guards armed with machine guns stood in towers along the fences. Other towers held spotlights that could light almost every corner of the camp as if it were daytime. Just beyond the outer fence, specially trained guards patrolled, looking for signs of an escape attempt. The prisoners nicknamed them “ferrets.” Their job was to ferret out, or look for, possible escapees. But Ash couldn’t worry about those obstacles now. He had to focus on the first part of his escape plan.

As the shower room filled with steam, he and Barthropp lifted the trapdoor and climbed down into their hiding place. Above them, they heard the voices of the prisoners. Then, one voice rose up above the others. One of the prisoners was shouting at the guards.

“What are they doing up there?” Ash whispered. Barthropp, his face tightening with nerves, could only shrug. The plan was for the other men to cause a disturbance after the shower. That way the goons would miscount the men as they returned to their barracks. The hope was that they wouldn’t notice that Ash and Barthropp were missing. But it sounded like someone was stirring up trouble too soon.

“Your Hitler is a rat-faced jerk!” the prisoner shouted. “If I get out of here, I hope I can kill him with my bare hands.”

Ash heard a guard yelling back in German, telling the prisoner to shut up. But he went on, calling Adolf Hitler, Germany’s leader, other names. More voices joined in the shouting, and then Ash heard shuffling feet.

“The goons are taking them out now,” Ash said. “Before they can rinse.”

“I hope the men can still keep them from getting a good count,” Barthropp whispered.

Several minutes passed. To Ash, it seemed like hours. He tried to take deep breaths and remain calm in his cramped hiding spot. Then, the two men heard the howl of sirens.

“That’s trouble,” Ash hissed. “They know we’re missing.”

Assuming they were going to be caught, the two men quickly ripped up the hand-drawn map the escape committee had given them.

“The food too,” Ash said softly. He began shoving the food they had brought for their escape into his mouth. Barthropp did too, so the Germans wouldn’t get it. The prisoners called it “the Mixture”—a blend of chocolate and foods the men had collected, such as oats and fruit that had been boiled and dried. The Mixture was easy to carry and provided the nutrition they needed during an escape.

As Ash and Barthropp frantically ate, they heard footsteps right above them. The guards, Ash thought. Please don’t find the trapdoor! Then Ash heard the growling of the camp’s ferocious German shepherds. A few seconds later, Ash saw the door above him fling open. He looked up to see several rifles pointing down and the snarling dogs straining at their leashes.

Without saying a word, Ash and Barthropp put up their hands. With their faces covered in chocolate from the Mixture, they climbed out of their hiding place. Ash gave one last bit of the Mixture to one of the dogs. He thought, Maybe he’ll think I’m a good guy and leave me alone the next time I try to escape. Because I know one thing: I will try again.