NOVA Online | Nazi Prison Escape | Escaping Colditz 18

Pat Reid stands third from left in this November 1940 photo taken within Colditz.

Escaping Colditz
18: October 15, 1942

Four British officers were gone. Dogs failed to follow the trail away from the castle, but they did follow what remained of it back to the castle wall on the south end near an air shaft. How could prisoners have gotten across the German yard, where a sentry patrols day and night, and through the German Kommandantur building? In what proved one of the most audacious escapes at Colditz, the four escaped through the back of the prisoner's kitchen, onto the roof of the German kitchen, and across the German yard in the full glare of the searchlights. They slipped into the cellar of the Kommandantur and stumbled upon the air shaft. All four reached Switzerland.

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