Escape: The Best Sport Ever - Frank Gatland DFM

Read wartime books for long enough and you’ll invariably get stuck into a prisoner of war story. The bread and butter of these are titles like The Wooden Horse, Reach for the Sky and, of course, The Great Escape. Scratch the surface and the Colditz series and a plethora of aircrew tales can be found. Aircrew prisoners certainly seem to have been the most prolific of authors. Escapers were, relatively speaking, a small percentage of the men incarcerated. Many helped behind the scenes and even more were content to make the best of their situation and improve their lot through education and other worthwhile pursuits. Frank Gatland was one of the keen escapers and he had the benefit of, initially, and while it was of use to his plans, being a non-commissioned officer. Escape stands tall in this class as the tale of an irrepressible man who liked a challenge.

Having learnt to fly in New Zealand, Gatland sails for the UK and after time on Oxfords doing the usual navigation and blind approach training, as well as marking time ‘building Scotland’, he is sent to a conversion unit in late July 1942. Stirlings are on offer and he joins No. 214 Squadron in early September. Awarded the DFM in mid-October for a low-level attack on Genoa, getting the job done, he and his crew are shot down just over a month later. Captured after being on the run for a little over a week, Gatland spends some time in Fresnes Prison in Paris before finally being deposited in Stalag VIIIB at Lamsdorf, Poland. 

His initial evasion is an immediate indication of his initiative, naïve as it is at the time, and it is not long before he begins to switch identities with Army personnel so as to get out on work parties, away from the camp, and wait to pick the right time to escape. The initial attempt in February 1943 fails due to, more than anything else, poor preparation. However, during this time, Gatland is particularly observant of their errors, lack of planning and, importantly, the time of year, as they spent much of their time trudging through snow. This shows an analytical mind, one that is finely tuned to being on the run and surviving. A later working party, based at a wood-chipping mill, has Gatland and his mates away from the camp for seven months. During that time they befriend the local Poles, perform some intelligence work and basically have a free rein while benefitting from the foundations of cooperation built by the previous working party. It’s all very elaborate and seemingly implausible, but there is little doubt they were that brazen. Gatland’s eventual escape fails at the last step.

Several other escapes follow, with requisite periods in solitary confinement upon recapture, until he is moved to Stalag Luft III in mid-September 1944, having been an officer for some time, but assuming the identity of a NCO for escape purposes. In January 1945, as expected, The Long March begins and the column eventually ends up in Lubeck where the prisoners are finally liberated by advancing Allied forces and repatriated. Frank returned to New Zealand, his English bride following shortly after, and raised a family while continuing to put his best foot forward in business and pleasure.

Irrepressible. That’s one way of looking at the character of Frank Gatland as presented in this book. It’s not that he couldn’t sit still. Indeed, he relished his time in solitary as it was, quite literally, time to himself, his own space, and there would be a Red Cross box waiting upon his release. It was his positive attitude, always looking ahead, despite the known risks, that kept him going. Of course, he spent a lot of time out of camp, either as part of a working party or on the run. No chance of going wire happy here. Camp life, as detailed in many memoirs and biographies before, and currently being thoroughly examined by far more scholarly types than me, was a completely different life to what Frank led while he was a prisoner. He did spend periods living as such, but there is relatively little of that detailed. Much like his time on ops, it’s the highlights of his incarceration that are remembered at length. Fair enough too. Days and weeks and months of camp routine would be hard to differentiate and place in some sort of timeline. It’s the escapes, the time outside the camp, when Frank was at his best and these long-burning highlights of his POW time would be infinitely easier to remember and record. 

They’re also the most interesting, particularly the time spent at the wood-chipping mill. Besides assisting a regimental sergeant major, who was neck deep in intelligence gathering, Frank was heavily involved in cloak and dagger work with the local Underground movement. The weird thing is that everything, including his planned eventual escape, seemed to be common knowledge. The few Germans around mostly turned a blind eye once plied with enough contraband. Whether it was Frank’s personality or that most people, despite their circumstances, are somewhat decent (I suspect a bit of both), a long list of ‘good guys’ who happened to be batting for the other side is accumulated. Throughout his adventures, Frank is mostly treated fairly by the ‘enemy personnel’ he encounters and some go out of their way to help despite holding him captive. For the most part, it’s remarkably civilised and lends some weight to the tagline of the book: The Best Sport Ever!

It would be wrong to assume this is a light and bouncy read, however. There is no doubting there is a war on, of course, it’s just that Frank doesn’t dwell on the obvious risks and threats. It’s another angle to the ‘press on’ attitude, but it’s not ‘we’ve got one engine out, let’s continue on’, it’s ‘I will survive if I look after me first’. This extends to The Long March, perhaps the epitome of the prisoner’s lot to survive. Frank, better conditioned than most due to his escape activities and better organised to an extent, still contributes heartily to the combine he is a part of, sharing the burden and foraging and bartering for food, but takes any opportunity to enjoy ‘normal’ human interaction with the locals encountered on the way. While there is little doubt he would have recalled those hectic and dangerous times during his post-war life, he must have known that, through personality, cunning and attitude, he certainly had a better run at it.

This remarkable story, at a little under 200 pages, does not take long to get through. The main reason is that the style Frank employed over the years it took him to record his experiences skips along, beckoning the reader to keep up, but, interestingly, there is a fair whack of heavier material. It is all told matter-of-factly and, like the familiar coping mechanism, once told, the narrative moves on. In doing so, it is very clear that Frank’s story is not all about him. He follows up on his crew, those that survived, and he ensures fellow escapers and other fine men and women emerge from the shadows of history. No more is this evident than in the appendices. While there is sadly no index, the appendices detail the fates of those Frank served with either in training, on ops or in the camps. He shines a light on RNZAF aircrew who were honoured for their escape attempts (Frank received a MiD for his work). Indeed, several, including fellow authors Woodroofe and Croall (GeTaWay and “You! Croall!” respectively), pop up from time to time in the main narrative.

While the book does not launch itself with abandon, rather a series of somewhat tedious diary entries reflecting the slow boat to the UK, it is one to savour (if you get the chance to take a breath). Self-published, the photos are the only let down of the entire package. Some are clearly low resolution downloads from the internet. A bit more work on this front and better scanning, if possible, of some of Frank’s own collection, will lift future editions (and there will be further printings) to the summit of self-published memoirs. 

Like Frank, this is a book that is always moving forward and always positive. We know this genre of books can be unpleasant and even uncomfortable, but the human spirit, more often than not, gets the subject through, for better or worse. Escape is the perfect example of the strength of this spirit.

ISBN 978-0-473-4043308

An Alien Sky - Andrew Wiseman with Sean Feast

Once again I am busy with magazine and editing work, and have just moved house, so I am turning to a guest reviewer to provide a bit of content for ABR until I can do so myself (I'm looking at another run of five reviews, at least, in mid-October). Zac Yates is a keen aviation enthusiast in New Zealand with an interest in more or less anything that flies.

The life story of Andrew Wiseman is a stunning one of unlikely survival. Born to a Polish father and American mother in 1920s Berlin as Andre Weizman, he was refused a membership in the Hitler Youth ("we don't want any f****** Jews!") and emigrated to Britain to become an air bomber in an Australian Halifax squadron, only to be shot down in 1944 and kept as a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft III just weeks after The Great Escape.

His stories of pre-war Berlin, aircrew training, learning the English language, and the day-to-day life of No. 466 Squadron (RAAF) left me wanting to keep reading. He easily relates his travels to the fateful operation that led to him becoming a ‘kriegie’ in Nazi Germany, while his co-author, Sean Feast, adds historical notes where needed.

Wiseman was one of the countless POWs who took part in The Long March, an event I admit I knew nothing about prior to reading this book. His experiences in a camp near Berlin in the last days of the war provide an interesting insight into the often volatile relationship between American, British and Soviet forces. His position as a translator fluent in several languages meant Wiseman was privy to a range of fascinating - and sometimes humorous - events among the remains of the Nazi war machine.

This book is billed on the cover as "The story of one man's remarkable adventure in Bomber Command during the Second World War", but it is more than that. I was surprised that the end of the war came before the halfway point of this book, but I wasn't to be disappointed. Wiseman's post-war career as one of the first television producers at the BBC is covered in a scant few dozen pages but would have made for an excellent book in its own right. Likewise his experiences as an official translator for the British Home Office in his twenty-year “third career” are less than two pages. The final part of Wiseman's story is that of his life as a modern-day veteran, revisiting a former camp and attending reunions, and the long-overdue Bomber Command Clasp and Memorial ceremonies. 

Unfortunately I've used the past tense because, as related by co-author Feast, Andy Wiseman passed away just weeks after finishing the manuscript. I have to admit this news saddened me immensely as Wiseman was an excellent storyteller and I feel that An Alien Sky could have been so much more. His fascinating life could have easily filled a book twice as long.

The final forty or so pages are appendices by Sean Feast including biographies of Wiseman's crew on the night they were shot down, selections from the diary of mid-upper gunner and crewmate Bill Lyall, and a brief history of 466 Squadron and its ops record (again with additional content from Feast) from March to April 1944.

With my comments about its short length, I may seem ungrateful or even dissatisfied with this book. Far from it. I am immensely grateful Wiseman and Feast collaborated to record the former’s stories for posterity and our enjoyment and education. The fact Wiseman died so soon after finishing this work gave me casue to reflect on our veterans and how precious our remaining time with them is.

Happy to repeat myself, I'm grateful Andy Wiseman has told his story and it is a highly engaging one worth adding to any enthusiast's library.

Shot Down - Alex Kerr

As you have probably guessed, I've been busy working on the most recent issue of Flightpath magazine. For once, however, I was lucid enough to realise I wouldn't have a chance to write my own reviews for some time so asked several friends, whose knowledge and writing I respect, to be guest reviewers. The whole point was to keep adding fresh content to ABR but, of course, I need the time to publish it in the first place. Anyway, first up, is a review that is a real treat. Not only is it the chance to discover this book and add it to your library, but it is written by an author currently working on a PhD focussing on the Australian prisoner of war experience in Stalag Luft III. Kristen Alexander is a long-time supporter, and featured author, of ABR and this is some of her best, most thoughtful and analytical writing. It is a review of a calibre that this site has not seen before. Grab a coffee, settle in and lose yourself in this. Andy Wright

Over the past decade or so, I’ve written about Australian pilots in the air war against Germany, exploring, among other things, how they coped in combat and with the after effects of battle. In some cases, their very identity was linked intrinsically to their capacity to fly and, indeed, for some, their need to fly was so strong they thought little of the cost. I began to wonder how they would manage when ‘wingless’, when they were taken out of operations not through combat injury but because they had been captured.

Even from the first day of the Second World War, Germany claimed airmen as prisoners of war. Australian airmen were a minority. Of the servicemen captured in Europe, 8,591 were Australians, and 1,476 of those were airmen serving in the Royal Air Force and Royal Australian Air Force. This equated to approximately seventeen per cent of Australian prisoners. Australian airmen were imprisoned throughout an extensive and ever-growing German prison network and many of those captured in Mediterranean and Middle East actions had previously been incarcerated in Italian camps. Each branch of the armed services managed its own facilities but, even after the Luftwaffe established its own camps, airmen were not confined exclusively in Luft camps. So it was for Sergeant Alex Kerr, a graduate of the Empire Air Training Scheme’s No. 1 Course, who was imprisoned by the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe.

Twenty-year-old Alex had been operational with No. 115 Squadron as second pilot on a Wellington for less than a month when, on 10 May 1941, he and his British crew members were on their way home after a successful bombing run to Hamburg, one of Germany’s most fiercely defended targets.

With little warning, a night fighter announced its presence by firing on, and hitting, the rear turret. The pilot made every attempt to evade but the German fighter pilot fired again. Bullets ripped through fabric and metal and Alex was knocked backwards as he was hit. As the aircraft began to burn, as the fabric-covered Wellington was apt to do, he lay there, cursing the German pilot, and, for several seconds, knew the stark fear of the helpless.

Alex lost consciousness. When he awoke, his fear had gone, replaced by a ‘lulling, lethargic calm, a slowness of movement that could well be fatal in an emergency’, and so it would have been if Dave, the rear gunner who had amazingly survived the attentions of the night fighter, hadn’t shoved him out of the stricken aircraft, thus saving his life.

The West Australian’s injuries were so severe there had been talk of medical repatriation. After months in German hospitals, he was sent to a prisoner of war camp. He had had a relatively easy time of it in the hospitals, even quite enjoying the ‘gentle and friendly attitude’ of medical staff and fellow prisoners. He had even valued kindnesses from orderlies working behind the backs of German guards to acquire treats for the patients. But now, as Alex ‘saw barbed wire close up for the first time’ he ‘realised its grim purpose’. No chance of repatriation now. He was just a number.

Alex was incarcerated in Stalag IIIE, Kirchhain, then Stalag Luft III, Sagan, Stalag Luft VI, Heydekrug, Stalag 357, Thorn and Stalag XIB, Fallingbostel. In the final months of the war, he trudged across Germany in the Long March. After narrowly escaping death when the column was strafed by Allied aircraft, he and a mate escaped to Allied lines and freedom. These are the bare bones of a fascinating memoir which, as indicated in the foreword, reveals a man of great resilience and integrity who demonstrated strength, courage and devotion to his mates.

I will just point out here that this memoir is an important addition to Australian military history. Not just because of some of the particular aspects, which I will touch on below, but because there are significantly fewer accounts by Australians taken prisoner by the Germans. For example, in a review article covering books written by or about Australian prisoners between 1980 and 1989, Hank Nelson listed 48 works. Of those, 40 related to prisoners of the Japanese, two dealt with prisoners of Japan and Germany, and six are about prisoners of Germany and Italy. In his 2002 survey of the ‘prisoner experience as literature’, Peter Stanley noted that of the 500+ books in the Australian War Memorial’s Australian prisoner of war catalogue, three-fifths deal with prisoners of the Japanese, prisoners of the Reich account for a third, and those relating to captives of the Italians take up less than a tenth of the shelf space. The proportions have barely changed. To its credit, Big Sky Publishing’s catalogue includes a number of prisoner of war accounts dealing with captivity in Germany.

But back to Alex. Largely based on the diary he kept during imprisonment, Shot Down is written in such a matter-of-fact style that the reader on occasion has to peer through the lines to the full emotion of living in close confinement without a release date in sight, where ‘wingless’ airmen could not contribute to the fighting war effort and were so isolated from credible sources of war news that they could only trust that the Allies would eventually prevail. It is hard to imagine just what being a prisoner of war meant, but I had a go at it, as I wanted to get a good look behind the lines that Alex did not write, and to hear what he did not quite say.

Imagine living in an environment where there was no silence, in such profound intimacy that every breath, every sniff or snort, every fart and stomach grumble, every nightmare, every mood swing, every shift on lumpy palliasse and bed board-deprived bunk, every surreptitious movement under threadbare blanket was heard by every other man in the overcrowded barrack. Even thoughts were not private because, after living in such close proximity, almost anyone could read them and so, the only real solitude was in the cooler. Just imagine the tension building as men from all walks tried to muddle along with people so different in personality that they probably wouldn’t have bothered knowing them in ‘real life’. Consider trying to be cheery, friendly and tolerant when all you wanted to do was wring the bloody neck of the bloke who spilt the last teaspoon of the communal store of sugar. Imagine having to fill your time with any sort of busy-work just so you wouldn’t go crazy with inactivity. It almost defeats me to picture it, and I am sure it would defeat me to live it.

Alex, however, was made of much sterner stuff than me and despite everything, fared so well that he gained from his experiences. He also demonstrates that community can exist in enforced communal living. Indeed, it is one of the strengths of this memoir that Alex portrays a balanced account of life in a German prisoner of war camp. Monotonous, with great deprivation, yes - if not for regular Red Cross parcels, the men would have starved on German rations - but to compensate, lifelong friendships developed and were nurtured, and the foundations of many future careers were laid. In addition, much was discovered about goodness, kindness and humanity, and evil, in enemy, friend and self.

Like many other camps, Stalag IIIE had some benevolent guards who treated their charges reasonably well along with its share of tyrants ‘who had maltreated us’. Indeed, ‘Stalag IIIE was a camp in which violence had earlier been used and prisoners have been bashed by guards and subjected to harsh treatment ordered by the commandant.’ And so, after they had left Kirchhain, when Alex and his fellow prisoners were asked the names of the Germans who had traded with them, they handed in a list which included only the names of those who had mistreated them, knowing full well that the malefactors would be punished severely. To Alex’s credit, he does not let himself off the hook by refraining to include a story where he and his friends, perhaps understandably, exact retribution, especially when it seems he is not entirely sorry for his part in the scheme: ‘In retrospect it is probable that most of us felt rather guilty about the result’. And here is one of the reasons I like this memoir so much. There is nothing pretentious or literary about it. It is simple and unassuming and Alex is honest and open.    

Counterbalancing the darker side of humanity is a story which reveals true kindness and highlights all that is good about the ‘brotherhood of man’. Harry Calvert, who was older than Alex, had developed a well-earned reputation as Stalag IIIE’s most successful trader. As Alex sat on his bed contemplating how to celebrate his 21st birthday, Harry poked his head in the door: ‘I heard it’s your birthday today’. There were no secrets in a prisoner of war camp. Alex confirmed that it was indeed his birthday. ‘Happy birthday, Aussie’, Harry said, as he placed a precious egg in Alex’s hand. It was the first egg the West Australian had seen for a year, and a gift from a man Alex had barely met, even within the close confines of a prison camp. It was a gesture of compassion and generosity he would never forget.

As well as revealing the positives and negatives of the human condition and how many adjust to life without liberty, Alex recounts little known aspects of captivity in Europe. For example, he and 51 other prisoners tunnelled out of Stalag IIIE. He was on the run for ten days. He never forgot that ‘feeling of triumph and excitement’ during that, and subsequent escape attempts. ‘It was an exhilarating feeling knowing you were winning a dangerous cat and mouse game with maybe a disastrous result if you lost. The adrenaline was coursing through your veins almost continuously.’ Alex was one of the last to be recaptured. Fifty-one of the escapees were returned to camp. But not Harry Calvert, Alex’s birthday benefactor. He was the only casualty, shot for no apparent reason.

The Great Kirchhain Breakout was the largest, most successful escape attempt to date, yet, surprisingly, little has been written about it. Alex’s account is thus more than just a wartime memoir. It is a valuable addition to escape literature and, because of Australian involvement, our military history. So too is his description of life in Stalag Luft III. Rather than the usual officer-centric escape focus of the prolific Wooden Horse or Great Escape narratives, Alex offers a rare NCO perspective of everyday life and friendship in that most famous of camps.

Given the importance of Alex’s experiences, it is a shame, then, that in some instances his publishers have let him down. Or, at least, his copyeditor has. For instance, Stalag IIIE was located at Kirchhain, not Kirchain. The Luftwaffe’s reception camp was at Oberursel, near Frankfurt, not Ober Ursel, and the common parlance name of it, Dulag Luft, was an abbreviation of Durchgangslager der Luftwaffe, not Durchgang Lager. Messerschmitt ends with a double ‘t’. Spelling oversights were not the only instance of the copyeditor’s failure. There were multiple instances of the numeric ‘1’ appearing instead of the lowercase letter ‘l’. Being a fussy beggar (that should be spelled with a ‘u’, by the way), I was annoyed that there wasn’t an index. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a dozen times: history books need indexes. In fact, they should be mandatory. It is not just frustrated reviewers who need to flip from section to section, checking this and that, wanting to know if so-and-so appears in the text and so on and so forth. To atone (perhaps) for those sins of error and omission, the cover is eye-catching, full marks to the designer, and I was more than satisfied with the generous picture selection, including the use of colour rather than opting for cost-cutting greyscale.

Two photos in particular caught my attention and it really is true that a picture is worth a thousand words. These two perfectly illustrate the physical toll exacted by captivity. The first was taken in December 1940 after the nineteen-year-old had been awarded his wings. ‘A pilot at last!’ reads the caption. It reveals a young, innocent looking man, with eyes full of hope and expectation of a decent flying career. The second, of Alex and Joan on their wedding day in August 1947 (more than two years since he absconded from the marching column), is such a contrast. The groom was only 26 yet looks years older. Is that grey touching his forehead? Any residual baby fat had long since fallen from his still gaunt cheekbones. And his eyes. What they had seen.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, I am interested in how men cope in captivity, and I was concerned that perhaps Alex had not ultimately coped with four years of imprisonment. This wasn’t because Alex had confessed to it (quite the contrary as I will discuss below) but because of the lack of emotion in some parts, such as Harry Calvert’s death, and a dispassionate style which might indicate that nothing had touched him. But Alex had coped and did so remarkably well. His prison life was full of activity such as arts and crafts, sport and music. When the prison education system was established, he signed up. Not only did he relieve the monotony of camp existence through study, but he received the sort of education few Australian lads could ever dream of attaining. He received a Certificate in Social Science from Oxford University (he did so well in this that Oxford considered the standard he had achieved under camp conditions to be equivalent of that required for University Honours) and a Bachelor of Science and Economics degree from London University. If anything, the dispassionate style is a reflection of the fact that Alex felt that his prisoner of war years had not been overly harrowing; ‘they did not seem so important to me at the time’. Yes, Alex had managed well in captivity and there are a number of reasons for this.

At the beginning of the book, when he talks about his formative years, Alex tells of his inbuilt sense of optimism, how faced with new, unexpected experiences he just got on with it. For example, when he was pulled from school because his father’s income had suffered during the Depression, he ‘commiserated with Dad over his loss’, found a job post haste, enjoyed what it had to offer and ‘matured quickly and tasted many new facets of life … made new friends and tried my hand at a lot of new activities…’ Alex could have easily written that at the end of the book and it would have been equally as apt because that is exactly what he did in a succession of prisoner of war camps. He clearly made the most of his camp life and the new friendships it offered. Friends coped better in captivity. They shared food and memories and supported each other. But camaraderie was more than just a means of survival for Alex. He had a gift for friendship, both giving and receiving and his relationships with crewmembers and fellow prisoners lasted a lifetime and beyond. In many ways, this memoir is a testament to friendship.

Shot Down is also a testament to optimism and, looking back, Alex believed his inherent optimism enabled him ‘to bear the vicissitudes of incarceration with fortitude’. Alex would be too modest to claim it, but I think his fellow prisoners’ ability to cope with seemingly limitless confinement would have been enhanced by his natural buoyancy.

That Alex considered his prison experience not so much ‘traumatic but rather exciting and overall beneficial’ is another reason why he survived captivity. So too is his attitude. ‘I had taken a positive view of life and had been determined to take every opportunity while in camp to improve my lot in life’. Apart from planning for his future through education, he grew in self-confidence, assumed leadership roles and developed important life skills. Without doubt, he ‘weathered the storm well’ and ‘came out of prison thankful that my life had so miraculously been saved’. Indeed, Alex admits that being shot down and imprisoned were perhaps the best things to ever happen to him. He survived for one, whereas many from Bomber Command did not. The statistics of his own training group are particularly telling. Of the forty members of his course, only twelve men were alive at the end of hostilities, and nine of them had been prisoners of war. Fully aware of how fortunate he had been, after returning home he promised himself to ‘make the most of the reprieve I had been given. I would live every day to the fullest’. And he did. The former newspaper office boy went on to enjoy a career in academia, where he became a professor and ultimately Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia. Alex’s achievements and life attitude firmly demonstrate that his years spent in captivity were not wasted.

There is perhaps another reason why Alex coped so well in the post-war years. He may not have been entirely sorry for ‘dobbing’ in the cruel camp personnel but he bore no real grudge against those who acted with decency and later accepted the essential humanity of those of the enemy who, like him were just doing their wartime job. He may have cursed the Luftwaffe pilot who shot him down but Alex contacted him after the war and they corresponded. It is clear to me that there was a measure of reconciliation, given and accepted, in their exchange of letters and experiences. ‘I got a good feeling to get so friendly lines from a former adversary’, wrote the former night fighter. For Alex, along with reconciliation, came the answers to questions which had puzzled him for half a century.

Hard core aviation enthusiasts may turn away from this memoir because it is a largely an account of captivity. That would be a mistake. The book includes enough training and operational details to satisfy any aviation nut - Alex’s account of his last op is sheer, nail-biting, storytelling magic. Shot Down is also an incredibly rich life story that even offers a gentle lesson in making the most of difficult circumstances. It is also a significant addition to Australian military, aviation, and prisoner of war history. Uplifting and recommended. Read it.