The Great Escape — Shropshire-style

Tuesday 22nd December 2009, 8:00PM GMT.

A report in the Wellington Journal and Shrewsbury News of May 5, 1945, reporting on the deaths of two German prisoners of War at an American military site near Wem. It happened on May 1, 1945.

It was a plot of such scale and daring that British intelligence had difficulty in believing it.

But it could be dangerous not to take the plan seriously. With Britain virtually denuded of combat troops, German prisoners of war were to stage a mass breakout in the winter of 1944-45, seize guns and tanks, and march on London.

It would coincide with a major German counter-offensive in Europe – the famous Battle of the Bulge.

The uprising in the prison camps would inevitably have involved hundreds or thousands of German POWs in Shropshire.

Masterminding it all were those classified in the camps as “blacks” – hard-line Nazis.

The story of the breakout-that-never-was is told in Charles Whiting’s book, The Great German Escape, which has been newly reprinted.

The scheme failed, according to the book, because the plotters had trouble keeping their mouths shut. The British authorities got wind of what was afoot and acted decisively, moving in on the ringleaders at the camp at Devizes where the plot was hatched.

Nevertheless, there were escapes by German prisoners from camps in Britain – including in Shropshire.

Pages: 1 2 3

View more: Donnington news, Shropshire news.