On this day 10th March 1945.

On this day 10th March 1945.

67 Germans tunneled out of a prisoners of war camp at Bridgend, Glamorgan, Wales, United kIngdom; all were captured within a week, including two who were caught by an unarmed girl working with the Auxiliary Territorial Service.

From the outset, those in charge at Island Farm were acutely aware of the risk of escape by the prisoners and the potential risks that an escape would pose.

Sabotage of vital war work was feared as the camp was within a mile of the munitions factory which employed 39,000 and in the heart of industrial south Wales which was so crucial to the war effort.

Their fears were well founded. In January 1945, a tunnel was discovered and though the camp commander and guards realised that it was likely to be a diversionary tunnel, they failed to find the other.

It was through this second tunnel, with its entrance in Hut 9, that the officers made their escape in March 1945.

On 10 March, the German soldiers gathered in the hut to make their way through the tunnel in a bid for freedom.

A constant flow of men passed through the tunnel throughout the night, emerging into a newly-ploughed field just beyond the camp perimeter.

It was a moonless night which provided the escapees with additional cover while making their initial escape. One group of four were aware of a doctor’s car that was parked on a nearby road each night and had decided to take it for their escape.

However, its battery was flat and the men had a great deal of trouble starting it. As they attempted to start the car, four guards from the camp approached on their way from the pub.

Having had a few too many, they did not realise as they helped push-start the car and waved them on their way, that they had helped the four Germans in their escape!

At around 2.30am, the sixty-sixth and sixty-seventh man had just left the tunnel and were crouching in the field when they were spotted.

One man was shot by the guards and it appears that, in the confusion, one of the guards fell down the tunnel hole which caused much amusement to the escapees in the nearby trees and gave away their positions.

Around 11 men were captured there and then and for a while the camp guards and commander believed that all the prisoners were accounted for.

Indeed, it seems that unless the two prisoners had been captured at a nearby police station, the camp authorities would have been none the wiser that over fifty prisoners were on the run.

Soon the alarm was raised and forces and authorities across South Wales were hunting for the escaped prisoners. Some were captured quiteoon after their escape but others travelled much further; two, for example stowed in the back of a lorry which, after five days, arrived in Hampshire.

From there, they intended to make their way to Southampton and stow aboard a ship but they were captured climbing out of the lorry.

At the end of the week, all the escaped prisoners had been accounted for. The exact number of escapees is uncertain as the figure today stands at 67, though newspapers at the time reported that 70 were missing.

Whatever the actual figure, what is certain is that this escape was the largest of its kind in Britain and is a story which rivals that of the men of Stalag Luft II and the ‘Great Escape.