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.
