Reinhold Eggers, Colditz head of security, deemed him
"the greatest escaper." He was Michael Sinclair, and he had made seven previous
escape attempts from Colditz and elsewhere (see #21 and #22). This warm
fall day, without anyone knowing his plans, Sinclair suddenly leapt over the
fence while on the exercise walk in the park. Perhaps he thought he could get
through the main wall 150 yards downhill, where a stream flowed beneath it, but
a grid covered the opening. Sentries shot him dead, and the Germans buried him
in Colditz's military cemetery with full honors.
