NOVA Online | Nazi Prison Escape | Escaping Colditz 20

Don Thom forewent the usual fake uniform and other elaborate preparations and simply leapt over the western wall.

Escaping Colditz
20: May 11, 1943

After Mairesse-Lebrun's escape from the park (see #8), prisoners in solitary confinement took their exercise on the northwest terrace. During his walk on this day, Flight-Lieut. Don Thom of the Royal Canadian Air Force suddenly leapt over the terrace's balustrade and grabbed ahold of the crossbars in the windows of the guardroom. He dropped to the bars of a lower window, which he held for a moment before dropping to the ground. As the guards opened fire on him, he got over a barbed-wire curtain and ran into the woods before being stopped by coils of wire. Security officer Reinhold Eggers called it "the maddest attempt of all."

Previous escape | Next escape | See the map