Amazing story of how 84 Germans escaped a Welsh WWII camp revealed after hidden tunnel is discovered 70 years later

THE amazing story of how 84 Germans escaped a Welsh WWII camp has been revealed after a hidden tunnel was discovered 70 years later.

On March 10 1945, ten captured German soldiers managed to sneak out of the POW camp in a scene reminiscent of 1963 film the Great Escape.

More than 70 years later a team of scientists and historians entered the deserted Camp 198, or Island Farm, in Bridgend, to examine the only remnant of it, Hut 9, where the cunning plan was hatched.

Although a majority of the camp was destroyed in the 1990s, Hut 9 was preserved in its original condition by the local authorities.

After gaining access to the council-owned plot of land, Dr Jamie Pringle, of Keele University in Staffordshire, and his team found the walls still adorned with handwritten poetry referring to the ‘heimat’, or homeland.

A false wall constructed to hide the soil that the prisoners dug to form the tunnel also remains in place.

The tunnel was just 5ft below ground and was excavated by hand.

Dr Pringle was astonished to find it still intact and in remarkably original condition – just as it had been left in 1945.

He said: “No one ever talks about the German escapes, even though ones like this are equally impressive and just as important.

“Firstly we conducted geophysical investigations to successfully detect the tunnel’s subsurface position.

“We then used ground penetrating radar surveys to find the tunnel’s specific location, as well as plenty of tree roots.

“We discovered that the tunnel was at a relatively shallow level of 1.5 metres below ground level.

“Careful excavation, led by Nick Russill of Terradat Ltd, eventually helped us reach the tunnel, which was remarkably intact.

“Sawn off wooden bed legs and materials from the prisoners’ huts that were used to support the tunnel walls and roof were still present, just as they’d been left in 1945.”

Camp 198 was one of 1,026 POW camps established in Britain towards the end of the war to accommodate the 400,000 captured Germans that were shipped here.

It housed 160 officers, including a number of Hitler’s closest advisers.

Senior figures including Gerd von Rundstedt, who was commander in chief of the German army in Western Europe, were held at Island Farm while awaiting the Nuremberg Trials.

Other notorious prisoners included Field Marshal Erich von Manstein who established the operation plans for Hitler’s successful campaign in the west and the former commander in chief of the German army Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch.

They weren’t allowed to be put to work according to the Geneva Convention, so instead spent their days hatching escape plans.

Inmates in Hut 9 used cans, meat tins and knives from the canteen to dig up the heavy clay soil beneath them, which they put into their pockets and disposed of outside or behind the false wall.

The men sang German choral songs to conceal the noise.

Following the team’s investigation the area is destined to become a listed monument, thus protected and preserved.

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