Great Escape 70
Not only the families of Arnost Valenta and Joseph Bryks MBE are among the attendees of the ´Great Escape´ remembrance ceremony just held at Zagan, Poland. Also Mr Michal Holy who iniciated the building of the Memorial to four in fifty victims at the town of Brux ie Most is present.
During the moonless night from March 24 on 25, 1944 seventy six Allied POWs fled from the No III Stalag Luft concentration camp located at Sagan in Lower Silesia. Fifty of them paid by their lives for their dare. One of them was of Czech nationality. Two hundred and twenty airmen were ready to escape in No 104 hut on that night. Five of them were the Czechs – F/Lt s Arnost Valenta, Bedrich Dvorak, Ivo Tonder, Joseph Bryks and Otakar Cerny. Only the first three succeded in doing so via the ´Harry´tunnel. A German sentry spotted the tunnel´s mouth then and sounded alarm. Valenta´s number was 4, Dvorak´s 14 and Bryks´ 125. The ones of Tonder and Cerny are unknown to us. Only Valenta was murdered by the Gestapo men. His story was mentioned during the Communist regime for the first time in 1968. It can be seen on Nos 80 – 129 of No 2 issue of the´Broken Wings´Book by Eduard Cejka published two years later.
More detailed and updated version of the event can be seen in the ´The Great Escape Stalag Luft III March 24/25th, 1944´ text by Rob Davis on the www.elsham.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/gt_esc/ website. As the link to the ´Great Escape´film as one to the scene images taken by him in person on May 23, 2007 are in the text. You can see the remnants of the former POW camp, the Memorial to Fifty, a model of a Harry tunnel in the near ´Museum of Allied POWs Martydom in Zagan ´ as well as a concealed the Sagan Railway Station´s exit searched by the escapees for long minutes on that night. This text comprises the parts as follow : POWs, Conditions and Commanders, Food, Letters and Parcels, the Escape Comitee, Key Personnel, Guards, Goons and Ferrets, The tunnels Tom, Dick and Harry, The Escapers get away, The Reprisals, The Fifty Victims, The Suvivors, Recaptured, The Investigators and The Murderers and their Accessories.
A memorial dedicated to an Free French airman F/Lt Bernhard Scheidhauer is mentioned below the photos of the fifty murdered POWs . It was unveiled by his sister on Sep 17, 1999.
We are glad to advise of the names of all the six Great Escape victims murdered on the territory of today´s Czechoslovakia on Mar 29, 1944 that can be seen on two memorials in two locations.
On Mar 29, 1993 was unveiled one to F/O Gordon Arthur Kidder and S/L Thomas Kirby-Green next to the Mary Virgin Church situated at the Hrabuvka District of Ostrava in Northern Moravia. More at : www.zs-uhaldy.cz/pamatnik-raf/. In Czech only.
A memorial to F/Lts Leslie George Johny Bull DFC and Reginald Rusty Kierath, F/O Jerzy Mondschein and S/L John Edwin Ashley Williams DFC was unveiled in the Most ie Brux Cemetery on March 24, 2012. Open the text HERE
The names of all the fifty ´Great Escape´ victims are also mentioned on a wall inside a Bomber Hall of the RAF Museum Hendon. The text as follows is attached to them : This plaque is dedicated to the men of gallantry who voluntarily served with the Bomber, Fighter and Coastal Commands in lots of theatres of operations and displayed their force, dare and bravery during the last moments of their lives. Open the film excerpt HERE
Bibliography&Research
www.elsham.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/gr_esc/
Zlomena kridla ie Broken Wings by Eduard Cejka - The Nase vojsko Publ 1970
The Daily Telegraph of Book of airmen´s obituaries by Edward Bishop – The Octopus Publishing Group Ltd 2002 – the Escapersand Evaders Chapter - F/L Desmond Plunkett. F/Lt Bedrich Dvorak mentioned on No 293 pg
Mr Karel Bryks´ reply