Dachau to Dolomites. Tom Wall

Besides, he and Cushing would have had a good idea that a tunnel was under construction for, as Peter Churchill observed, the Irish boys were ‘as bright as they make them and always first to sense the least thing wrong in the camp’.7

      Given that Walsh and Cushing probably knew, or at least suspected, that an escape plan was being hatched, the fact that they kept this knowledge to themselves tells us that Cushing, who had been an informer in Friesack, was no longer playing that role. He, and the other Irishmen, now needed to focus on their standing within their own soon-to-be victorious army. Cushing and Walsh may have been offended by being kept out of the loop, but keeping quiet was in their best interests. If the tunnel was somehow discovered, suspicion was likely to fall on them if they were known to be aware of it.

      The tunnel began under James’s bed. The digging work was assigned to the younger men – Dowse and James – with Jack Churchill joining them after his arrival in the Sonderlager. To begin with, their only digging tool was an adapted table knife, although this was later supplemented by a small saw secured from a guard, possibly through bribery.8 Tactically, it was wise not to involve Day in the tunnelling work as his absence for long periods would be noticed. The soil was sandy which made things easier, but increased the risk of collapse. The floor of their timber hut was raised above the ground with an outside skirt which proved perfect for secretly disposing of the excavated soil. While the tunnel was underway, they heard news that seven Russian POWs from the main concentration camp had been hung after an attempted escape. This shocked, but didn’t deter, them.

      One difficulty they had was calculating how far they would need to burrow to reach a safe distance beyond the perimeter of the camp. For this they needed to see over the wall of their compound. Day had a brainwave. He asked the camp authorities to provide them with a gymnastic pommel horse to aid their athletic recreation. To everyone’s surprise, the apparatus was delivered. Standing on the horse, while making it seem like an exercise routine, they could see the layout beyond their compound which bordered the outer perimeter of the camp. They noticed that, behind the wall beyond their huts, there was a compound in which there were some unoccupied huts with others under construction. Only an outer wall, with no electrified wiring or guard tower, separated this area from open countryside, so this compound was chosen for the projected tunnel exit point.

      The work progressed slowly over the summer. Dowse and James had worked for only a few hours each day to avoid lengthy, suspicious absences. Peter Churchill decided to take no part as he believed, given his SOE background, and the fact that he was not in uniform when captured, that he was certain to be shot if caught escaping. Johnnie Dodge was anxious to help but, as he had been billeted in the hut where Spence and the other Irishmen and Russians lodged, it was decided that his involvement in tunnel work might compromise security. The dig was arduous and risky. To minimise the amount of earth to be disposed of, they kept the tunnel dimensions just large enough for one man to wriggle through at a time. There was no light and little air in the tunnel and there was a constant fear that in a collapse they would suffocate. Increasingly frequent bombing raids nearby increased this risk. However, it held up and was eventually deemed of sufficient length to reach their intended exit point in the unoccupied compound.