In the heart of Nazi Germany,
an ancient castle turned into a prison fortress
surrounded by barbed wire and searchlights,
with walls six feet thick
and one guard for every prisoner.
It would be escape proof.
But a group of British officers hadn't read the script.
These prisoners conjured up
one of the most audacious escape plans in history.
Under the noses of their Nazi guards,
they would secretly build a two-man glider
using floorboards and bed sheets
and hoped to launch it from the roof of the castle.
But the war ended before they could carry out their plan.
The prisoners were released and the plane lost forever.
Jess?
Hi, Jess, I'm Hugh.
NARRATOR: Now, NOVA is back
behind the walls of the fortress to find out:
could this crazy scheme have actually worked?
Led by Cambridge engineer Hugh Hunt,
a crack team will reconstruct the glider
in the same secret attic.
It's huge!
NARRATOR: And they'll retrace some of the castle's
other escape routes to discover
what extraordinary efforts these men made to try to get out.
For Hugh, it's personal:
one of the men imprisoned here was his uncle.
He was away from his family for four, five years.
Really tough.
NARRATOR: Finally, following the prisoners' plans,
they'll try to catapult the glider from the castle roof
using a bathtub full of concrete.
The chain hoist is stuck.
(clanging)
Oh, it's moving again.
NARRATOR: After a 70-year wait, at last we'll find out.
Were the prisoners about to fly to freedom
or plunge to certain death?
"Escape from Nazi Alcatraz," right now on NOVA!
NARRATOR: High above the scenic town proof Colditz, Germany,
there looms an imposing fortress.
Once a medieval castle, 70 years ago it was transformed
into a notorious Nazi prisoner-of-war camp.
Today, it's mostly rundown and empty,
but during World War II,
these rooms were filled with Allied officers
who were caught trying to escape from other camps.
The ghosts of these men still haunt the place.
We were marched up to the camp
between lines of horrible sentries.
Someone yelled out, "Welcome to Colditz!"
And we weren't very happy,
because we didn't want to be there.
NARRATOR: As officers, it was their duty to escape.
This man is here to investigate how.
Hugh Hunt: engineer.
HUNT: It's a small space,
and it must have been very cold and shaded in the winter.
And this was their exercise yard,
with maybe 500 prisoners out here.
Five hundred!
NARRATOR: This home movie shot by a German guard
was discovered while making this film.
It's the only known footage of prisoners in Colditz.
There were over 170 escape attempts made,
but one scheme must rank as the most audacious.
In the final months of the war, a group of British prisoners
plotted to fly their way out of the fortress.
Their ticket to freedom was to be a homemade glider,
built from scraps stolen from the Nazis
and launched off the roof.
The prisoners planned to build their runway
on the ridge of this roof, 34 meters above the ground.
Hugh is in charge of finding out if this mission impossible
would have stood any chance of working.
Brave guys, I have to say.
Well, we'll do the best we can and we will find it tough,
but nothing like as tough as they would have found it.
NARRATOR: The prisoners' plan was outrageously risky.
Their glider would carry two men sitting back to back.
To launch it off the roof,
they would fasten a rope to the nose of the glider,
run it over a pulley
and tie it to a bathtub full of concrete.
Dropping the ton weight
would catapult the glider off the roof.
Then they'd have to set the plane down safely in a field
and continue their escape on foot.
A piece of cake!
The brains behind this extraordinary idea
was 27-year-old Bill Goldfinch,
an RAF pilot who'd already toyed with the idea
of flying to freedom from his previous camp
by dangling from a kite.
His inspiration for the glider came from a surprising source:
the view from a window on a winter's day.
BILL GOLDFINCH: This window faced Colditz town,
looked out over Colditz town
to the west, I suppose, more or less.
And the wind was blowing on the face of this window,
and it was snowing.
But what appealed to me
was that the snowflakes weren't coming down;
they were actually just drifting up and over the top.
We could watch the force of the wind at work on them
and what a smooth flow it was of air, coming along rising up,
and that said, "This is a good place to launch a glider."
That was the thought.
That was eureka.
NARRATOR: Goldfinch built his glider,
and his original detailed plans still exist.
But there's only a crude sketch
to show how he was going to launch it off the roof.
Turning Bill's scribble
into a fully functional glider launcher
is some challenge.
(choir singing)
That's where Hugh Hunt comes in.
HUNT: Right, let's see if I can...
It is possible just to get it to be stationary.
NARRATOR: Hugh lectures on mechanical engineering
at Trinity College Cambridge,
and he knows all about the science of falling objects.
HUNT: One of the things I do here in Trinity
is I look after the college clock,
and the college clock has got weights which fall,
and there's pulleys.
So one of the things I'm quite good at
is thinking about how weights and pulleys work,
so the question then is,
"If I wanted to launch the glider,
could I launch it by having weights and pulleys?"
NARRATOR: The prisoners spent ten months building their glider.
With the help of some special recruits,
Hugh hopes to do it in two weeks.
Hugh, how are you?
Welcome!
NARRATOR: Tony Hoskins is an ex-Virgin Airlines engineer
who now builds and repairs gliders professionally.
Did you enjoy the drive?
No.
(laughing)
NARRATOR: Hugh has asked Tony and his team
to build an exact replica of Goldfinch's glider.
That little bit of roof up there...
That's where we're going off?
It's where we're gonna go off.
NARRATOR: Their workshop will be the same attic
the POWs used nearly 70 years earlier.
TONY HOSKINS: It's bigger than I imagined.
NARRATOR: There is only one known photograph of the glider.
It was taken in this very room
after the castle was liberated in April 1945.
Tony's brought all the raw materials he needs
to build the glider with him from the UK.
But Bill Goldfinch's men didn't have that luxury.
They made their glider out of whatever they could steal.
GOLDFINCH: We were in a great big castle,
lots of wood, lots of stone, lots of metal about.
And it lay all around you for the taking
and you could help yourself to what you wanted,
which is exactly what we did.
I said, "I want that bit of wood so we'll take it, then."
HUNT: Now, we're going to get to a tricky bit here...
NARRATOR: Tony will be following Bill Goldfinch's plans to the letter,
but there's one key difference.
HOSKINS: Ah, this is our intrepid hero,
He's taken a bit of a knock...
NARRATOR: Tony's not prepared to risk the life of a real pilot,
so the glider will be flown remotely
via a radio link from the field below.
It looks very good.
NARRATOR: Hugh's joined by military historian Sebastian Roberts.
As an ex-Major General in the Irish Guards,
he understands the mindset of the young officers
imprisoned here.
SEBASTIAN ROBERTS: An English public school education
is good preparation for prison,
and the large majority of those who were sent to Colditz
had been through the English boarding school experience,
and that certainly prepared them in several ways psychologically.
Most of the British were in dormitories
on this side here.
NARRATOR: One of the British prisoners
was William Faithful Anderson, Hugh's uncle.
Antony! Hugh!
Nice to see you!
Fantastic.
How are you?
NARRATOR: Will Anderson died several years ago.
His son Antony looks after his father's archives.
Hugh went to see his cousin before coming to Colditz.
There's aged nine months,
and look, a week before Daddy went to France
on May 1, 1940.
And a week later,
he was gone.
NARRATOR: Like Hugh, Will Anderson studied engineering at Cambridge.
But he joined the army, and by the beginning of the war
he'd risen to the rank of Major in the Royal Engineers.
His wife Kathleen was pregnant with their second child,
and Antony was just a few months old.
ANTONY: This is Mom's diary.
May 1, 1940.
Awful day has come.
"At 8:00 a.m. after breakfast together,
Antony and I said goodbye to Will."
And that was all she saw of him
for the next five, five and a bit more years.
Uncle Will's unit was sent to France
to fight the Nazi troops sweeping across Europe.
But like the rest of the Allies, they were forced to retreat.
At Dunkirk, the British carried out a desperate evacuation.
But not everyone made it home.
34,000 British troops were captured defending the beaches
and sent to prison camps across occupied Europe.
Hugh's Uncle was among them.
A year later, he was caught trying to tunnel out of his camp
and sent to join the hardened escapers in Colditz.
HUNT: "My own Darling Kathleen.
"I got here on Thursday
"after an interesting journey of more than a day.
"This is rather a very special sort of camp!
"We have 200 French and Belgians, 80 Poles
"and 37 British officers.
All a most excellent and enterprising lot."
NARRATOR: Will was a keen amateur painter
and began to chronicle life in the castle.
But he soon found another outlet for his artistic talents.
He became one of the camp's best forgers,
drawing by hand perfect copies
of printed German travel documents.
This was essential kit for prisoners trying to break out,
and it was in hot demand.
Allied officers made over 170 escape attempts
from Colditz during the war.
They knew that it was their duty to escape.
And indeed the Germans understood this as well:
it was the duty of German officers to escape
if they were captured.
GRISMOND DAVIES-SCOURFIELD: The Germans had this maddening phrase
they spouted at you when you first captured.
They thought they were being kind, I think.
(speaking German): "Für Sie der Krieg ist vorbei."
"For you, the war is over."
But it jolly well wasn't going to be over.
And this was the one thing we could do, and should do,
would be to escape.
NARRATOR: But breaking out of the most secure prison camp in Germany
wouldn't be easy.
The central courtyard was a prison within a prison,
enclosed on all sides
by the rooms where the prisoners ate and slept.
The only exit was blocked
by three sets of heavily guarded gates.
There was one guard for every prisoner.
The castle's walls were six feet thick.
Beyond them lay a series
of eight-foot high barbed wire fences,
patrolled by sentries 24 hours a day.
Floodlights lit the castle at night,
and raised machine gun positions covered every possible exit.
Tunneling out seemed impossible too:
the castle sat on an outcrop of solid rock.
And even if prisoners were to get out of the castle,
they were still nearly 400 miles
from the nearest neutral country: Switzerland.
But in 1941, this didn't deter
a group of recently arrived Dutch prisoners,
who thought they'd spotted a weak link
in the German ring of steel.
Several times a week, prisoners were escorted
down to a small park next to the castle for exercise.
Although the park was heavily guarded,
the Dutch saw this as a chance to escape.
ROBERTS: They'd recced here
and discovered that there was a manhole
heavily bolted down with steel bolts,
and they became convinced that this offered an opportunity.
They played down there on the exercise area
a game like rugby.
(men shouting)
It was extremely violent and it resulted in big,
seething masses of scrimmaging Dutch officers,
which was a perfect opportunity for two of their number
to make their way into the manhole.
Two guys got in,
and one of them had the original bolt with him.
A third man, part of the scrum, quickly put in place a fake bolt
which was actually made of glass.
When the scrum ended,
there was no apparent change to the manhole.
The German guards noticed nothing,
exercise time ended,
and the Dutch marched back up to the castle,
leaving two men
under an apparently completely locked manhole.
The men, Naval officers Hans Larive and Francis Steinmetz,
waited until darkness fell
and the nearest sentries were over 100 meters away.
That's when the glass bolt came in.
(glass shatters)
ROBERTS: They bothered to put the real bolt back
because they thought they might be able
to use this particular place again,
and they did, twice successfully.
NARRATOR: Altogether, six Dutchmen took the manhole route to freedom,
and four made it all the way to neutral Switzerland.
Each time, the Germans hadn't even realized they were missing.
ROBERTS: The Dutch were masters of ingenuity
to cover their escapes.
They used dummies to answer the names of the escaped
at the frequent roll calls,
and when the Germans did a head count,
all the heads were there.
The dummies were extraordinarily lifelike.
This photograph taken after a dummy had been discovered.
The Dutchman holding him
is justifiably very proud of what he's got there,
because this worked on several occasions.
NARRATOR: When he discovered the ruse,
the camp's head of security, Captain Reinhold Eggers,
was so impressed that he had Dutch officers
pose with their dummies for the camera.
He displayed these images in a museum
dedicated to the art of the escaper.
It included homemade civilian clothes
and fake German uniforms
knocked up on a hand-built sewing machine,
German army insignia cut from linoleum,
and dummy rifles made from paper and wood.
But Eggers didn't assemble the collection
for his own amusement.
He invited guards from other camps
to come along and learn
about the resourcefulness of the enemy.
He was a very good security officer.
There is no question of that.
He was a thorn in our side.
He'd got a job to do to keep us in,
and our job was to get out, and he was good.
Timber!
NARRATOR: Today, the would-be escapers
don't have to worry about prying Nazi guards.
And they are experienced glider builders,
unlike the men who designed the original aircraft.
It was a matter of applying what knowledge one had
to say, "Well, how big should the wing be,
how much is it going to weigh, how strong is it going to be?"
We worked all these thing out on a bit of paper.
NARRATOR: RAF pilot Bill Goldfinch knew how to handle an aircraft,
but had no idea how to build one.
Luckily, Colditz had a surprisingly well-stocked
prison library.
In Colditz, he found in the prisoners' library
these two volumes.
And the name of the book?
Aircraft Design.
Now, what better book?
You may as well have had Tunneling for Dummies
and Forgery Made Easy.
I look inside these volumes,
and you see the most incredibly detailed pictures.
This is the section of a wing.
This is all the basics of what you need to fly a plane
with a couple of people in it, and that's what he wanted:
simple, to the point.
Beautiful books.
NARRATOR: To turn his ambitious design into reality,
Goldfinch teamed up with one of the best craftsmen in the camp:
fellow RAF pilot Jack Best.
JACK BEST: We had been mates
ever since we'd been prisoners I think really,
so we more or less talked with one voice.
We were called the two old crows, but...
Or the wicked Uncles.
NARRATOR: Altogether, 16 British prisoners built the glider.
HUNT: So Tony, I want to show you something down here.
NARRATOR: They concealed themselves behind a false wall
at one end of the attic, above where Tony's working.
HUNT: You guys have got that huge space down the bottom.
HOSKINS: We have, yeah.
HUNT: This is all they had.
I reckon it's seven feet,
according to the various records.
They built a wall here.
My uncle Will
was responsible...
For making the wall?
HUNT: for designing the wall.
HOSKINS: Fantastic.
ROBERTS: They shortened an attic
with a fake wall which was never discovered,
behind which a whole glider was constructed,
a glider large enough to take two people.
A glider engineered with supreme skill.
HOSKINS: That's it.
That's the workshop.
(all laughing)
NARRATOR: In the derelict former prisoner's quarters,
Hugh's on the hunt for the most important part of the mechanism
that will catapult the glider off the roof.
HUNT: We're looking for bathtubs.
Bathtubs!
This used to be a mental hospital and asylum.
Really, after the war?
Creepy place, isn't it?
Aha!
Look at that.
NARRATOR: A bathtub, liberated by the prisoners
from their own washrooms,
would have made a perfect counterweight for the glider.
When empty, it would be light enough to move around.
Once in position,
it could be filled with concrete to the desired weight.
It's a shame there's no hot and cold running water.
It's all right, we've got plenty of dust.
NARRATOR: Up on the roof of the castle,
carpenters have been building the wooden platform
that will form the glider's 40-foot-long runway.
Hugh has to sign off on the work,
but he hasn't got a head for heights.
I've been psyching myself up for this for a few days.
I'm okay, I'm okay.
NARRATOR: What the runway lacks in length, it makes up for in altitude.
HUNT: Nice view!
NARRATOR: The runway is higher than a ten-story building.
Hugh's got it easy: the original glider men
wouldn't have been secured to the roof by ropes.
WALDO: Perfect height for a little trip hazard.
HUNT: Just don't get too far away, Waldo.
MIKE: If you want to go on your hands and knees
and peek over the edge, that's fine.
NARRATOR: The courtyard is 160 feet below.
This should give the bathtub the drop it needs
to accelerate the plane up to take-off speed.
Whoa!
Hi, bathtub!
NARRATOR: Hugh's men are clearly visible on the roof.
So how were the prisoners going to work
without being spotted by the guards below?
Their solution was typically bold.
They would build their runway under cover of darkness
in a single night.
Although the castle was lit by floodlights,
the apex of the roof was in shadow,
allowing the men to work without being seen.
The glider workshop was directly behind the runway roof.
They planned to knock a hole in the wall
and lay out a line of tables,
taken from their rooms, along the ridge.
This would be their runway.
Then they'd assemble their glider
before hanging their bathtub in place.
They'd be gone before the sun came up.
It's the end of week one.
The glider's wooden framework is almost finished,
so Hugh turns to the mechanism
that will launch it off the roof.
He starts with the idea sketched by Bill Goldfinch in 1944
and sets up a rig to do a scaled down test.
Standing in for the plane is a block of wood
wrapped in cloth.
They'll try to launch it using a bath full of water.
HUNT: We don't want anybody standing
in the line in that direction,
that's very important, so please stay back there.
The POWs of course didn't have the luxury
of doing these kinds of tests.
The POWs took big risks.
They took risks with their lives,
with other people's lives.
That was the nature of war.
Okay!
Three, two, one!
Hey, Tony,
I think we need some wings.
NARRATOR: As Hugh is discovering,
generating enough speed to get the glider airborne
is going to be his biggest challenge.
The plane needs to reach 40 miles per hour,
but over such a short runway,
this will take the acceleration of a Formula One car.
Is a falling bathtub really up to the task?
With a cable running over a single pulley,
the glider moves at the same speed as the falling bathtub.
But that's not fast enough to fly.
(banging)
No matter how heavy the bathtub is,
it can't accelerate faster than gravity, or 1 g.
And at 1 g, the glider won't have reached launch speed
by the end of the runway.
Hugh's solution is to run the cable
round a second pulley.
The pair of pulleys acts like a pair of gears.
Now for every meter the bathtub falls,
the glider moves two meters forward.
With the glider moving twice as fast as the falling bathtub,
it should be able to reach launch speed
by the end of the runway.
At least that's the theory.
But will it work in practice?
HUNT: Okay!
Five, four, three, two, one!
There we go.
NARRATOR: The double pulley has sped up the block,
but according to Hugh's calculations, it's not enough.
HUNT: But look, I've been able to analyze the data.
And what you do is you've got all these distances,
and you've got the times by counting frames.
And distance is a half A T squared,
where A is acceleration,
so I've got distances, I've got time.
Fit a parabola through it, I'll work out the acceleration.
Right.
And you wanted...
1.2 g.
We absolutely must need 1.2?
1.1...
1.1, and you had...
Bad luck, .84.
So our launch speed I've worked out
would be about 29, 30, 31 miles an hour
if... we have exactly this situation.
NARRATOR: The glider won't fly unless it reaches 40 miles an hour.
The double pulley should have greatly increased
the speed of the test launcher.
But just like Bill Goldfinch's glider,
the block has to slide on a wooden skid rather than wheels,
and friction between the skid and the runway
is slowing it down.
Perhaps Colditz Do-It-Yourself can help.
We want to have Reibung very small, so that...
Aha, yes, okay.
NARRATOR: The shop assistant offers Hugh some scrap metal sheets.
Um... this looks rather good.
It's a present.
NARRATOR: The smooth metal sheets should reduce the friction
between the glider and the runway.
But will that make it fast enough
to carry it beyond the castle walls?
By the beginning of 1942,
over 20 British prisoners had tried to escape from Colditz.
But none had made it home.
Many had failed for a very British reason...
They couldn't speak the local language.
So, for the next attempt,
scheduled to take place during a prison concert,
Brit Airey Neave teamed up with Dutchman Tony Luteyn,
who spoke fluent German.
To get away, they would drop through an opening
made by the prisoners into a corridor beneath the stage.
There was a rope hanging,
a rope made of sheets with some knots in it
so you could climb downstairs
into the room underneath the stage.
NARRATOR: The corridor underneath the theater
led to the German guardhouse.
Dressed in fake German uniforms,
the two escapers marched straight through a room
full of guards towards the exit.
The sergeant of the guard opened the front door to let us out.
NARRATOR: Luteyn's fluent German ensured an easy passage
through hostile country.
After 48 hours, they were in neutral Switzerland.
The British, thanks to the Dutch,
had made their first home run.
In two days' time,
the glider team will make their own escape attempt.
Tony's finished the aircraft's wooden frame.
But he's got to cover it in fabric before it will fly.
His choice of material
would meet the approval of the original glider men.
The fuselage was covered with our bed sheets.
We had sort of blue and white checked bed sheets,
and I do remember helping putting these sheets on
and then I remember sitting with a sort of brush thing
dabbing what I was told was dope on it as well.
NARRATOR: Dope is a type of varnish
that's applied to the fabric on airframes
to pull it taut and make it airtight.
But the prisoners didn't have access to any,
so they had to improvise,
with porridge made to the Colditz recipe
that used millet instead of oats.
The starch in the porridge shrinks as it dries,
tightening the fabric... At least that's the theory.
We've spent just over a week
making a rather lovely Colditz glider,
and you're asking us to paint porridge on it.
(men laughing)
I really don't want to paint that on my airplane.
NARRATOR: While Tony slaves over a hot stove, Hugh goes exploring.
He wants to find his Uncle Will's old room,
but there are hundreds to choose from.
Oh, no, this is the wrong direction completely.
Most definitely not this view.
NARRATOR: Will painted the same view from his window
through all the seasons for four years,
so Hugh's using one of these pictures
to help him find the room.
HUNT: That's the direction, but it's not a room.
I doubt he'd be painting in a corridor.
HUNT: Looking out this window, then,
I can see the archway, clock tower, yeah, the right level,
can see the trees.
No, there's no doubt, no doubt at all
that this is the right view.
NARRATOR: One of the many letters he wrote from this room
was to his four-year-old son Antony.
HUNT: "Many happy returns of your birthday.
"I wish I could be at home for it,
"but I really think I may be back for your next one.
"Anyway, I promise you and David"...
That's his younger brother...
"a special extra one directly I come home.
I hope you like school."
Whoa.
You know it's funny, I'm away from my kids this week
for just two weeks,
and he was away from his family for four or five years.
Really tough.
NARRATOR: Last night, the team rebuilding the Colditz glider
covered its fabric surfaces with porridge made from millet seed.
It was supposed to pull the cotton fabric taut,
but they were skeptical that it would work.
It could be tighter.
The other wing, funnily enough, came out better.
Actually we're really happy with it, turned out really well,
and I'm really glad we used the millet.
(laughing)
What can I say?
NARRATOR: Now the millet's done its job,
the glider's ready to be taken out and assembled on the roof,
where they're putting the finishing touches to the runway.
But there's one last job before everyone leaves for the night.
During the war,
the prisoners' plan was to knock a hole in the wall
at the end of the attic
and pass the glider straight out onto the runway.
The castle authorities have drawn a line
at Hugh doing the same,
but they have allowed him to open a hole in the roof instead.
But it will make getting the glider onto the runway
much more difficult.
We're going to convene at 5:45 tomorrow morning
with a view to launching at about 10:00 tomorrow morning,
perhaps 11:00 at the latest,
because there's some bad weather coming in.
It's going to start getting blustery.
One of the big concerns
is that if the wind comes in from one side,
it pushes up on one wing
and it's going to be very, very hard to assemble the glider
and even to fly the glider if the wind comes up from one side,
so we've got to be out there by 11:00, 12:00 at the very latest.
So we've got work to do.
NARRATOR: D-Day, June 1944.
Over 150,000 Allied troops invaded northern France.
The tide of the war was turning.
The Allies were finally on top.
But as the fighting got fiercer,
conditions inside Germany deteriorated.
Food became scarce.
German society was falling apart.
Inside Colditz prison, rations were cut
and prisoners were beginning to starve.
If it's pure hunger, you really are thinking different things.
And, um, it does take over your complete thought.
You have no other thought except food.
NARRATOR: It was particularly bad
for any prisoner caught trying to break out.
The Nazis had issued an order
that guards were to shoot escapers on sight.
As this German propaganda poster put it,
escaping had ceased to be a sport.
(gunshot)
NARRATOR: By the final year of the war,
security officer Eggers had blocked off
all routes to freedom.
The prisoners' last hope
was their most desperate plan of all.
ROBERTS: They'd been forced by the success of the Germans
in foiling other attempts to be ever more imaginative.
The glider was an absolutely serious escape attempt.
I'm absolutely certain
that the two men who were going to be in the glider
were, above all, aiming to escape.
(birds chirping)
(dog barking)
NARRATOR: It's launch day.
The weather's perfect for flying now,
but after lunch, the wind is due to pick up.
Already, Ben's seeing trouble ahead.
The wind is coming from this direction,
and that's our take-off direction,
so it means that we have
an element of tail wind and crosswind
at the same time, which isn't so good.
NARRATOR: Their first job is to get the glider onto the roof,
and that's not going to be easy.
MAN: The wind's picking up.
MAN: It is picking up.
NARRATOR: They're using a system of ropes
to lift the pieces of glider around the clock tower
and onto the roof.
They've rigged a fabric sling to carry the wings,
but they are light and very fragile.
It's slipping.
NARRATOR: The process is taking longer than they expected.
Already they're behind schedule.
Oh, it's getting really close, really close.
Keep it away from the wall, though, Waldo, if you can.
Where would you like me to be?
Would you like me just to be here?
Okay, it's yours.
Phew.
NARRATOR: Now the components are on the roof,
they have to put them together quickly
while conditions are calm.
Now, do you want this up or can I hold it...?
Not yet, Hugh.
NARRATOR: With half the town closed off,
the other half is crammed full of spectators.
At last, the glider's in one piece.
Nothing like it's been seen in Colditz since the war.
PURDON: I mean, there was no doubt about it.
It was a super-looking glider when it was finished.
And I saw it when it was finished.
NARRATOR: Although the original glider never made it out of the attic,
that it was conjured out of thin air by starving prisoners
speaks volumes about the Colditz spirit.
A successful launch today after a 70-year wait
would close a chapter of history.
No pressure then, Hugh.
HUNT: Tony, what do you reckon... looks fantastic.
It does, just need to get going as soon as we can.
Well, can I radio up and get that bathtub going up?
Yeah, get 'em going.
NARRATOR: It's midday.
Hugh and Tony will oversee the launch
from the landing field below the castle.
HUNT: We have sight of bathtub.
NARRATOR: They'd wanted to launch two hours ago,
and there are signs that the wind is picking up.
It does show up the top there that there's quite a crosswind.
Whatever the wind is doing up there,
I just hope it's not too breezy.
NARRATOR: Pat Willis has more reason than most to be worried.
He's the man at the controls.
He'll pilot the glider using a hand-held radio control unit.
Tony will monitor a live video link from the cockpit
and feed him information during the flight.
We haven't taken the bathtub up to the full six meters before,
and it's not moving anymore
and it seems as if the chain hoist is stuck.
MAN (on radio): About a meter and a half to go.
Oh, it's moving again, yeah.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!
JACK BEST: I wanted to have the bath timed
so that when it went down with a bang and set the glider off
there was a German goon underneath patrolling,
so we'd squash one of them on the way,
but that was ruled out of order, it wasn't cricket.
MAN (on radio): Dermot, you're there.
Whoo-hoo!
Bathtub up.
Are you getting as shaky as I am?
NARRATOR: They'll be ready to launch once Pat has done his final checks.
Right aileron, both sides, one up, one down.
Right aileron is down, but the left one is neutral.
HUNT: Say again.
Right is down, left is apparently neutral.
Is the left moving at all?
No, the left one's not working.
It's not working.
Yeah, no, it's not working.
NARRATOR: The left aileron, the flap on the far wing, isn't moving.
Without it, Pat can't control the glider.
If they don't fix it, they can't fly.
Tony and Hugh have no idea what's gone wrong.
Okay.
NARRATOR: With strong winds on the way,
they must fix it soon, or the launch will be off.
BEN WATKINS: Oh, crap.
It was working.
NARRATOR: There's only one man who knows how to fix it.
And only one who can reach it... Rope man Waldo.
Lower the panel down.
NARRATOR: So Pat has to talk him through what to do from the roof below.
Lee coming out...
NARRATOR: No one said escaping from Colditz was going to be easy.
WILLIS: Unplug the plug from that,
which goes on the receiver.
Right next to it you'll find a red one.
NARRATOR: They discover that the problem lies
with one of the electric motors, called servos,
that are supposed to move the aileron up and down.
WILLIS: The only thing to do,
disconnect the arm of the other servo
and then just screw the whole panel back in as is
and run with one servo.
It looks like there's a servo's gone down.
NARRATOR: Waldo's heroics seem to have done the trick;
the aileron's working.
But they're now four hours behind schedule.
The weather reports say the wind is going to pick up,
so we need to go earlier rather than later.
NARRATOR: Bill Goldfinch and Jack Best never got this far
with their glider,
but they still had an answer to the question,
would it have flown?
Oh, yes, don't you agree?
Well, I think it would have certainly
descended to earth.
We're ready to go down here.
I've got video link.
NARRATOR: Hugh's glider had better do more than just descend to earth,
for the sake of Colditz town.
Everyone happy, anybody objecting?
NARRATOR: Right on cue, the wind starts gusting.
30 seconds.
NARRATOR: The crosswind is lifting the glider up on one side.
Ready, Jim?
NARRATOR: Rope specialist Jim crouches under the wing,
ready to pull it level by hand.
15...
(wind blowing)
Five...
And we're for go.
No, it's not lined up.
It needs to tip back this way, the glider.
We're just waiting for the wind to tip over the right direction
and we will go.
Don't pull the trigger quite yet.
Ready?
Aaah, it keeps going back!
Now!
It's flying, it's still flying.
(cheering)
Oh, my God!
Yes...!
(cheering and laughing)
(indistinct radio transmissions)
Alex! That's Alex!
Oh, no!
I dumped her because I didn't want her going
through people's property.
I was really worried about that.
But she came off there,
reactions are very, very slow, but that was majestic.
NARRATOR: During the war, this empty field was much bigger,
so the prisoners would have had room to land safely
and make their getaway.
It's a different story today.
As you see, we're in a fairly tight environment,
with the river, with people's gardens,
property and everything else, so it's a small field to hit.
And we hit it.
If it wasn't for these fences here and the property here,
if you'd been able to straighten up
and just continue on down there, you could have continued on
probably to a relatively safe arrival.
Had this been a for-real launch with a for-real escape,
with real people wanting to get away,
they'd have put themselves down safely and they'd have got away.
NARRATOR: And with a bit of luck,
Bill Goldfinch would have fared better
than Alex the polystyrene pilot.
Look, look, watch this.
He can talk now!
(laughing)
NARRATOR: The glider had speed to spare coming off the runway,
but she was difficult to fly.
Even so, Pat managed to steer clear of the town
and put her down in the field.
(cheering)
HUNT: Here, standing in the field,
we had just no idea whether this was going to work,
and even as the glider came off the end
and it went down like this
and, you know, it's not going to work,
it's going to end up in the village,
but up it came, and oh...
That was just an unbelievable moment.
You just couldn't beat it.
We had no idea.
And there it is.
HOSKINS: We have shown
that launching a glider from the roof of Colditz
by bathtub method is possible, it is definitely possible.
It's tricky, and it's quite stressful at times,
but it is possible.
HUNT: Well, I really do appreciate what they had to do.
It would have been a very risky endeavor.
What an ask, but yeah, they'd have done it.
I'm sure they'd have done it.
NARRATOR: Troops from the United States First Army
liberated Colditz Castle on the 16th of April, 1945.
A journalist attached to the unit
took the only known photograph of the glider.
What happened to the aircraft afterwards is still a mystery.
Bill Goldfinch and Jack Best had to leave it in Colditz,
because finally, they were going home.
Will Anderson had been away for over five years.
The Britain he knew had disappeared,
and loved ones had changed beyond recognition.
Like millions of others,
he too bore the scars of war and long imprisonment.
Will's son Antony was five years old when his father returned.
ANTONY: I don't think it was easy for my mother or my father.
You know, I think they both would have admitted
it was jolly difficult adjusting,
and we were attached to my mother and so on, you know,
and it took him a while to understand that,
that these years had gone by.
NARRATOR: As good as his word, Will Anderson treated his children
to the special "extra" birthday he'd promised in his letters.
Three ducks.
That's the mummy duck.
NARRATOR: Putting some of the skills he'd learned in Colditz to good use,
he made these waddling ducks out of a packing case
and gave them to his young sons as presents.
Antony has kept them all these years.
Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org
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