Norfolk man's First World War prison camp escape – with spoons!

Tim Luscombe has been researching his grandfather who was the last of 29 men who attempted to escape from Holzminden by means of a tunnel using spoons. Lieutenant Bernard Porter Luscombe served for the 9th Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment with the Royal Field Artillery. Picture: Ian Burt

Rosa McMahon Monday, December 29, 2014
9:55 AM

It was certainly a Great Escape, even if it didn’t get the Hollywood treatment.

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Bernard Porter Luscombe with Mrs Henry (Ann) Harrison. Lieutenant Luscombe was one of 29 officers who escaped through tunnels they had built at the prisoner of war camp in Holzminden during the First World War. He was a cellist and very much behind the plan to set up a PoW orchestra to help disguise the sound of tunnelling. He was oringally form Hull, but lived in later years in Reepham and became a Reverend.

Wrapped in barbed wire, patrolled by ferocious dogs and guards, Holzminden was one the most notorious Prisoner of War camps in the First World War.

Yet a Norfolk man’s love of music and a determination to get home helped 29 prisoners scramble through the 54 metre-long tunnel, dug with spoons and mugs, to freedom.

Lieutenant Bernard Porter Luscombe was one of the last through the so-called ‘tunnel of freedom’ before it collapsed.

And although he and some others were re-captured days later, it is a tale which reads more like a film script than a family’s history.

Sketch of the escape

Tim Luscombe inherited a sketch from his grandfather called ‘Raging through the Rye’.

It was drawn by friend James Whale, of the Worcester Regiment, and later Hollywood director of Frankenstein, depicting the escape.

The pair had been in the Holzminden Camp together.

Now relatives are researching Lieutenant Luscombe’s part in the brave break-out. His builder grandson Tim Luscombe, 56, from Beeston Regis near Sheringham, said: “I was always told the story growing up. I would have loved to have known him, but he died when I was young so I never got a chance.

“Lately there’s been a lot of talk about the centenary of the First World War and we realised that our family’s story was fascinating.”

In his 20s and serving with the 9th Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment with the Royal Field Artillery, Lieutenant Luscombe was captured and sent to the notorious German camp.

He had studied at the University of Cambridge before the First World War broke out and had honed his skills as an accomplished musician.

Notorious Holzminden Camp

Holzminden Camp was near Hanover opened in September 1917 and was the biggest camp for officers – it held about 550 officers and 150 orderlies.

There were 17 escape attempts in the first month alone, but all were unsuccessful.

The tunnellers of 1918 worked in three-hour shifts, in teams of three, using trowels, chisels, cutlery and anything else they could dig with.

The earth was moved in basins by a pulley system then hidden in the cellar roof.

About 60 prisoners were due to leave, but the tunnel collapsed stopping some of their runaway.

19 were caught and 10 made their way to Holland safely on foot.

During the months leading up to July 23, 1918, an escape committee was formed, maps, civilian clothes and digging tools were smuggled in and, under Lieutenant Luscombe’s direction, a camp orchestra was created to disguise the sound of tonnes of earth being moved.

It was an ingenious plan which saw friendships forged with Germans who helped them break free.

The tunnellers worked in three-hour shifts in teams of three for nine months, moving the mud in basins by a pulley system before hiding them in the cellar roof.

Cello player Lieutenant Luscombe formed the Holzminden Camp Orchestra and a network was created to track senior German officers’ movements in preparation for the escape.

A mailman became known to the soldiers as ‘the letter boy’, a man who supplied torches and was dubbed ‘the electric light boy’, and a female typist passed on information because she was infatuated with an airman.

When he reached the end of the tunnel he faced a guard, asleep with a rifle in hand.

“Leading up to the escape they must have been living on their nerves”, Mr Luscombe said. “At the end of the tunnel was a rye field, and they had to go through all of that rye to get out, just finding their way through. The feeling must have been euphoric.

“Once he had escaped, we know he was then out for two days and a night before he was re-captured.

“The story goes he was with his colleague walking down the road when a German soldier coming the other way said good morning to them in English. His friend said good morning back – and that’s when he was captured again.”

Lieutenant Luscombe’s daughter Margaret Rowe, 79, of Upton Road, Norwich, the youngest of three children, has also been researching her father’s life.

She believes he was one of the last of the 29 who attempted to flee Holzminden. About 10 of those managed to reach England.

As punishment Lieutenant Luscombe spent time in solitary confinement. He and the others who were re-captured spent only another month or two in the camp before the war was declared over.

He later moved to Norfolk to become a rector, starting in Reepham in 1933, then on to New Catton, Rackheath and Salhouse.

During the Second World War he served as a chaplain and even had several of his toes blown off at Dunkirk.

His final post as a rector was at Pulham Market, where he died aged 69 in 1960.

Do you have a fascinating story about your family? Email newsdesk@archant.co.uk

Norfolk man"s First World War prison camp escape – with spoons!