The Cooler King

The True Story of William Ash - The Greatest Escaper of World War II

Patrick Bishop

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781782390244
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire du monde

The Cooler King tells the astonishing story of American fighter pilot William Ash, who, after being shot down over France in 1942, spent the rest of the war defying the Nazis by striving to escape from every prisoner-of-war camp in which he was imprisoned. His daring exploits made him the likely inspiration for Steve McQueen's character in The Great Escape.

It is a saga full of incident and high drama, climaxing in a break out via a tunnel dug in the latrines of the Oflag XXIB prison camp in Poland - a great untold episode of the Second World War. Alongside William Ash is a cast of fascinating characters, including Douglas Bader, Roger Bushell, who would go on to lead the Great Escape, and Paddy Barthropp, a dashing Battle of Britain pilot who despite his very different background became Ash's best friend and shared many of his adventures.

By weaving together contemporary documents and interviews with Ash's comrades, Patrick Bishop vividly recreates the multiple escape attempts, while also examining the P.O.W. experience and analysing the passion that drove some prisoners to risk death in repeated bids for freedom.

The Cooler King is at once uplifting and inspirational, and stands as a testament to the durability of decent values and the invincible spirit of liberty.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Illustrations

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Epilogue

Notes

Index

A Note About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Bill Ash’s widow Ranjana Sidhanta and his friend and collaborator Brendan Foley for generously allowing me to quote from his publications and reproduce photographs from his early years. I am also grateful to Juliet Ash for sharing memories of her father and to Betty Barthropp for talking to me about her late husband Paddy’s friendship with Bill. The staffs of the National Archives, the Imperial War Museum, the London Library and the Bishopsgate Institute were helpful and efficient.

The work has been made easier and more pleasurable by the professionalism of the Atlantic team, in particular my editor James Nightingale and copyeditor Will Atkins who saved me from many errors.

I would also indebted to my friend Annabel Merullo for shepherding the project through, from inception to realization.

ILLUSTRATIONS

SECTION ONE

The formal portrait Bill sent home in 1941. (Courtesy of Brendan Foley)

Bill with his sister Adele at home in Dallas in 1925. (Courtesy of Brendan Foley)

Bill during training. (Courtesy of Brendan Foley)

At the controls of his Spitfire in late 1941. (Courtesy of Brendan Foley)

Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King greets Bill during a visit to 411 Squadron. (Courtesy of Brendan Foley)

The squadron at Digby.

At dispersal, waiting for action, Digby, late summer 1941. (Courtesy of Brendan Foley)

411 pilots just before or after an operation.

Squadron Leader Stan Turner.

Bill is entertained by Buck McNair. (Courtesy of Brendan Foley)

The church at Vieille Église today. (Patrick Bishop)

The house where the Boulanger family once had their estaminet. (Patrick Bishop)

The cover of Bill’s prisoner-of-war file at Stalag Luft III. (Courtesy of Brendan Foley)

Paddy Barthropp.

Sketch map of Stalag Luft III. (The National Archives)

SECTION TWO

Stalag Luft III, c. 1944. (Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Watchtower at Stalag Luft III, c. 1942. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Robert Kee, 1951. (John Chillingworth/Picture Post/Getty Images)

Wing Commander Harry Day briefs Kenneth Moore for his role as Douglas Bader in Reach for the Sky (1955). (Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Getty Images)

Prisoners laying the foundations for a hut in Stalag Luft III. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Prisoners in a hut in Stalag Luft III, 1943. (Keystone/Getty Images)

Prisoners and camp staff in the Red Cross parcel store, Stalag Luft III. (© IWM, HU 20926)

Prisoners prepare a news sheet, Stalag Luft III. (© IWM, HU 20928)

Prisoners tend their garden at Stalag Luft III. (© IWM, HU 20930)

A church service for POWs at Stalag Luft III, c. 1944. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

An American military funeral at Stalag Luft III, February 1945. (Topfoto/The Granger Collection, New York)

The avenue leading away from Stalag Luft III. (© James Finlay, www.jamesfinlay.com)

Halbau today. (© James Finlay, www.jamesfinlay.com)

Liberated POWs at Marlag und Milag Nord at Westertimke, 29 April 1945. (© IWM, BU 4835)

Release of prisoners in Westertimke Camp, 5 May 1945. (Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Steve McQueen in The Great Escape (1963). (© John Springer Collection/Corbis)

‘The real escaper is more than a man equipped with compass, maps, papers, disguise and a plan. He has an inner confidence, a serenity of spirit which make him a Pilgrim.’

Airey Neave, Colditz escaper

PROLOGUE

The Spitfire slithered to a halt. For a few seconds he savoured the wonderful silence. He opened his eyes. Framed in the windshield in front of his face was the outline of a church tower. The church seemed to be upside down. He realized that he was hanging, inverted by the straps of his safety harness. He felt for the triangular release catch, pressed, and slumped onto the soft earth. He had jettisoned the perspex canopy just before the landing. It made getting out a lot easier. He could smell petrol and hear the tick of hot aluminium. He knew what was likely to come next: a sickening whoompf and an explosion of flame. He wriggled through the gap between the humped fuselage and the ground, rolled clear and staggered upright. He raised his arms and cautiously clenched and unclenched his hands. Amazingly, he felt OK.

He looked back at the wreckage of the Spitfire, which lay there like a spent comet, trailing a long tail of churned dirt. A thought floated through his head, something they drummed into him during training: In the case of a crash landing in hostile territory it is vital to ensure that your aircraft does not fall intact into enemy hands. There was no danger of that. The airframe was bent, the wings were torn from their roots and the propeller blades twisted like wrought iron.

The sound of an aeroplane engine made him look up. One of the German fighters was circling, checking whether he had survived the crash. He felt the pilot’s eyes locking onto him and looked around frantically for somewhere to hide. Across the field lay the church and a line of houses. The pilot would be radioing back to his base at Saint-Omer, reporting the Spitfire’s last resting place. He set off, jogging across the furrows towards the cover of the village. The heavy clay stuck to his boots, turning his limbs to lead, as if he was running in a nightmare.

The village had just a single street. The houses either side were low and built of dull red brick with thick wooden shutters framing the windows. It was two o’clock in the afternoon yet nobody was about. The place was as deserted as a ghost town in his native Texas. The German plane had cleared off, its engine note fading to a distant pulse. The silence that followed felt sinister. It was broken by a rusty creaking. The front door of one of the cottages opened. In the doorway stood a little girl, about nine or ten years old, he guessed. She stepped forward, beckoning to him.

He took a few paces back. It seemed wrong to involve her in his drama. Yet she kept walking towards him, holding out her hand. Instinctively he reached out and took it. She turned round and led him towards the house.

The door shut behind him. He was in a small, dim room. In the gloom he made out the shape of a woman, youngish and attractive, with a sad, kind face. She smiled and beckoned him to follow her as she climbed the stairs.

He tried to remember some of the little French he had learned at school and could only come up with ‘bonjour’. He felt a need to talk, to explain who he was, although it must have been obvious, speaking urgently in English, even though it was clear she didn’t understand a word. She pressed a finger to her lips and he got the message and shut up. Then she tugged at his tunic, opened a wardrobe and pulled out a man’s jacket and some trousers – her husband’s? Her brother’s? He stifled the impulse to ask.

He took off his flying jacket and boots. As he went to pull down his trousers, he saw mother and daughter watching him, and a foolish spurt of modesty made him hesitate. The woman jabbed a finger at the window, motioning for him to hurry before the Germans arrived. He dropped his trousers and pulled on the new pair. They were a bit short but otherwise OK. The little girl clapped. The black jacket was a tight fit but it would have to do. The woman reached again into the wardrobe and bought out a pair of boots and some wooden clogs. He chose the clogs, thinking they would look more authentic. A few seconds later he was regretting it as he clopped unsteadily back down the stairs.

After the horrors of the last half-hour he felt tears pricking his eyes at such unconditional kindness. He had neither the words nor the time to pour out his thanks. Impulsively he gave the woman a quick, heartfelt hug, and kissed the little girl. They led him to the back door. Behind a small garden lay flat fields. He hurried away with no idea where he was heading. He looked back. The door was already closed, as if his saviours had never existed.

It was the end of March. The land looked drab and dead. It was flat and watery, criss-crossed by drainage ditches. Between the ridged planes of the fields stood lines of bare poplars, stabbing like rows of spears into the vaulting grey sky.

To the left of the house was a hedge and behind it a lane ran south of the village. He walked purposefully, not too fast, not too slow, a man with things to do and a home to go to. Over the fields drifted the sound of clashing gears. He looked back. A lorry was driving into the village and behind it a motorcycle with a grey-helmeted rider. The black peasant jacket and the clogs no longer felt like any protection. He had to get out of sight. There was a channel running along the side of the road, a drainage ditch or a narrow canal. He remembered from trips to the movies in Dallas how escapees from chain gangs waded down rivers to throw the bloodhounds off the scent.

He slithered down the bank. The water was cold and slimy. It stank dreadfully. He was standing waist-deep in the village sewer. He waded southwards, crouching down below the bank until he was out of sight of the houses. When he could stand the stench no more he climbed out and trudged across fields and ditches, avoiding anywhere where he might encounter humans.

At six o’clock it was getting dark. He was exhausted, hungry, cold and soaking wet. An isolated copse, etched black against the sinking sun, offered a possible sanctuary for the night. He ducked under the bare branches, stretched out on the mulch of...