Gestapo claim lives of Aussie men

By David Edlington

WOFF Al Hake, the compass maker with his wife, Noela

SQNLDR John ‘Willy’ Williams

FLTLT Reg ‘Rusty’ Kierath Photos: A Gallant Company: The men of the Great Escape

Thousands of their compatriots fell victim to fighters and flak in the air battles of World War II, but five Australians who broke out of Stalag Luft III in the Great Escape on March 24-25, 1944, met pitiless deaths at the hands of the Gestapo, along with 45 other airmen.

They were SQNLDR James Catanach, DFC, aged 22; WO Albert Horace Hake, 27; FLTLT Reginald Victor Kierath, 29; FLTLT Thomas Barker Leigh, 25; and SQNLDR John Edwin Ashley Williams, DFC, 24.

WOFF Hake – whose Spitfire was shot down over France in April 1942 on operations with No. 72 Squadron (RAF) – played the most prominent part in preparations for the breakout as he was the mastermind of the compass-making operation.

The compasses were made from melted Bakelite phonograph records, slivers of magnetised razor blades, glass from broken windows and solder from the seals of tin cans. WOFF Hake inscribed on them “Made in Stalag Luft III Patent pending” so that the bearers, if recaptured would not be shot as spies.

This did not prevent his execution after he was caught not far from Sagan, where the POW camp was located, as he slogged on foot across the snow-covered landscape.

When he joined the RAAF in January 1941, on his enlistment papers he had included ice skating among his list of sporting pursuits. (He first met his future wife, Noela, at an ice rink. They were married five months before he embarked for service overseas.) But the icy conditions he faced on the run were something else and he suffered severe frostbite. Other recaptured Allied airmen saw him hobbling with a group of prisoners and a Gestapo escort to a black car outside the Gorlitz civilian prison on March 30. The man renowned for lively renditions of songs, including Waltzing Matilda, on guitar at Stalag Luft III, was never seen alive again.

FLTLT Leigh was also in the group of airmen murdered at that time. He, too, had been recaptured in the Sagan area.

An air gunner with No. 76 Squadron (RAF), he had been in a Halifax bomber that had been shot down in August 1941. An ex-RAF Halton apprentice, his nationality is listed as United Kingdom on Commonwealth War Graves Commission records, but he originally came from Sydney.

Like FLTLT Leigh, SQNLDR Williams joined the RAF before the war, though he was flying with No. 450 Squadron (RAAF) when his Kittyhawk was shot down in North Africa in October 1942.

Born in New Zealand, he moved to Australia with his family.

Known to his squadron mates as “Willy”, he took to the skies in baggy khaki shorts and shirt and leather sandals. Despite his appearance, he was a formidable pilot who became an ace and earned the DFC.

He and FLTLT “Rusty” Kierath were among 12 airmen disguised as foreign workers who attempted to make their way to Czechoslovakia.

The pair were arrested with two others and taken to Reichenberg jail. They were murdered by the Gestapo on March 29.

For the Kierath family, who had already had a son killed in action with the Australian Army at Tobruk in 1941, the death of another son would have been devastating.

A member of 450SQN, FLTLT Kierath became a POW in April 1943. At Stalag Luft III, he helped create fake walls to hide forged documents, Al Hake’s compasses and other material vital to the breakout.

SQNLDR Catanach enlisted in the RAAF in Melbourne in August 1940. He never lived to receive the DFC awarded for bringing back to base on three occasions aircraft that had been severely damaged on raids with No. 455 Squadron (RAAF).

His Hampden bomber and other Coastal Command aircraft flew out on September 2, 1942, for Murmansk, Russia, Near the Finnish/Norwegian border, anti-aircraft fire from an armed trawler forced him to crash land. He was forcibly grounded – a prisoner in Stalag Luft III.

Fluent in German, he learned Norwegian in the POW camp. After he broke out, he and three companions headed for Denmark. A suspicious policeman insisted on checking their cases, which contained escape rations. The four airmen were handed over to the Kiel Gestapo and murdered on March 29, 1944.

Recommended reading:

The Great Escape, by Paul Brickhill.

A Gallant Company: The Men of the Great Escape, by Jonathan F. Vance.

The Longest Tunnel, by Alan Burgess.

The Great Escape, by Anton Gill

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