Aviation Cultures Mark VII – Flying High: Aviation in Popular Culture 20–21 July 2023: ‘I wanted wings.’ Donald Duck, Pilot Officer Prune, and a motorbike: the popular culture of Stalag Luft III.

In July 2023, I zoomed into the Aviation Cultures Mark VII – Flying High: Aviation in Popular Culture conference.

 

My paper was: ‘I wanted wings.’ Donald Duck, Pilot Officer Prune, and a motorbike: the popular culture of Stalag Luft III.

The talk varied a little from the abstract (as they often do - well in my case anyway) but it gives you a fair idea of what I cover:

Captivity was an alien state. Stalag Luft III’s airmen prisoners of war (POWs) needed to accept their newly ‘wingless’ state, make sense of incarceration, and learn to cope with it. Donald Duck was one icon of popular culture which helped them do this. Although an American army draftee, Donald desperately wanted to fly. Following a series of misadventures, he had his chance but, after falling from an aeroplane, the hapless bird became, like the POWs themselves, a downed airman. Trapped behind bars in wartime logbook illustrations, wearing wings insignia and displaying the artist’s own POW number, Donald represented the fallen airmen. ‘I Wanted Wings!’, he wailed.

This paper highlights the significant place of popular culture in Stalag Luft III’s wartime history and post-war memory. It discusses how the airmen POWs appropriated Donald Duck and other cartoon icons such as Bugs Bunny and their very own Pilot Officer Percy Prune to make sense of their experience by reframing capture and captivity as a humorous interlude. But the airmen did not just embrace existing popular culture. They created their own as they negotiated life behind barbed wire. Ultimately, aided by Hollywood and Steve McQueen’s motorbike, they entered it.

Here's the link if you're interested in listening in:

https://echo360.net.au/media/ee5291dc-9070-4974-9b2f-8a744d8d10da/public

 

After the Great Escape

Much has been written about the Great Escape: what occurred on the night; what happened to those involved; and the commitment to obtaining ‘exemplary justice’. 

Artist: Ley Kenyon, published in Paul Brickhill and Conrad Norton: Escape to Danger (Faber and  Faber, London,  1954). 

 This post, however, focuses on how the airmen’s kriegie friends and Australian families responded to their deaths.

Courtesy Chris Armold, MSgt, USAF (Ret). Taken in March 2017.

Alan Righetti, who had been one of the many ‘stooges’ or lookouts over the previous few months, remembered hearing the shots fired after the discovery of the break out. It ‘was pandemonium’, he recalled, as the Germans tore the North Compound apart. When things quietened down, the airmen ‘were bitterly disappointed that we hadn’t got at least 200 out’. But, Righetti added, they were, ‘at the same time, very proud of the fact that we had the whole of the area and the German Army rushing all over the place looking for our fellas’.

Alan Righetti, courtesy of Alan Righetti

Days later, when the names of the dead were announced, Righetti recollected that ‘we were shocked’. A memorial parade was held and, recalled Justin O’Byrne, the men ‘went into mourning’. ‘Every prisoner wore a black diamond of mourning on his sleeve for the remainder of our term in prison’, including on Anzac Day ten days later, when photos were taken of the men wearing their black patches.

Justin O’Byrne, courtesy of Anne O’Byrne

Courtesy Andrew JB Simpson  NSW POWs North compound Anzac Day, 1944 

Just as many British Great War memorials had been voluntarily built by families and communities to provide a focus for their grief, Stalag Luft III’s air force ‘family’ in North Compound decided to erect a memorial using stone provided by the Germans. Originally referred to by the prisoners as ‘The Vault’ (pertaining to its crypt-like purpose of holding the ashes of the dead), the prisoners’ memorial resembled an altar. 

From Walton and Eberhardt, From Liberation to Interrogation. A Photographic Journey. Page 418.

In conceiving this design, prominent Australian-born architect and theatrical designer Wylton Todd, who had had a thriving architecture business in London before the war, seems to have been inspired by the recently deceased Sir Edwin Lutyen’s altar-like Stone of Remembrance. (The Stone became the centrepiece of the Imperial War Graves Commission’s most significant cemeteries.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_of_Remembrance

 Like Lutyen’s iconic design, the prisoners’ memorial evokes heroic sacrifice in warfare, as do many British memorials as well as significant Australian memorials such as Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance and Sydney’s Anzac Memorial.

Shrine of Remembrance, author’s photo.

The airmen’s names are engraved on three granite tablets reminiscent of Great War honour rolls. Underneath is the inscription, ‘In memory of the officers who gave their lives. Sagan March 1944’. 

SLIII memorial. From the Casualty Section, Dept of Air, March 1947 via Air Ministry London, provided to them by His Majesty’s Air Attache at Warsaw. Courtesy of the Preen Family.

The simple wooden cross atop the nearby cairn (which appears to be a later addition) evokes the crosses which marked the graves of the First World War servicemen who died overseas, before the Imperial War Grave Commission replaced them with stone headstones.

SLIII memorial. From Casualty Section, Dept of Air, March 1947 via Air Ministry London, provided to them by His Majesty’s Air Attache at Warsaw. Courtesy of the Preen Family.

Courtesy Chris Armold, MSgt, USAF (Ret). Taken in March 2017.

Close up of the cairn plaque, Sagan, Poland, September 1998.  Courtesy of Drew Gordon. 

Todd’s design included an eagle, which was mounted below the inscription. Particularly pertinent, the spread-winged eagle is a key symbol for airmen, representing both the ‘brotherhood of the air’ and the insignia—‘wings’—which declare an airmen’s aviation credentials. 

Reg Kierath’s RAAF Wings. Courtesy of Peter Kierath.

 Arthur Schrock, 1944, in Earle M Nelson: If Winter Comes.

This drawing of the memorial, by Flight Lieutenant Grenfell Godden (a South African in Stalag Luft III who was killed in a flying accident on 23 November 1945), was sent to Mildred Williams, the mother of John Williams, one of the five Australians killed in the Great Escape reprisals. It was published in the Sydney Morning Herald, 25 April 1945. Courtesy of the Preen Family.

AWM ART34781.022. Albert Comber, drawing of the Monument to those 50 officers who were shot after the break from Stalag Luft III, 1945. https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C168955?image=1

SLIII memorial. From the Casualty Section, Dept of Air, March 1947 via Air Ministry London, provided to them by His Majesty’s Air Attache at Warsaw. Courtesy of the Preen Family.

While visible in Bert Comber’s sketch and other early drawings and photographs, and repeated in the commemorative plaque mounted on the stone cairn erected in front of the memorial, the eagle is no longer extant.

Recent photo of the memorial, with modern dedication, c 2015. Courtesy of Geoff Swallow

The memorial was located in the nearby cemetery where other prisoners had been buried. There, fifty urns containing the dead men’s ashes were interred on 4 December 1944. In accordance with RAF mourning custom, a service funeral was held. Thirty prisoners along with members of the Swiss Legation attended. Wreathes were laid and the Roman Catholic and Protestant chaplains said prayers and blessed the monument and ashes.

From the Casualty Section, Dept of Air, March 1947 via Air Ministry London, provided to them by His Majesty’s Air Attache at Warsaw. Courtesy of the Preen Family.

Some of the airmen recorded details of the memorial service in their wartime log books. Some marked the pages, drawings, photos and nominal rolls with a cross, the traditional symbol denoting the dead. 

Lifted from Brickhill and Norton: Escape to Danger.

Before he returned to Australia, Comber produced for the Australian War Memorial’s collection three pen, ink and wash drawings of the memorial’s construction.

AWM ART34781.024 Albert Comber, The monument in the early stages of construction, 1945. https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C168957?image=1

Six months earlier, on 20 June 1944, a memorial service for family and friends of the Fifty had been conducted at the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London. As the men had been killed in the course of carrying out their service duty they were accorded full air force honours. Australian-based families could not attend and so either British family members or others represented them. 

Author’s collection

Squadron Leader William Melville, the liaison for prisoner of war matters at RAAF Overseas Headquarters, considered it ‘a very great honour and privilege’ to represent Reg Kierath’s mother, Ada. After the ceremony, Melville wrote to her as he wanted her ‘to know something of the very magnificent tribute that was paid to your son and the others who died with him’. He told her about the service:

Sir Archibald Sinclair—Secretary of State for Air—Sir Charles Portal, Chief of Air Staff and our Air Officer Commanding, Air Vice-Marshal Wrigley, were but three of the many Air Force representatives who came to pay their tribute and Mr Bruce our Australian High Commissioner was also there. After the first hymn the Vicar of St Martins read the first part of the service and the psalm, and Sir Charles Portal the lesson. Then came the Address by the Chaplain-in-Chief of the Royal Air Force in which he paid tribute to the memory of those whose courage and high faith was an inspiration to us all. As we stood, after the recession, the Blessing, crystal clear came the notes of the Last Post—the most honoured tribute to the serving member and one which is paid to him alone. For a moment there was silence—and then in the distance, the roll of a drum and the awakening call ‘Reveille’. It seems so singularly appropriate, for to all of us in our hearts and memory they will live through their example of courage and steadfastness.

During the service, the RAF chaplain-in-chief had stated that ‘Their sacrifice was touched by the finger of God’. Melville too recognised that sacrifice. He explained to Ada that Reg, ‘and the others, have become my very real friends and I cannot express how much the sacrifice which they have made has meant to me personally’.

Reg Kierath. Courtesy of Peter Kierath

Others acknowledged the deaths in a similar way. Families placed ‘in memoriam’ notices in newspapers. Friends send condolence letters. 

The Argus, 25 March 1947

Unattributed clipping, courtesy of Preen Family.

Group Captain Thomas White, former prisoner of the Ottomans and commanding officer at 1 Initial Training School, Somers where Catanach and Albert Hake had attended believed that the young man’s ‘name and memory will long endure as among the noblest of those who gave their all’.

Those who died after the Great Escape were not forgotten. Their friends attended remembrance services. Winifred Munt, Jimmy Catanach’s childhood nanny, known to him as ‘Da’, was a member of the Australian contingent to the Service of Remembrance at St Clement Danes (the Central Church of the Royal Air Force) on 22 March 1969. Bill Fordyce, who was in the tunnel when the escape was discovered, attended the 50th anniversary service on 25 March 1994. 

Bill Fordyce, courtesy of Lily Fordyce

 Courtesy of Lily Fordyce

Courtesy of Ian Fraser

 Reg Giddey, who regarded Albert Hake as ‘one of nature’s gentlemen’, placed a tribute on his former friend’s grave during 50th anniversary commemorations at Posnan, Poland. 

Reg Giddey. Courtesy of the Preen Family

Their families made pilgrimages to Sagan and wore their service medals.

  

The Preen Family’s pilgrimage to Stalag Luft III, 2013. Courtesy of Max Preen.

The Search for the Compass Maker, Albert Hake 2013: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaFwU7FI-cU 

Peter Kierath, nephew of Reg Kierath, retraced his uncle’s journey. Photo from The Daily Liberal, Dubbo. http://www.dailyliberal.com.au/story/3538949/retracing-family-steps-at-war-photos/

Albert Hake’s great niece and nephew, wearing medals. Anzac Day, about 1997. Courtesy Jude Preen. 

 That continuing sympathy of family and friends, along with the dedicated commemoration, brought comfort to those who grieved. So too did the knowledge that the deaths of the Fifty had been construed as sacrifices for the cause, as extensions of their air force service. As their ‘Duty Nobly Done’.

Memorial card, sent by Noela Hake to Dick Wheeler. Dick Wheeler Archive. Courtesy of  Tony Wheeler

My thanks to all the families who have shared their photos and records with me.

I have written a number of other blog pieces on aspects of the Great Escape from an Australian perspective:

https://australiansinsliii.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/43-years-albert-hake-australian-in.html

https://australiansinsliii.blogspot.com.au/2017/03/albert-hake-and-paul-royle-australians.html

https://australiansinsliii.blogspot.com.au/2016/11/how-deeply-we-feel-his-loss-condolences.html

http://australiansinsliii.blogspot.com.au/2017/04/ever-remembered-james-catanach-anzac.html

http://australiansinsliii.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/great-escaper-thomas-barker-leigh.html

http://australiansinsliii.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/70th-anniversary-of-great-escape.html

'Ever remembered'. James Catanach, Anzac Day 1944

Jimmy Catanach had been a prisoner of war for almost seven months before unburdening himself to his brother, Bill, on 28 March 1943. It had been a long journey from Melbourne, where he had been born on 23 November 1921, to Stalag Luft III, Sagan. He had enlisted in the RAAF when he was 18; was promoted to squadron leader; and had been awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross for daring raids over Lorient in north-western France, and the German cities of Cologne, Hamburg, Essen, and Lubeck, all before his 21st birthday. The most recent stage of his journey to captivity had begun on 4 September 1942.

Numbers 144 and 455 squadrons had been deployed to Russia as part of Operation Orator, to protect a convoy taking vital supplies to Russia: Jimmy was 455 Squadron’s youngest squadron leader and was lauded as the youngest in the RAAF. He was a lively, boisterous man, much loved by his crew and squadron friends. His commanding officer, Grant Lindeman, recalled that, as they were lined up to depart, ‘Jimmy of course couldn’t restrain himself to wait his turn; he taxied into the first gap in the line and was off like a blooming rocket’. Lindeman had ‘never seen such a wealth of superfluous energy in any individual over the age of twelve as Jimmy constantly had at his disposal. He didn’t drink or smoke; he talked at an incredible speed; he couldn’t stand still for a second, but he hopped about all the time you were talking to him till you were nearly giddy’. In his opinion, Jimmy ‘was a most excellent Flight Commander, and was probably the most generally liked man in the whole squadron’.

Members of 455 Squadron, August 1942. 

L-R: Jack Davenport, Jimmy Catanach, Grant Lindeman, Les Oliver, Bob Holmes. Author's collection

Jimmy was piloting Hampden AT109, which experienced a great deal of flak as it crossed the Norwegian coast. He realised they were rapidly losing fuel. Rather than risk the engines cutting out, he took the first opportunity to land. He touched down safely on a strip of heather adjoining a beach near Vardo, in northern Norway. Jimmy, his navigator Flying Officer George ‘Bob’ Anderson, wireless operator/upper gunner Flight Sergeant Cecil Cameron, lower rear gunner Sergeant John Hayes and their passenger Flight Sergeant John Davidson, a ground crew fitter, attempted to destroy the Hampden, but they were fired on by soldiers from one direction and a patrol boat from the coast. The five were taken prisoner; Bob Anderson and Jimmy were sent to Stalag Luft III.

455 Squadron, April 1942. L-R  Wilson,  Bob Anderson, Smart,  Humphrey, Acting S/L Jimmy Catanach DFC, 

Miller, and Clarke. https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/SUK10124/

Jimmy’s handful of earlier letters to his parents had been upbeat and emphasised his good spirits. His letter of 28 March 1943 was more subdued. He told Bill as much of the truth as he could within the constraints of censorship. He confessed his part in the events precipitating capture: ‘my arrival in enemy territory was far from glorious. I force landed as a result of fuel shortage caused by a sequence of misfortunes, mostly due to my own foolishness and partly due to climate conditions and enemy action’. Although the memory of it still ‘gets me down a bit’ he tried to push recollections aside and conceded that ‘present circumstances are not so bad’. Food, thanks to Red Cross parcels—when available—‘is quite good’ and living conditions were tolerable, if ‘a bit trying’. By far ‘the worst thing’ was ‘the lack of comradeship male & female and the futility of the existence.’ Even so, Jimmy kept himself busy with exercise, cooking, study and reading. But even as he made the most of life behind barbed wired, he planned for his future: ‘The end of the war is the main interest and topic of conversation … I am going to try studying Gem[m]ology & Bookkeeping etc. but am considering the idea of staying in service’.

But, unlike the majority of Stalag Luft III’s prisoners, Jimmy did not experience a life outside of captivity. Almost exactly twelve months after writing to Bill, he was dead, one of fifty Allied airmen—including five Australians—killed in the ‘Great Escape’ reprisals.

 Jimmy after he had been captured after the mass breakout. Lifted from http://twicsy.com/i/6iideb

The men of Stalag Luft III were shocked, ‘shaken and despondent’ when they heard of the death of their fellow prisoners. They held a memorial parade after roll call. They wore black flashes. They observed a period of mourning. They commemorated the dead in their wartime log books. Later, they built a memorial to comrades who had merely been carrying out their service duty to escape.

Sagan Memorial to the Fifty, courtesy of Geoff Swallow

Jimmy’s loss in particular affected his friends: Ronnie Baines who he had welcomed and taken under his wing and into his room on Baines’ first day in Stalag Luft III; Tony Gordon who had trained with him and never stopped grieving for his first RAAF friend; Bob Anderson who had flown with him and whose friendship had been forged under difficult and dangerous conditions.

Ronnie Baines

Tony Gordon and Jimmy Catanach, courtesy of Drew Gordon

 Bob Anderson. Courtesy of David Archer  

On Anzac Day 1944—less than three weeks after they had heard the ‘crushing news’ that most of those who had participated in the mass breakout of 24/25 March had been killed on Hitler’s orders—Jimmy’s Australian friends of North Compound gathered in the theatre with their compatriots from New Zealand. There, Padre Watson took a special Anzac Day service. Afterwards, they assembled for a series of group photographs taken by one of the German guards.

Anzac Day 1944. https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P00270.027

The Australian ranks were depleted: as well as Jimmy, Albert Hake, John Williams, Reg Kierath and Thomas Leigh had been executed. Dressed as smartly as could be in worn RAAF and RAF uniforms, they proudly declared that they were air force men. On the day in which Australians and New Zealanders, honour their war dead, their photos were as much statements of Australian pride, unity and defiance against the enemy as they were portraits of grief. Last year, Jimmy had stood with them on Anzac Day.

Anzac Day 1943. Courtesy of Ian Fraser

 This year he was missing, ‘his duty fearlessly and nobly done’. But, he was ‘Ever remembered’. 

Jimmy Catanach’s headstone, Old Garrison Cemetery, Posen, courtesy of Geoff Swallow, 

Photographic Archive of Headstones and Memorials WW2 by Spidge

 Jimmy Catanach’s letters are held by the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne. I would like to thank Jenna Blyth, Collections Manager, and Neil Sharkey, Exhibitions Curator, who allowed me to consult the James Catanach Collection in October 2016.

Kriegie Easter

Christmas is mentioned a number of times in letters and wartime log books but I only found a handful of Easter mentions in the personal collections I ‘hold’. It seems as if Easter didn’t have the same resonance for the majority as a time of Christian celebration but, for some, it provided a handy point of reference when recalling events. 

For Geoff Cornish, it marked the beginning of captivity. He was ‘marched off to a car … and taken away up to Amsterdam, and that was Easter Thursday 1941 … I spent Easter Thursday in gaol in Amsterdam’. Then, on Easter Monday, he was taken to Dulag Luft for interrogation. ‘There they questioned you, tried to get information about you more than your name, rank and number but it was fairly easy to resist, there was no torture or anything like that. If you didn’t answer you didn’t answer.’

Courtesy of Paul Royle, via Charles Page.

At Sulmona in Italy, Albert Comber sent a special message to his loved ones via the Vatican for Easter 1943. He was much cheered by the recent war news and, ‘everyone of course wishes that the whole business would end very soon’. But when Easter came and went, ‘one realised how quickly the months slip by—perhaps Christmas will see me home’. (It didn’t; by that stage he was in Stalag Luft III.)

Courtesy of Cath McNamara. 

Prisoners of war needed a lot of humour to help them cope with a seemingly limitless captivity. And chocolate. Just after Easter 1943, Justin O’Byrne wrote to his family and told then how the big Easter Monday sports day had been marred by the weather. Life, however, was not too bad in Stalag Luft III. ‘I have become quite used to the diet now, but look forward to the chocolate in the clothing parcels ... so bung in the chocolate for all you’re worth’.

Courtesy of Anne O’Byrne.

In April 1944, George Archer sent Easter greetings to his family. ‘Once more Easter is with us and I only trust the next service will be at St Marks’, his local church. 

Courtesy of David Archer.

He was to be disappointed. He was still a prisoner of war at Easter 1945. By Easter 1946, however, the war was over and he and his fellows were free men at last. 

I couldn’t find any drawings relating to Easter in wartime log books but I am quite taken by this rendition of Bugs Bunny by Cy Borsht, poking fun of the their kriegie accommodation. Happy Easter.

Courtesy of Cy Borsht.