Orders, Decorations and Medals

Family group:

The Second World War escaper’s M.C. group of five awarded to Squadron Leader H. N. “Bill” Fowler, Royal Air Force, one of a handful of British officers to make a successful “home-run” from Colditz Castle - “the boldest way being the safest”, he made his exit via the office of the castle’s senior German N.C.O., an escape route that caused even the Germans some amusement

Military Cross, G.VI.R., reverse officially dated ‘1943’; 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; Defence and War Medals, extremely fine

The Benin, China and Great War campaign service group of five awarded to Pay-Master Commander M. T. B. Fowler, Royal Navy, Squadron Leader H. N. “Bill” Fowler’s father

East and West Africa 1887-1900, 1 clasp, Benin 1897 (Asst. Paymr. M. T. B. Fowler, R.N., H.M.S. St. George); China 1900, no clasp (Asst. Paymr. M. T. B. Fowler, R.N., H.M.S. Dido); 1914-15 Star (Ft. Payr. M. T. B. Fowler, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Payr. Commr. M. T. B. Fowler, R.N.). mounted as worn, the first with copy clasp and engraved naming, very fine and better (10) £4000-5000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Ron Penhall Collection.

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‘On 15 May 1940, I was pilot of a Hurricane which took-off about 1100 hours from Vitry-en-Artois, escorting bombers over Dinant. At approximately 1145 hours I was shot down by Messerschmitt fighters about five miles north of Fumay, on the west bank of the River Meuse. My aircraft was on fire so I baled out and landed in a wood. I left my parachute in the middle of a bush and cut one of the panels out to bind round my head, which was bleeding. I had dropped my helmet on the way down and I was not wearing flying kit. My clothes were standard dress uniform, a khaki “sidcot suit”, and black flying boots.

After landing I destroyed my pay book and personal letters, but kept my identity disc and a B.E.F. identity card. I threw away my pistol, which was of German make. I then started to walk west through thick woods. My aircraft had fallen in the forest on the east bank of the River Meuse. I walked for about five hours. Going was very rough and I took off my Sidcot suit and carried it. About 1700 hours I was resting by a tree when a French soldier jumped out of a bush and pointed a rifle at me. I speak a little French and he asked me whether I was a German. I showed him my B.E.F. identity card and convinced him that I was a British pilot. This Frenchman was one of six French sappers trying to rejoin their unit. With them I walked through woods to Focroi. Here I left them and joined the remnants of a company of French infantry, commanded by a Sub. Lieutenant. They were much disorganised, and were retreating west ... ’

A French M.O. did at least manage to offer Fowler treatment for his cut head, but his freedom was to be short-lived for he was captured on the following day when fired upon by enemy troops near Brunehamel, the commencement of a long journey that culminated in his arrival at Colditz at the end of 1941, but not before a gallant escape attempt from Stalag Luft I at Barth. On that occasion he marched out of the camp dressed in a bogus German uniform and, having then changed into civilian clothes, made his way to Sassnitz with the aim of gaining passage on the ferry to Sweden - unfortunately he was arrested just as he entered the docks, spent 14 days in the cells back at Barth and was then sent to Colditz. Here he quickly established a successful rapport with his fellow officers and, if the following story is anything to go by, a less than happy relationship with his captors - Henry Chancellor’s Colditz, The Definitve History, takes up the story of how Fowler turned to his advantage an infestation of wasps in a giant creeper which grew up one side of the Castle:

‘Bill Fowler, an Australian airman, caught a wasp, tied a thin thread to its waist and attached it to a rolled-up cigarette paper. Bill’s idea was that, since leaflets were being dropped by the R.A.F. all over Germany, it was up to us to play our part. Hundreds of wasps were caught and to each was attached a cigarette paper with the message Deutschland Kaput. The French, never to be outdone, caught a large number of wasps, tied a little square of paper to each, put them in matchboxes and released them together on parade. It was like a reversed snowstorm with the wasps flying upwards in furious mood. Pandemonium raged with all of us warding off the angry wasps, or pretending to.’

The Escape

Of Fowler’s subsequent escape, Colditz, The Full Story, by Major P. R. “Pat” Reid, M.B.E., M.C., states:

‘Things were hotting up for the new German Kommandant. On 9 September, ten officers were found to be missing after the morning roll-call had been delayed - the count fudged, the parade recounted, dismissed and recalled - while Hauptmann Priem raged up and down the ranks. An identity check of all the P.O.Ws had to be instituted to confirm who exactly had got away, this took several hours. The ‘confusion’ ploy was used because there was no way of properly concealing a number of absentees at one time.

The escape plan had arisen one hot day in August 1942. Captain “Lulu” Lawton complained to me that a half-starved rat couldn’t find a hole big enough to squeeze through to escape from Colditz. If only, he lamented, he could think of a way. I told him to look for the enemy’s weakest point. Thinking aloud, I said, “I should say it’s Gephard’s own office. Nobody will ever look for an escape attempt being hatched in the German R.S.M’s office.”

Lulu procured the services of the red-bearded Lieutenant van Doorninck to manufacture, with formidable skill, a key to the intricate cruciform lock on the door of Gephard’s office. The plan evolved. Lulu teamed up with Flight Lieutenant “Bill” Fowler, and they made a foursome with van Doorninck and another Dutchman. Dick Howe, as the new British escape officer, was in charge.

I inspected the office. I saw that it was possible to rip up the floor under Gephard’s desk, pierce a wall eighteen inches thick, and have entry into a storeroom outside and below the office. From here, simply by unlocking the door, the escapers would walk out on to the sentry path surrounding the Castle. The plan was based on the fact that German N.C.Os occasionally came to the storeroom with Polish P.O.Ws who were working in the town of Colditz. They brought and removed stores, etc., arriving at irregular hours, mostly in the mornings, sometimes as early as 7 a.m., and seldom coming more than twice a week.

The escape party was increased to a total of six. Two more officers were therefore selected. They were “Stooge” Wardle and Lieutenant Dunkers, a Dutchman. It was arranged that Lulu should travel with the second Dutchman and Bill Fowler with van Doorninck. Sentries were changed at 7 a.m., so the plan was made accordingly. Van Doorninck, who spoke German fluently, would become a senior German N.C.O. and Donkers would be a German private. The other four would be Polish orderlies. They would issue from the storeroom shortly after 7 a.m. Van Doorninck would lock up after him. The four orderlies would carry two large wooden boxes between them, the German private bringing up the rear. They would walk along the sentry path past two sentries, to a gate in the barbed wire, where van Doorninck would order a third sentry to unlock and let them pass. The sentries - with luck - would assume that a ‘fatigue’ party had gone to the storeroom shortly before 7. a.m. Once through the barbed wire the party would proceed downhill along the roadway which went towards the park.

The plan necessitated the making of two large boxes in sections so that they could be passed through the hole in the storeroom, and yet of such construction that they should be very quickly assembled. This escape was a blitz job. The hole would be ready in a matter of three days. Experience was proving that long-term jobs involved too much risk.

The hole was duly made, leaving a little to be knocked out at the last moment. The evening before the “off” (8 September), the six escapers, with myself and Lieutenant Derek Gill (who had been helping me dig the hole), were locked in Gephard’s office.

At midnight there was an alarm. Germans were unlocking doors and the voice of Priem was heard in the corridor. He approached Gephard’s office. The night-duty N.C.O. asked: “Shall I open this door Herr Hauptmann?”

“Yes, indeed, I wish to check everything,” answered Priem.

“It is the office of Oberstabsfeldwebel Gephard, Herr Hauptmann.”

“Never mind. Open!” came the reply.

There was a loud noise of keys and then Priem’s voice: “Ah, of course, Herr Gephard has many locks on his door. I had forgotten. Do not open, it is safe.”

Between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. we finished off the hole and carefully conveyed the men and their equipment through. Derek and I then left the office having patched up the hole. A little later Dick Howe reported a perfect take-off.

The morning Appell at 8.30 a.m. was going to cause trouble. By now, Dick had temporarily run out of inspiration. The Dutch dummies were no more. He might manage to conceal one absence, but six was an impossibility. So he did the obvious thing. He decided to lay in a reserve of spare officers for future escapes. Four officers were concealed in various parts of the Castle. There would be ten missing from the Appell. With luck the four hidden in the Castle would become “ghosts”. They would appear no more at Appells and would fill in blanks on future escapes. The idea was not unknown to the Germans, but it was worth trying.

The 9 a.m. Appell mustered and, in due course, ten bodies were reported missing. By 11 a.m. the Germans had discovered the four ghosts and were beginning to conclude, after their first impression that a joke was being played on them, that six men had in fact escaped.

Dick was satisfied at having increased the start of the six escapers by a further three hours. Later in the day the Jerries, after questioning all sentries, had suspected the fatigue party, and working backwards to the store room, had discovered the hole. There was much laughter, even among the Jerries, at the expense of Gephard, under whose desk the escape had been made! The reader can imagine the disappointment and fury of Priem at the escapers having eluded his grasp so narrowly during the night!

Geoffrey Wardle and his Dutch colleague, Lieutenant Donkers, were unlucky. They were recaught and back in the Castle before the tumult of the roll-call was over. They were noticed by the Burgermeister of a nearby village called Commichau as they passed through. He knew everybody in the village and immediately became suspicious. A local peasant woman found a number of discarded uniforms in a nearby wood and reported this at once. Thus the Germans knew that more than two had escaped. Eventually, they established the correct number at six. Lulu Lawton and Ted Beets were accosted and arrested at Dobeln railway station later in the day. Meanwhile van Doorninck and Bill Fowler carried on and reached Switzerland safely eighty-seven hours after leaving Colditz.’

An Encounter with the Gestapo

But their journey to Switzerland was not without moments of drama, as described in the following extract from Henry Chancellor’s Colditz, The Definitive History:

‘Van Doorninck was posing as a German architecture student, and Fowler as a Belgian forced labourer. They had already agreed their cover story: they had met by chance, and when they discovered they were going to the same place, they had decided to travel together. They encountered few problems on their journey to the Swiss border, for they were following Larive and Steinmetz’s well-documented route. Van Doorninck was so confident that he knew exactly how to cross the Ramsen salient and enter Switzerland that he was prepared to risk recapture in order to help the men they had left behind in Colditz. Before he left the castle, van den Heuvel, the Dutch Escape Officer, had asked van Doorninck to find out if special permits were required near the Swiss frontier. There was only one way he could obtain the information: he had to ask a policeman. It was a dangerous mission and it could very easily result in recapture; van Doorninck did not tell Fowler that he intended to carry it out.

On a small country road south of Singen, the two men came across a pub beside a stream. There was a motorbike parked outside it. ‘I knew that motorbikes in Germany were only used by the Gestapo and other policemen,’ recalls van Doorninck. ‘If I had not given my promise to van den Heuvel we would have hidden in the wood near by until the bike owner had gone. But this was an ideal opportunity to be confronted by a Gestapo chap at a spot very near the Swiss border, without arousing too much suspicion. Bill’s papers stated that he was permitted to spend leave at a farm near Hilsingen - allegedly. Belgian friends of his were working there under a forced labour scheme. We entered the pub and there indeed was a Gestapo man, taking the fingerprints of the barmaid. The law stated that all people working in public places near the border had to be finger-printed. He gave us a searching glance as we came in, and as soon as he had finished with the barmaid, he came straight over to our table. “Have you any papers” he asked. “Of course,” I replied, and handed him my Dutch passport - the only document I had. After careful scrutiny, he handed it back to me. “That’s in order,” he said.’

Van Doorninck told Fowler in French that the Gestapo wanted to see his papers. Fowler handed over his identity card and the special leave document - both forgeries made at Colditz. The Gestapo man inspected them, and handed them back; he was perfectly satisfied. But when he left their table van Doorninck got up and pulled him aside. ‘I said that I had found Bill on the platform at Tuttlingen, where he was at a complete loss, because he could speak no German. I told him I had taken it on myself to bring him to what he said was his destination; I asked the Gestapo man whether Bill’s story was true, as I did not, of course, want to do anything that would harm the Reich. He said the papers confirmed the story Bill had told me.’ Fowler sat drinking his beer; he did not realise that van Doorninck had put his liberty at risk - but at least he had discovered that no special permit was required near the border. That night, both men crossed safely into Switzerland.’

Yet Fowler’s “home-run” was far from over, for, after resting in the care of British consulate staff in Switzerland, he had to make the onward journey to Spain, via France:

‘Bill Fowler and Ronnie Littledale were the first of the Colditz colony in Switzerland to leave. They crossed the Swiss frontier into France on 25 January 1943. The British consular staff in Geneva arranged this crossing at Annemasse. A guide took them in hand. They crossed the Spanish frontier on 30 January. They marched the whole day, reaching the La Junqueras-Figueras road at 4 p.m., and, while crossing it, they were arrested by Spanish soldiers who were patrolling the district in a lorry picking up the numerous refugees in the neighbourhood. They seemed familiar with this routine and were not even armed.

They were taken to Figueras, where their heads were shaved and they were innoculated (Bill was tenth in line for the same needle). They were locked up in a cell with fourteen other men for almost three weeks. There was no furniture and little light; a single bucket, removed once every twenty-four hours, was provided for all natural functions. Prisoners were sick intermittently all day long. Two men died. Not until 22 February were they turned over to the British consul’ (Pat Reid’s Colditz, The Full Story, refers).

The Enemy’s Viewpoint

An illuminating account of the enemy’s reaction to Fowler’s escape is to be found in the memoirs of Hauptmann Reinhold Eggers, Colditz, The German Story, who served as a Duty (and later Security) Officer at Colditz throughout the War:

‘Security now had to discover how these officers had made their escape from Colditz. We searched, and re-searched, and in the end, after lengthy questioning of the sentries, we found how it was done.

The six, disguised as a German officer and N.C.O. in charge of apparently four Polish orderlies, had come out of a storeroom on the north side of the castle, just after the guard had been changed in the early morning. But how had they got into the store? The sentries naturally thought that they had gone in by the outside door (the one they came out of), shortly before they, the sentries, had been changed. We discovered that, in point of fact, they had got in from our Sergeant-Major’s office on the inner side of the castle. The exit hole was actually dug under “Mussolini’s” table! His office was entered from a corridor leading from the north-west corner of the prisoners’ yard to the hospital. The hole had been enlarged night after night, and covered up each morning before it was time for an accomplice to let these night shift workers out! There must have been a great deal of assistance given by way of watching the sentries round the outside of the building, and also by keeping an eye and ear open for sudden interruptions by the Riot Squad. This “stooging”, as this type of P.O.W. surveillance was called, was probably carried on either from above “Mussolini’s” office, or from the infirmary across the corridor. Our locks were no damn good, nor our damn sentries either.

To make things worse, we found that a gate had actually been unlocked for the party, as they made their way towards the road, by one of our own N.C.Os. This ass had asked them, “Are you going to Zschadrass?” The answer was, “Yes” - “Then I will open the gate door for you” - which the soldier did. They may have had a false key but it didn’t follow that it was going to work, and the arrival of this N.C.O. with the proper key was a godsend. He thought they were taking spare clothing to the loony bin. We told him that’s where he ought to be himself!’

Test Pilot

Fowler reached Gibraltar in March 1943, was flown home to Hendon and “debriefed” by M.I. 9, the latter being sufficiently impressed by his behind enemy lines’ adventures to employ him on lecturing duties on escape and evasion tactics for fellow aircrew - and recommend him for the M.C. But Fowler quickly grew bored and begged to be allowed to return to flying, a request that was eventually met by his appointment as a test pilot for the Typhoon fighter-bomber. And it was while so employed at Crickel Down Bombing Range, on 26 March 1944, while carrying out dive-bombing trials designed to find a weapon against German tanks for the forthcoming Allied invasion of Europe, that he was killed - the notes found on the pad strapped to his knee helped to resolve some of the initial problems with this aircraft type. He was 27 years of age at the time of his death, and is buried in Durrington Cemetery, Wiltshire.

Maxwell Thomas Bourne Fowler entered the Royal Navy as a Clerk in January 1894, his first seagoing appointment being aboard the cruiser H.M.S. St. George, aboard which ship he served as an Assistant Pay-Master and Secretary’s Clerk under Rear-Admiral H.H. Rawson, C.B., and was present at the bombardment of the Sultan of Zanzibar’s palace in August 1896, but not in the subsequent Benin operations. A Pay-Master Commander by the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he served in the battleship Illustrious until late 1915, when he removed to the Neptune, in which ship he was present at Jutland in the following year. He was placed on the Retired List in 1920.

Sold with a wartime carbon copy of a Commandant’s order issued at Colditz, dated 19 June 1944, and signed by two German staff, which ordains that a P.O.W. working party must be established to repair damage caused by another escape attempt by British officers - and presumably sometime gifted to Fowler’s family; together with an original “Naval Prize Account” document in the name of his father, and a photocopy of his very informative account of his son’s life, privately published after the War.