Lieutenant Michael Sinclair

[Elidor]

Mike Sinclair was one of the most prolific British escapers of the Second World War. In mid-1942, he was sent to Colditz (in Germany) for this very reason, having previously made four attempts to escape. His most recent expedition had resulted in his recapture in Bulgaria, after escaping from a camp in Germany and proceeding along a route which took him through Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia. (snip)

Sinclair made his first escape attempt from Colditz after he was sent to a hospital in Leipzig to receive treatment for sinusitis. On the 2nd June 1942, he escaped through a hospital window and made it as far as Cologne, however good fortune was not with him and he was taken into custody once more. The RAF had recently made its first one-thousand bomber raid on the city, causing massive devastation and loss of life, and so it was that he arrived to find the local population intensely alert and roused by reports that a bomber had been shot down and that the crew had parachuted into some nearby woodland. Sinclair was first taken to a nearby Stalag before he was to return to Oflag IVC, however his bid for freedom was not finished and, on the 8th June, he escaped once more but was again recaptured.

His second attempt to get out of Colditz was not made until the 26th November 1942, when he and a Dutchman, Charles Klein, successfully got out of the castle by simply walking through the German kitchens shortly after the guards had taken their lunch break. Quite how they achieved this remains a mystery, passwords were changed on a daily basis, yet all the security checks which lay between the kitchens and the outside world failed to stop them. Two days later, the pair were caught in Immendingen. Once more Sinclair managed to escape again before he was returned to Colditz, however he was recaptured on the 30th November.

Although prone to making an improvised escape whenever he spotted the opportunity, Sinclair was also a ruthless planner who considered even the finest of details. He had been noticed to stare out of his window for long periods of time, at all hours of the day and night, thoroughly absorbed in learning the routine of the guards in the hope of spotting a weakness which could be exploited. No other escape that Sinclair attempted demonstrated his thoroughness more than his plan to impersonate Stabsfeldwebel Rothenberger who, with his enormous moustache, was probably the most distinctive guard in the camp.

Sinclair noted that each night, Rothenberger carried out an inspection of the sentries on the road that ran alongside the camp and down to the exercise park. Sinclair's plan was to disguise himself as Rothenberger and, accompanied by two German-speaking prisoners dressed as guards, inspect the sentry positions himself and dismiss each of them in turn, replacing them with his own guards. With this accomplished and that side of the castle left completely unguarded, twenty men were to abseil out of a window and disappear into the night. It would be a race against time as the dismissed sentries would return to the guardroom and here the alarm would be raised because there before them would be the real Rothenberger. It was hoped that a further ten men could escape during this time, and Sinclair hoped to capitalise upon the inevitable confusion, first by maintaining his disguise and pretending to give chase to the escaping prisoners, and if any guards caught up with him he planned to order them back to the castle to fetch reinforcements. Every moment of delay would allow the escapers to increase the distance between themselves and the castle. It was amongst the more outrageous schemes that Colditz inspired, but the entire plan, however, hinged upon whether Sinclair could "become" Rothenberger.

There were a number of factors in Sinclair's favour. Firstly he spoke excellent German and, like Rothenberger, he had red hair. It had been noted that the German guards held Rothenberger, a veteran of the First World War and holder of the Iron Cross, in very high esteem and were inclined to obey him without question. Sinclair decided to rely upon this and, with great care taken over his costume and appearance, it was hoped that the poor light and make-up would obscure the fact that the twenty-five year old Sinclair was thirty years younger than Rothenberger. Sinclair devoted every moment of the day to trailing Rothenberger, studying his movements and his manner so that he might copy them precisely. He also developed a thick Saxon accent to his German. The men who were to play his sentries, meanwhile, studied and practiced the standard guard drill so that at a glance there would be nothing suspicious about them...

For those who've never read about Sinclair or his amazing exploits, the story of how he impersonated Rothenberger is one of the most amazing stories of WWII. The man was simply remarkable. And it only gets better from there. Through eleven escape attempts, Sinclair showed such determination and daring that your jaw will hit the floor to read of some of the things he did, like having himself pitched bodily out of a window to abseil 90 feet in 60 seconds, evading armed guards and cutting through the wire to escape.

http://www.pegasus-one.org/pow/mike_sinclair.htm