Pat Reid. Colditz Castle
Pat Reid was a Captain (temporary rank) serving in the British Expeditionary Forces (BEF) during the Battle of France in May 1940. He was captured by the Germans in late May, 1940 and sent with other British and French prisoners to a POW camp established at Laufen Castle in Bavaria, designated as Camp Oflag VII-C. Reid arrived at Laufen Castle in early June, 1940 and by the first week of September he and other newly arrived prisoners had completed a tunnel almost twenty-five feet in length, which to their estimate would open near a small storage shed outside the prison wire.
Six prisoners including Reid broke out, but all were captured as they attempted to flee to Yugoslavia across open country, without the benefit of any papers or even maps of the area. After enduring a month of solitary confinement – in POW parlance “in the cooler” – Reid was sent to Colditz.
After studying the layout in his new prison Reid devised a plan to escape from there using the Castle’s old sewer system, aided by a bribed guard’s looking the other way. On the night of the planned escape Reid led twelve men into the arms of the German guards waiting for them, the bribe having been accepted but not honored. Reid remained in Colditz, involved in assisting other escapes but denied the right to try another of his own as senior officers believed the Germans would take harsh reprisals if he tried and failed again.
In the fall of 1942 Reid did try again, in the company of three other British prisoners, and this time they not only succeeded in getting out of the Castle compound, but arrived safely in Switzerland. Rather than be expatriated to England, as was the case with most British POWs arriving there, Reid was assigned to the British legation in Berne, as an assistant to the military attache.
Reid remained in Berne until 1946, through the end of the war in Europe, promoted to the rank of Major and performing duties about which he remained notoriously close-mouthed. Following the war it became known that Reid was working for MI6 and MI9. Escapees who were successful in reaching Switzerland were closely interrogated by Reid regarding the route they took, help they received, checkpoints, bottlenecks, and other information which would be of use to future escapees. This information was fed into the POW camps by MI9, and to resistance groups in Europe.