28. A Desperate Plan
The Peenemunde concentration camp was patrolled by vicious dogs and even more vicious Nazi guards. Mikhail Devyataev recounted that: “They beat us while we were working. There were ‘unwritten rules.’ One punishment was called ‘Ten Days of Life.’ It meant that a prisoner was beaten for 10 days solid, mornings, afternoons and evenings. If he didn’t die on his own during this time, they would kill him on the tenth day.” As the concentration camp was on an island surrounded by sea, escape seemed hopeless, but Devyataev was determined to try. His plan was to steal a Heinkel He 111 bomber from an airfield he was assigned to work on. He convinced three Soviet prisoners to join him.
At noon on February 8, 1945, when most guards were at lunch, one of them killed their guard with a crowbar. Another quickly stripped the dead German of his uniform and donned it, then the “guard” marched his comrades to the runway. Devyataev broke into the cockpit, and one of his comrades spotted a Russian work gang nearby and invited them to join the escape. They eagerly rushed into the airplane, and with a total of ten men on board, Devyataev tried to start it up. To the prisoners’ horror, the engines wouldn’t rev. “I pressed all the buttons at once“, he recalled. “The devices did not light up…there were no batteries!” Fortunately, a prisoner sprinted outside, returned with a battery cart, and helped start the engines.