Re: Another Great Escape

Date: April 30, 2004

"Perilous Trek To The Forbidden City
The Times, London

DEHRADUN, April 29. — Sixty years ago today, a party of seven Germans and Austrians staged a great escape from a British prisoner-of-war camp here.

On 29 April 1944 the seven disguised themselves as a barbed-wire repair party. Two dressed as British officers, complete with pith helmets and swagger sticks, and the rest masqueraded as Indian labourers in blacked-up faces and turbans.

Two of the escapees reached Tibet, another pair reached Tokyo, but the remaining three were recaptured, one in Nepal.

By far the best-known escapee was Dr Heinrich Harrer, the Austrian mountaineer whose epic journey to Lhasa and subsequent role as tutor to the young Dalai Lama is chronicled in his classic autobiography, Seven Years In Tibet. Dr Harrer, 91, is thought to be the only member of the escape party still alive.

When war broke out in 1939, he was leading an expedition to conquer Nanga Parbat. He and other members of his party were interned, but after several unsuccessful escape attempts they were transferred to the much more secure camp at Dehradun and treated as prisoners of war.

In his book, translated into English by Richard Graves, Dr Harrer recalled how, carrying a ladder, realistic-looking blueprints and a stolen coil of wire, they slipped easily through internal fences to reach the main gate.

Dr Harrer and his fellow mountaineer Mr Peter Aufschnaiter reached Tibet on 17 May. It took them more than a year to cross the high plateau, before reaching Lhasa, where Dr Harrer was eventually introduced to the 14-year-old Dalai Lama.

When Dr Harrer delivered a lecture at the Royal Festival Hall, London in 1953, the former Dehradun camp commander was in the audience and sent him a tongue-in-cheek note: “As commander of your prison camp, I had to take the blame for your escape. Adding insult to injury, this evening I have had to pay money to hear how you did it.”

©The Statesman"