Heinz Schnabel and Harry Wappler escape attempt

On 23 November 1941, the aviators, equipped with fake Dutch uniforms and forged identity documents, escaped from the prison camp and made their way to the British air base at RAF Kingstown.

Heinz Schnabel was a member of the 1st squadron (Staffel) of Jagdgeschwader 3 and was an ace with six enemy aircraft confirmed destroyed at the time.

His Messerschmitt Bf 109 was intercepted by RAF Spitfire and Hurricane fighters on its return to France and its engine was disabled.

[2][3] After capture, Schnabel was sent to hospital due to injuries to his spine and a pre-existing chest wound he had sustained during the Battle of France.

[3][4] Oberleutnant Harry Wappler was the pilot of a four-man Heinkel He 111 P-2 bomber of Kampfgeschwader 27 (8 Staffel (squadron)) which had left an airfield in northern France on the evening of 12 September 1940 on a bombing sortie to Ellesmere Port in Cheshire, England.

[7] Known then as "Camp 15", the hotel was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, and was equipped with searchlights; the guards lived in Nissen huts.

They managed to create plaster of Paris tunic buttons covered in foil to resemble those of the Dutch air force.

They headed towards the nearby railway line where they climbed aboard a Carlisle-bound freight train which had been slowed by ascending the steep Shap Bank.

[8] On the morning of Monday 24 November, the Germans bluffed an airfield mechanic to start up a Miles Magister trainer aircraft.

However, news of their escape in the Miles Magister had been broadcast across the country, and both were arrested in their quarters; allegedly one was having a bath at the time.

[8] For their escape attempt, both pilots were sentenced to 28 days of solitary confinement; they were later transferred to a POW camp in Canada where they spent the remainder of their internment.