The Wooden Horse Trivia Quiz

Answer: Peter

I'm not sure why Eric changed the names-maybe to protect the other people's privacy. But by doing further study, I found John's real name was Michael Codner, and Phil's was Oliver Philpott.

Answer: Bennett

Bennett was pretty aggravating. No matter what the topic of conversation was, he always jumped in with his opinions and acted as if his ideas were the only ones that mattered. Eric's own words: "No matter what the discussion Bennett would finally deliver himself of a categorical, authoritative pronouncement which would kill the topic dead. Abortive attempts would be made to revive it, but under the weight of authority behind the pronouncement the opposition would languish and finally relapse into a baffled and disgruntled silence."

Answer: Pomfret

Pomfret was a habitual whiner. He reminded me of Frank Burns from "M*A*S*H". He was always complaining about Peter, John and Nigel not doing their fair share of the work when it came to meals. (They were busy digging the tunnel and dispersing the sand.) The group finally split into two separate messes. It worked out much better for all.

Answer: Robbie

Whenever there was a quarrel in the room, Robbie would do his best to settle things calmly. He would talk to each party, and try to get them to see eye to eye. But he never had any luck with Pomfret or Bennett.

Answer: David

David's farm may have only been on paper, but it was very real to him and he took it very seriously. Eric's words: "Peter grinned when he remembered the occasion when his lower meadows were in danger from floods and he drove a flock of sheep from the lower meadow to the safety of the hilly slopes above the farm.

The guards had been alarmed when the whole barrack block turned out to help him drive the sheep across the compound. They had reached for their tommy-guns when they saw a throng of hissing, whistling shouting men driving nothing towards the barbed wire.

But the new meadow was inside the wire and no harm was done." (Poor David sounds a bit "wire-happy," doesn't he?)

Answer: Nigel

Nigel could speak fluent German. He would use Air Force slang terms like "gut zeigen" ("good show"), "schlecht zeigen" ("bad show"), "blond genug" ("fair enough") and when he was feeling morose, "gebraunt weg" ("browned off"). He was surprised that the guards didn't understand these sayings.

Answer: "the child"

Nigel teased John about his age (John was much younger) and his absent-mindedness. John was always dreaming of escape, and often paid no attention to meal times. Nigel often went to find him and bring him to meals.

Answer: John

John got the idea when standing against a hut watching a brief windstorm. There was a piece of newspaper that was carried on the wind to suddenly disappear behind the trees. John was wishing he could do something like that. He was thinking of the Greek tragedies, and remembered the Trojan horse, and "Deus ex machina". (Where the god was lowered in a box to sort out problems).

He visualized a vaulting horse with covered sides.

Answer: from the unfinished shower baths

The Germans had been pressured by the "Protecting Power" to provide more adequate shower facilities for the prisoners. They agreed to build more showers, but took their time about it. The structure stood unfinished, with barbed wire surrounding it to keep the prisoners away. John and Peter sneaked out of their hut after dark by cutting a trap door in the floor and crawling to the shower house. Once there, the searchlights didn't reach them and they were able to get wood, nails and a trowel.

They made it safely back to their hut and buried the stuff in the sand under their hut.

Answer: they were carried inside the horse

John's idea was to dig the tunnel shaft from inside the horse. One man crouched inside the horse with his feet on the bottom framework on each side of the horse. He held his digging equipment in his arms. The horse was covered on the sides by plywood, and rafters were inserted into the sides so that the horse could be carried by four men like a sedan chair. Once in place by the wire, the prisoners vaulted over the horse to distract the guards while one man was below digging the tunnel.

They did an excellent job of camouflaging the trap, because when the horse was removed from the compound, you couldn't tell that the dirt had even been disturbed! They carried the sand away in the horse with them and dispersed it throughout the camp.

They made bags from trousers that men had cut the legs off of to make shorts.

They sewed up the bottom, hemmed the tops and inserted a drawstring to close the bag after it had been filled with sand.

Answer: 40 feet

They started off with just John and Peter. One would work in the tunnel while the other was with the vaulters. The man in the tunnel would crawl up to the tunnel face, scrape off enough sand to fill half a bag, and crawl backwards with it to the shaft.

By the time they got to 40 feet, it was taking them two hours to fill twelve bags. The end came when Peter collapsed after a digging session and was sent to the camp hospital. He knew then that they would have to bring in a third man and revise their way of digging.

Answer: he bribed a guard

Peter bribed the guard "Dopey" with cigarettes and chocolate while he was in the hospital. "Dopey" brought the pass to Peter, and Peter made a copy of it and gave the original back to "Dopey" that same night. Later, when he was out of the hospital back into the compound, he made more accurate copies for himself, John and Phil.

Answer: they took the horse out twice a day with two men in it

They solved the problem of taking two hours to fill twelve bags by taking the horse out twice a day with two men in it. One would crawl up to the tunnel face and dig. He sent the sand back to the shaft in a small basin tied to a rope. The other man stayed in the shaft and pulled the basin back and filled the bags.

They would fill 36 bags at a time and leave them all in the shaft. Then the next time they took the horse out, one man would go down and bring back twelve bags. The next day, another twelve bags were removed during the morning session, and the last twelve during the afternoon session. Once the 36 bags were empty, two would go down and fill another 36.

It was slow, but it worked!

Answer: True

They had been hiding the sand in what was called the kitchen block. It was where the German soldier who supervised the issue of prisoners' rations had his office. They had cut a trap door in the floor, and hid sand under the floor boards. The guards had apparently become suspicious that there was a tunnel somewhere in the compound, because one evening just after they had hidden their sand, a German truck came tearing into the camp and headed straight toward the kitchen block.

The guards threw all prisoners out and seached the block thoroughly.

They found sand, but didn't connect it to the horse. Additional searching found a tunnel that some other prisoners were digging.

Answer: 110 feet

The distance had been roughly estimated, but it was pretty close. They wanted to dig far enough to gain access to a ditch about 30 feet outside of the wire. They "moled" the last 10 feet (digging on and pushing the sand behind them filling up the tunnel), but they were just a bit short of the ditch and had to roll on the ground to the ditch when they escaped.

Answer: they were carried together inside the horse

John went down into the tunnel earlier in the day and dug as much as he could. After evening roll-call, Peter and Phil were carried out together in the horse, along with a small, thin man named McKay, who closed the trap after they were in, and was carried back to the canteen inside the horse with the last of the bags of sand.

Answer: No

John and Peter travelled together as French craftsmen. They went by train to Frankfurt, then to Kustrin, then on to Stettin. Phil travelled as a German commercial salesman. He took a train straight to Danzig.

Answer: True

A ticket collector, accompanied by the Bahnhofs Polizei, (the railway police), came through the train checking identity papers. Fortunately for them, an old woman didn't have the correct papers with her and was arrested by the police. This distraction caused the collector to just glance at Peter's and John's papers and hand them back without a word. (I often wondered what happened to the poor old woman? She had been escorted by the police to the back of the train to a prisoner's car.)

Answer: True

They had the idea that if they were bold, the Germans would be less suspicious. Also, since it was going into November, they needed a warm place to sleep. The escape committee at Stalag Luft III was able to give them enough money (gotten from bribing German guards) so that they could buy food and stay in hotels for almost a full week.

Answer: True

They had spotted a Swedish ship at Freihaven during the day. They climbed the fence that night to stow away on the ship, but the ship had sailed. While they were exploring the docks looking for another Swedish ship, they were spotted. They outran their pursuers and got out of the dock area without being caught.

Answer: the French

After several failed attempts, they finally made contact with a Frenchman named Rene. Rene took them to the French camp and hid them until the next day, when it was arranged to get them on a boat to Copenhagen.

Answer: Sigmund

Sigmund was a contact man for the Danish underground. He sailed on the "S. I. Jacobsen" as a deckhand. Just before the ship was to dock at Copenhagen, a coded message was sent that the Germans were waiting to arrest Sigmund when the ship landed. Sigmund, Peter and John jumped off the ship and were picked up by a small boat furnished by the Danish Underground and taken safely to the Resistance Headquarters outside Copenhagen.

Answer: True

They had to sail from a small island to the mainland. To reach the island, they had to cross a bridge that was guarded. John started across the bridge, pretending to be hurt to distract the sentry. Peter tried to sneak up behind him to knock him out, but the sentry heard him.

He turned around to shoot Peter, and John tackled him. The sentry knocked John out with the butt of his rifle, and Peter jumped him from behind. Peter had to strangle him to keep from being shot.

Answer: Yes

They met Phil at the British Consul at Goteborg. He had a much easier time of it than John and Peter had. He had travelled by train to Danzig, met some Swedish sailors that night, and was taken by ship to Sweden.

Answer: "Goon In The Block"

At the time that he wrote the book "Goon In The Block", the war was still going on. Eric was not allowed at that time to give the true details of the escape nor any information that could have helped the enemy. The book was "fact thinly disguised as fiction" and was deliberately misleading. Eric re-wrote the true story in 1949 and called the book "The Wooden Horse".

He also revised "The Wooden Horse" for teenagers later on, leaving out the fact that they drank beer, smoked cigarettes, the fact that "Peter" had to kill the German sentry, and all that happened to them during their stay in Sweden.