My escape from Donington hall

By Gunther Plüschow

Subjects: World War, 1914-1918, World war, 1914-1918, personal narratives, British Prisoners and prisons, German Personal narratives, World war, 1914-1918, prisoners and prisons, Prisoners of war

Description: It was an escape from a PoW camp as daring and fraught with danger as any immortalised by Hollywood. Yet the story is less familiar than most - as it concerns the only German prisoner of war to escape from captivity in mainland Britain and make it home during either World War. After being caught in Gibraltar during an earlier attempt to return to his homeland, Pluschow and other captured Germans were shipped to Plymouth and then on to the PoW camp at Donington Hall, where he arrived in May 1915. On July 4 he and fellow prisoner Oskar Trefftz broke out by climbing over two 9ft barbed wire fence.