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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News Record, 2014-06-25, Page 5Wednesday, June 25, 2014 • News Record 5 Wally Floody: The Great Escape's 'Tunnel King' David Yates Special to the News Record The mass escape of 76 air- men from a German POW Camp on March 24, 1944 was made famous by the Hollywood blockbuster action film 'The Great Escape.' Few know that one of the main characters behind the escape had Huron County roots. Wally Floody, better known as the Tunnel King, spent his sum- mers with family in Clinton. He was born Clark Wal- lace Chant Floody in Chatham, Ontario on April 28, 1918. His mother, Mary Chant, was a Clinton native. She married William Floody at Clinton's Wesley Method- ist Church in 1915. Accord- ing to cousin, Eileen Sutter Robbins, the Chants lived in a large white frame house at the east end of Rattenbury Street where they were fre- quent summer guests. Wally spent his summers working on John McKnight's farm tending livestock just south of Clinton. Floody graduated from high school in 1936 at the height of the Great Depres- sion. He worked the gold mines of northern Ontario where he learned skills that proved invaluable in plan- ning the Great Escape. Barbara Hehner, in 'The Tunnel King' wrote that when war broke out in 1939, Floody was working as a cowboy on a ranch in Alberta. He wanted to join the Royal Canadian Air Force but his marriage to Betty Baxter in 1940 almost grounded his flying aspira- tions as the air force only wanted single men. Eventu- ally, with his wife's and the RCAF's permission, Floody was allowed to enlist. He was commissioned a Pilot Officer and flew a Spitfire with #401 Squadron. P10 Floody was shot down over France and immediately captured in October 1941. As a POW, his skills as a hard rock miner in northern Ontario made him a highly prized asset in escape opera- tions. At his first camp, Floody was involved in two unsuc- cessful escape attempts. For his troubles, he was sent to the famous Stalag Luft III. A large POW camp consisting of over 2 000, mostly Common- wealth, fliers. In 1943, work began on the most ambitious escape attempt of the Second World War. RAF Squadron Leader Roger Bushell put Floody in charge of constructing three escape tunnels codenamed Tom, Dick and Harry. Engi- neering the tunnels was an enormous task conducted under almost impossible conditions. Each tunnel was dug to a depth of 30 feet and had to extend over 350 feet to reach the nearest wooded area. Every three feet of tun- nel produced 1.5 tons of dirt. Floody overcame the diffi- culties of disposing of the enormous amounts of bright yellow dirt without being detected by ever vigilant German guards. Shoring up the tunnels with wooden slats taken from bunks meant that the tunnels were a claustropho- bic two feet by two feet. At 6'3" tall, Floody took his turn digging in the tunnels and passing dirt back to the man behind him. On at least two occasions, Floody was nearly buried alive in tunnel collapses. Despite the dan- ger, Hehner recounts that Floody just overcame his fear and focused on doing his job. Representatives from Vanastra Recreation Centre request financial support Dave Flaherty For the News Record Central Huron has received a request for finan- cial assistance for the Vanas- tra Recreation Centre. Huron East councillor Les Falconer, who is also a mem- ber of centre committee, made the request at the June 16 meeting. Approximately $385,000 in renovations had been identi- fied for the centre. Huron East has commit- ted $200,000, while a $35,000 Ontario Trillium Foundation grant has been received as well. A fundraising committee has raised $15,000 its $150,000 goal as well. The first two stages of the renovations have been com- pleted, including fitting the building for wheelchair access and installing slip - proof flooring. Facility manager Lissa Berard told councillors that they have a wide variety of programming. Particular highlights are activities for young children and people who have suf- fered from strokes or have knee and high replacements. Also, all the area lifeguards are trained at the Vanastra Recreation Centre. Even though the centre is located in Huron East, Berard said many residents in Central Huron partake in activites there. "It's a treasured asset not only in Huron East, but in other communities as well," she said. Falconer asked for finan- cial assistance between $5,000 to $10,000. Coun. Alison Lobb asked if Huron East had provided financial support when the Clinton arena was built. Falconer said they did not but noted there is a lot of Central Huron residents who use the Vanastra Recreation Centre. The 2012 User Report for the centre indicated that 32% of the households that take part in programming at the centre are from Central Huron. Municipal staff will pre- sent a report on the request at a future council meeting Eventually, the guards dis- covered Tom, Dick was shut down, but Harry was still an active tunnel in March 1943. However, just three weeks before the escape was to be made, Floody and several other airmen, all suspected escape artists, were transferred to another camp. Floody, who had done so much to make the escape happen, was denied the opportunity to be part of the escape. Although the original plan called for 200 airmen to escape only 76 made it out of the tunnel before the escape was discovered. Of those 76, only three escaped success- fully. All the others were rounded up within a few weeks. Fifty of the recap- tured airmen were shot by the Gestapo including 6 Canadians. It was a brutal act that shocked even Floody's Ger- man guards. They allowed the inmates to erect a memorial to the executed airmen at Stalag Luft III. Floody was even allowed to attend a memorial service in December 1944. Floody told an interviewer in 1986 that "every time I tell my wife I might have been one of the prisoners who got away, she reminds me 'Yes, but you might have been one of the ones they shot." Floody was liberated by the Red Army in April 1945. Citing Floody's 'marked degree of courage and devo- tion to duty' in organizing the mass escape, King George VI awarded Floody with the Order of the British Empire. He was nearly consigned to post-war anonymity until Australian Paul Brickhill's book 'The Great Escape' was published in 1950. In 1962, film director John Sturges asked Floody to be the technical advisor in the big budget movie 'The Great Escape' consisting of a cast of Hollywood A -List actors. Charles Bronson played 'The Tunnel King' in the film. Floody spent the nextyear on the set in Germany advising the produc- tion on historical accuracy. Despite the film's heavy emphasis on fictional Ameri- cans actors (indeed, only one of the 76 escapees was an Ameri- can and he was serving in the RCAF), Floody said the film was realistic in many respects. Floody's accounts of how the tunnels were dug, the means used to extort or bribe guards to obtain illicit materials, right down to the electric lighting, the air pump and the trolley used to move dirt out and men into the tunnels, Floody reported was very accurate. At one point, according to Hehner, Floody told the cast at din- ner that "I know you're get- ting everything right, because I had terrible night- mares last night.' While the film enjoyed critical and box office suc- cess, Floody went enjoyed success in several post-war business ventures. Floody was a key organizer of the RCAF POW Association. Wally and his wife, Betty, had two sons, Brian and Michael. They continued to maintain close contacts with their Clinton relatives. Although Floody was a non-smoker, he died of emphysema on September 25, 1989 at the age of 71. Many attribute the cause of his death to his work in the small confined space of the tunnels at Stalag Luft III. His sister, Catherine Heron, who turned 94 on March 26, said 'We're so proud of Wally, and what he did' and so should we all. 20 PILLS A DAY JUST TO DIGEST YOUR FOOD. nother reason; ystic fibrosis s so hard to swallow. A To learn more and support cystic fibrosis research, visit cysticfibrosis.ca ktt TCystic Fibrosis T', Canada Breathing life into the future'