Alfred Keith "Skeets" Ogilvie

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Prisoner of War

Ottawa, Aug. 27, 1941 - (CP) - Official word reached the parents of Pilot Officer Keith Ogilvie, D.F.C., today the young Ottawa flier in the Royal Air Force is a prisoner of war, badly wounded. He was reported missing last month.

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OGILVIE, F/O Alfred Keith (42872) - Distinguished Flying Cross - No.609 Sq.
Awarded as per London Gazette dated 11 July 1941
Specifically listed in AFRO 1292/41 dated 7 November 1941 as a Canadian in the RAF
who had been decorated as of that date. Air Ministry Bulletin 4420 refers

This officer has displayed great keenness and determination in his efforts to seek and destroy the enemy. He has shot down at least five hostile aircraft.

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AIRMEN WORK FOR 15 MONTHS
TO ESCAPE FROM PRISON CAMP
Reveals Eight Canadian Flyers Shot at Random
by Germans After Recapture

Ottawa, Sept. 15, 1945—(CP)—The incredible story of 15 months of painstaking effort which preceded the ill-fated escape of 76 Allied air officers from Stalag Luft III in March, 1944, was told to The Canadian Press today by Flt.-Lieut. A. Keith (Skeets) Ogilvie, of Ottawa.

"Sheer Luck"
By "sheer luck" Ogilvie was one of 12 survivors to return to the camp after 50 others “including eight Canadians," were shot "at random" after their recapture.
(At the time, London reports said six Canadians were among those shot in cold blood by the Nazis.)
Ogilvie, who went overseas to join the R.A.F. in 1939, recently returned to Canada and yesterday celebrated his 30th birthday—his first at home in seven years.
The mass escape was designed as a screen to enable "certain key men" to reach England, he said. Of three who eventually got to Britain, he believed at least one was one of these key men.
Some 100 tunnels were started and discovered before success was achieved by the most elaborate of all, a 350-foot tube, three feet high, three feet wide and 30 feet below the surface, which had such refinements as a small wooden railway, electric lighting and a pressure ventilating system.

500 Take Part
Coordinating the work, which involved at least 500 prisoners and the simultaneous construction of three tunnels more than 300 feet long, was an R.A.F. escape expert known to all but a handful of his fellow prisoners as "Big X."
While work was in progress an elaborate warning network of 200 prisoners kept watch above ground and served the dual purpose of disposing of sandy soil from the tunnel linings. The others worked in relays of two or three at the "faces" and in passing back excavated material for disposal.
The two greatest problems were avoiding detection by German seismographs and soil disposal, he said. The excavated sand, lighter in color than the top soil, had to be disposed of a handful at a time during sports events, meal parades and "any other time when the earth was being scuffed up."
The three major tunnel projects were nicknamed "Tom, Dick and Harry."

Guard Suspicious
"Tom" was nearly 300 feet long when discovered by a guard who accidentally dropped a hammer near the entrance and became suspicious at the hollow sound. "Dick," was uncovered by a Nazi spotter.
"Harry," escaped detection because of its depth—30 feet below the surface—in the clever entrance, contrived by hinging the concrete slab under a stove in one of the huts. This was closed while work was in progress.
Even a ventilating system, made with two kit bags was a double action air pump and powdered milk cans fixed together to form a pipe which was buried under the railway, was installed.
After nine months of work and several heart-breaking cave-ins, "Harry" was completed March 23 and that night the "break" came off “like a military operation."

Alarm Given
Unfortunately, through a miscalculation, the exit came up in a cleared space and the 77th man to emerge was caught by a guard and the alarm given.
Ogilvie himself was among 32 caught and handed over to the Gestapo at Gorlitz in Silesia
"They told us that some would be shot, but we thought it was the usual Nazi bluffing. For several days they picked out groups of six or eight at random. It was just luck that I wasn't among them."
He was one of four returned to Stalag Luft III from Gorlitz and there found eight other escapees who had been recaptured.
Instructions came from the Air Ministry, by means still secret, to discontinue further mass escape attempts. But, "as a pastime" the prisoners had another tunnel, leading to the guards' quarters, nearly completed when they were moved to another camp to avoid the Russian steam-roller.
"The idea was to aid our own liberation if the opportunity arose by capturing the guards' weapons right under their noses."
Formerly a member of the Ottawa Flying Club, Ogilvie was awarded the D.F.C. in the Battle of Britain. He was shot down during a daylight sweep over Lille, France, in 1941. He transferred to the R.C.A.F. since the end of the war.

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Photos        
PL-128161 and                      
PL-146024 show him postwar.

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