The Great Escape: A Canadian Story by Ted Barris Read Free Book Online Page A

as bomber pilot and Stalag Luft III forger Tony Pengelly had deduced when he was first imprisoned at Barth in 1940 , that “we would have to organize to be successful,” [28] Barbara Edy concluded that none of the kriegies’ accomplishments at Stalag Luft III would have been possible without that large group of captives working together as one.
    “The Great Escape would not have been possible,” she said, “save for the absolute co-operation from over a thousand POWs’ non-stop secrecy, vigilance, persuasion, distraction, cunning, bravery, spirit, and talent.” [29]
    David Pengelly was three years old in 1938 when his older brother left the family home in Weston, Ontario. At eighteen, Tony Pengelly couldn’t vacate the household fast enough. He had not enjoyed a close relationship with his father, besides which, he had his heart set on a career in the Royal Air Force whether his father endorsed his decision or not. A few weeks later, the older Pengelly son stepped off a cattle boat in the UK and was quickly accepted into RAF train ing, which had him flying combat operations in Bomber Command from the first week of the war in September 1939. Periodically, Tony sent mementos to his little brother, the first being a picture postcard depicting a Fairey Battle bomber. Tony had addressed the card “To Liney,” since Lionel was David’s middle name. He cherished the card. On David’s fifth birthday, just a few months before F/L Tony Pengelly and his Whitley bomber crew were shot down over Germany, David received a Dinky toy model of a Whitley in the mail.
    “From the time I was five,” David Pengelly said, “I adored the thought of my brother. Spitfire and bomber pilots were like rock stars or astronauts flying these wonderful machines.” [30]
    In July 1945, Tony Pengelly, former flight lieutenant and forgery chief at Stalag Luft III, came home to Canada. The family made plans to help Tony decompress on Pengelly Island, a one-acre rock outcropping on Sawyer Lake in the Haliburton Highlands of Ontario. There was no electricity on the island, nor indoor plumbing, just a family cottage accessible only by boat. With limited accommodation inside the cottage, David and Tony were encouraged to camp out side in a tent. The first night alone together, older brother regaled younger brother with some of his wartime yarns. Then, the boys’ mother prepared a meal with all of Tony’s favourites—roast beef, corn-on-the-cob, and fruit pies—and watched the former kriegie dig into his first home-cooked meal since he’d left Weston in 1938.
    “Do you have a little more?” [31] Tony asked when he’d finished his first portion.
    “Sure! Sure!” his family all said. And he dove into a second portion and a third until he couldn’t eat another mouthful.
    “There’s two or three cobs of corn left,” Tony noticed. “What’s going to happen to those?”
    “Oh well, they’ll be cold,” his mother said. “We’ll just throw them out.”
    “Don’t do that. I’ll have them for breakfast,” Tony insisted. And he promised he’d do the same with the beef and the pies.
    Mementos that prisoners of war brought home were few and far between. Any personal items Tony Pengelly may have carried with him when he was shot down on November 14 , 1940 , were destroyed in the crash of his Whitley bomber or confiscated during questioning by Luftwaffe interrogators as they processed him for imprisonment in Germany and later Poland. And since he became one of X Organization’s principal forgers, Pengelly would have shown or shared very few of his possessions publicly inside the compound either. In other words, despite helping to win the war, Pengelly had little to show for it outside of service medals and replenished air force insignia. Consequently, when he married and had his own children, Tony came to his younger brother David for a favour.
    “Do you still have that Whitley [Dinky toy] I sent you?” he asked.
    “Of course,” David