{"id":9657,"date":"2022-06-20T04:50:43","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T11:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/strangersinthelivingroom.com\/?p=9657"},"modified":"2023-05-25T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-05-25T20:00:00","slug":"crows-flight-the-greatest-escape-of-wwii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/strangersinthelivingroom.com\/9657\/crows-flight-the-greatest-escape-of-wwii\/","title":{"rendered":"Crow’s Flight: The Greatest Escape of WWII"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Greatest Escape of World War II was a secret for decades. Now, a new book tells the heroic story of The Crow’s Flight. And a hiking tour allows travelers to trace the escape route of more than 100 POWs through wartime Slovenia, guided by courageous resistance fighters.<\/p>\n

\"The

In the photo on the cover of his son’s book, Ralph Churches is the man wearing the Aussie hat. More than 100 escaped POWs endured a 15-day walk through a mountainous German-occupied war zone, guided by resistance fighters in Slovenia. Photo by Jo\u017ce Petek, courtesy of Neil Churches.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Crow: Ralph Churches from Australia<\/h4>\n

Ralph Churches, an enlisted man from South Australia, was one of the unlikely heroes of The Greatest Escape. Captured in 1941 by the Germans in Greece, he and thousands of other prisoners endured brutal conditions in holding camps. Eventually, the Germans put him on a train to what is now Slovenia. Ralph was one of the lucky ones: 10 percent of the prisoners died on the six-day journey.<\/p>\n

\"Ralph

Ralph Churches, a former bank clerk from South Australia, was trained as a mapmaker and served in North Africa before he was sent to Greece and captured by the Germans . Photo courtesy of Neil Churches.<\/p><\/div>\n

He ended up in a German work camp near Maribor. Today, Maribor is Slovenia’s second largest city<\/a> and welcomes visitors to its charming historic center. But it was occupied by the Nazis during World War II.\u00a0 Hitler himself visited the city hall and declared, “Make this land German again.”<\/p>\n

POW Life in Nazi-occupied Maribor<\/h4>\n

Captive Allied servicemen in Maribor were held separately from ranking officers. They could leave the prison camp for work details on nearby farms and rail lines. Ralph’s nickname was The Crow, a disparaging reference to people from his native South Australia being so poor that they could only afford to eat crow.<\/p>\n

Red Cross parcels allowed Ralph to regain his health. He set up a black market in such wartime luxuries as cigarettes and chocolate. He befriended Les Laws, a British soldier who was a jazz pianist before the war. They tried to boost morale by putting on musical shows.<\/p>\n

They also made several escape attempts. Ralph realized he would need to learn German to get very far and began teaching himself to speak the language. He also learned of the horrifying camp conditions for Russian prisoners, including many Ukrainians. The Germans were starving them to death.<\/p>\n

\"Soviet

POWs from the Soviet Union were held in a separate camp, where the Nazis were starving them to death. As punishment for one of his escape attempts, Ralph Churches was ordered to help bury the bodies.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Flight of the Crow<\/h4>\n

By 1944, Ralph and Les were even more determined to escape. The book details how the two mates managed to make contact with Slovenian resistance fighters, known as partisans. On August 30, 1944, they carried out an escape plan for seven of the men in their hut, but then decided to go back the next day for the rest of the Allied captives. In all, 106 men.<\/p>\n

In the book, The Greatest Escape, Ralph’s son Neil Churches documents the group’s harrowing journey across a war zone to freedom. I interviewed him via Zoom. From his home in Melbourne, he talked about the emotional experience of writing his father’s wartime story of courage. Buy the book at this Amazon link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

WATCH the video and please subscribe to my YouTube channel<\/a> for updates on hiking tours of the escape route.<\/p>\n