Bomber Crew Escaper: One Wartime Airman’s Story of Baling Out, Capture, Imprisonment and Escape

Jack Sowter’s daring wartime journey from a Halifax navigator to relentless escapee defines resilience under brutal captivity.Sergeant Jack Sowter had joined the RAF in October 1941, originally as a trainee wireless operator. He later re-mustered as a navigator and joined the crew of a Handley Page Halifax of 78 Squadron.On the night of 27/28 July 1943, Jack’s aircraft, JD 148, was one of 787 bombers tasked with attacking the port of Hamburg as part of Operation Gomorrah. Having successfully unleashed its deadly load on the German city, Jack’s captain, Sergeant Les Maidment, turned for home. However, Maidment could not escape the penetrating beams of the German searchlights, nor the enemy flak. With his aircraft repeatedly hit, Maidment gave his crew the order to bale out.Four of the seven crew survived to become prisoners of war. One of those was Jack Sowter. Despite a severe ankle injury, he managed to evade the searching enemy patrols for two days before he was captured.Like many captured Allied airmen, Jack was initially taken to the Dulag Luft, a transit and interrogation camp. There he was reunited with the other three surviving members of his crew. He ended up at Stalag Luft VIB, the most northerly of the PoW camps within the Reich. It was not until 1944, that, at long last, Jack’s first real chance to escape came – but this taste of freedom did not last long.Yet, just eight days after being returned to Stalag Luft VIB, Jack was on the top of the escape list once again. This time, he and three others escaped from a working party; at a railway station they encountered a boxcar that was marked ‘Geneva’. This dream of neutrality and freedom was quickly shattered when the only boxcar they could enter was marked ‘Hanover’. It was, though, nearer to home than Stalag Luft VIB. Unfortunately, their journey ended in the hands of the German police.Jack sought every opportunity to escape his captors. It became an obsession, and his story abounds with inventive schemes, of hidden saw blades and ineffective wire cutters. Jack tells of his fellow prisoners and life in captivity. His memoirs culminate with the day the prisoners awoke to find their guards had disappeared and how, on this occasion, his last bid for freedom was a permanent one. Read more