Pat Reid

2022-11-10T10:05:36Z

79.76.4.37:

{{short description|British Army officer, prisoner of war, author}}
{{For|other people of this name|Patrick Reid (disambiguation){{!}}Patrick Reid}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}}
{{Infobox military person
| name = Patrick Robert Reid
| image =
| caption =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1910|11|13|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Ranchi]], [[Bengal Presidency]], [[British Raj|British India]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1990|5|22|1910|11|13|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Frenchay Hospital]], [[Bristol]], England
| placeofburial =
| placeofburial_label =
| placeofburial_coordinates = 
| nickname = "Pat"
| birth_name =
| allegiance = United Kingdom
| branch = [[File:Flag of the British Army.svg|23px]] [[British Army]]
| serviceyears = 1933—1947
| rank = [[Major (United Kingdom)|Major]]
| servicenumber = 58974
| unit = [[Royal Army Service Corps]]
| commands =
| battles = [[World War II]]<br/>
* [[Battle of France]]
| battles_label =
| awards = [[Order of the British Empire|Member of the Order of the British Empire]]<br/>[[Military Cross]]
| relations =
| laterwork = Diplomat, administrator, company director & author
| signature =
}}
'''Patrick Robert Reid''', {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|sep=,|MBE|MC}} (13 November 1910 – 22 May 1990) was a [[British Army]] officer and author of history. As a British [[prisoner of war]] during the [[Second World War]], he was held captive at [[Colditz Castle]] when it was designated [[Oflag IV-C]]. Reid was one of the few to escape from Colditz, crossing the border into [[neutral Switzerland]] in late 1942.

After the war Reid was a [[diplomat]] and administrator before eventually returning to his prewar career in [[civil engineering]]. He also wrote about his experiences in two best-selling books, which became the basis of a [[The Colditz Story|film]], [[Colditz (1972 TV series)|TV series]] and [[Escape from Colditz|board game]].

==Biography==

===Early life and education===
Patrick Reid was born in [[Ranchi]], [[British Raj|India]],<ref>{{cite web |url= http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/individual/504898 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090119174532/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/individual/504898 |url-status= dead |archive-date= 19 January 2009 |title=BFI Film & TV Database : Reid, Patrick |website=ftvdb.bfi.org.uk |access-date=10 October 2011}}</ref> the son of John Reid [[Order of the Indian Empire|CIE]] [[Indian Civil Service|ICS]],<ref name="unithistories">{{cite web |url= http://www.unithistories.com/officers/Army_officers_R01.html |title=British Army Officers 1939–1945 (Radford to Rutherford) |website=unithistories.com |year=2011 |author=Hans Houterman & Jeroen Koppes |access-date=5 May 2013}}</ref> of [[Carlow]], Ireland,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.carlowpeople.ie/news/the-queen-and-her-carlow-connections-2648769.html |title=The Queen and her Carlow connections |first=Jimmy |last=O'Toole |publisher=[[Irish Independent]] |website=carlowpeople.ie |date=17 May 2011 |access-date=5 May 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120428193958/http://www.carlowpeople.ie/news/the-queen-and-her-carlow-connections-2648769.html |archive-date=28 April 2012}}</ref> and Alice Mabel Daniell.<ref name="unithistories"/> He was educated at Ladycross prep school, Seaford, Sussex,{{citation needed|date=April 2017}} [[St. Dominic's Preparatory School]], [[Cabra, Dublin|Cabra]], [[County Dublin]],{{citation needed|date=April 2017}} [[Clongowes Wood College]], [[County Kildare]], and [[Wimbledon College]], London, and graduated from [[King's College London]] in 1932. He then trained as a [[civil engineer]], working for [[Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners]] from 1934 to 1937, and becoming an Associate Member of the [[Institution of Civil Engineers]] in 1936.<ref name="unithistories"/>

===Military service===
Reid joined the [[Territorial Army (United Kingdom)|Territorial Army]] and was commissioned as a [[Second Lieutenant]] on 16 June 1933 on the General List. He joined the [[Royal Army Service Corps]] ([[Militia#The Special Reserve|Supplementary Reserve]]) with the same rank on 5 June 1935. He was promoted to Lieutenant exactly three years later on 5 June 1938.<ref name="unithistories"/>

Reid was [[Mobilization|mobilised]] for active duty on 24 August 1939, and served in the [[2nd Infantry Division (United Kingdom)|2nd Infantry Division]], receiving promotion to Temporary [[Captain (British Army and Royal Marines)|Captain]] on 1 December 1939. On 27 May 1940, while serving as a member of the [[British Expeditionary Force (World War II)|British Expeditionary Force]] during the [[Battle of France]],<ref name="unithistories"/> he was captured by the Germans near [[Cassel, Nord|Cassel]].<ref name="conscript-heroes">{{cite web |url= http://www.conscript-heroes.com/escapelines/EEIE-Articles/Art-16-Escapers-from-Germany.htm |title=Escapers from Germany |work=conscript-heroes.com |access-date=10 October 2011}}</ref> He was sent to [[Laufen, Germany|Laufen]] castle, [[Bavaria]], designated [[Oflag VII-C]], arriving there on 5 June 1940.<ref name="unithistories"/>

Within days of his arrival, Reid was planning an escape, determined to return home by Christmas. After seven weeks digging Reid and a group of prisoners completed a tunnel, {{Convert|24|ft}} long, from the prison basement to a small shed adjoining a nearby house. At 06:30 on 5 September 1940, Reid and five others broke out and made for [[Yugoslavia]], only 150 miles away. The escapees were recaptured after five days in [[Radstadt]], Austria. Reid was sentenced to a month of [[solitary confinement]], on a diet of bread and water.<ref name="askaboutireland">{{cite web |url= http://www.askaboutireland.ie/learning-zone/primary-students/looking-at-places/carlow/famous-carlow-people/patrick-robert-reid/first-stop-laufen/ |title=Patrick Robert Reid |work=askaboutireland.ie |year=2011 |access-date=10 October 2011}}</ref>

As one of the "Laufen Six", Reid was then sent to [[Colditz Castle]], designated [[Oflag IV-C]], a special "escape-proof" camp, arriving there on 10 November 1940. It was not long before Reid attempted an escape. He bribed a seemingly willing German guard to look the other way. On the night of 29 May 1941 twelve prisoners crawled through a sewer pipe from the canteen to an outer courtyard, planning to then descend a forty-foot wall, and then over another wall 12 feet high topped with barbed wire. However, although the guard had accepted the bribe, he also reported the escape plan to his superiors, and the Germans were waiting for them. After another spell in solitary, Reid accepted the position of Escape Officer, responsible for overseeing all British escape plans. Reid assisted in many escape attempts, some successful,<ref name="askaboutireland"/> until April 1942, when he was replaced as Escape Officer by fellow member of the "Laufen Six" [[Richard Howe (officer)|Captain Richard "Dick" Howe]].<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.colditzcastle.net/british-pows/escape-officers/ |title=Escape Officers – Colditz |work=colditzcastle.net
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130117025231/http://www.colditzcastle.net/british-pows/escape-officers/
| archive-date = 17 January 2013
| access-date = 11 November 2014
}}</ref>

===Escaping Colditz===
[[File:Colditz Schlosshof Pano.jpg|thumb|upright|left|The ''German Kommandantur'' in 2011.]] [[File:PicOf 4C Colditz.jpg|thumb|Colditz Castle (1945)]]
Reid finally took his own chance to escape on the night of 14/15 October 1942, along with Major [[Ronald Littledale]], [[Lieutenant Commander]] William L. Stephens [[RNVR]], and [[Flight Lieutenant]] [[Howard Wardle]] [[RAF]]. They cut through the bars on a window in the prisoners' kitchen, and climbed out onto the flat roof of the German kitchen. They then crossed the brightly lit outer yard, and avoided being seen by a guard. They entered a storage cellar under the ''Kommandantur'' (Commandant's HQ), crawled out through a narrow air shaft leading to the dry moat, and exited through the park. They split into pairs,<ref name="conscript-heroes"/> with Reid and Wardle disguised as Flemish workmen<ref name="highbeam">{{cite web |url= http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8175477.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160318214022/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8175477.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= 18 March 2016 |title=Obituary: Maj. Patrick Reid, 79, Escaped From Nazi Prison |via=HighBeam Research|year=2011 |access-date=10 October 2011}}</ref> travelling by train to [[Tuttlingen]], near the Swiss border, via [[Zwickau]] and [[Munich]]. They crossed the border near [[Ramsen, Schaffhausen|Ramsen]] on the evening of 18 October. Stephens and Littledale also travelled to Tuttlingen by train, via [[Chemnitz]], [[Nuremberg]] and [[Stuttgart]], then followed Reid and Wardle across the border in the early hours of 20 October.<ref name="conscript-heroes"/>

Reid remained in Switzerland until after the end of the war, serving as an Assistant Military Attaché in [[Bern]] from 9 March 1943 until early 1946, and receiving promotion to Temporary Major on 1 November 1945.<ref name="unithistories"/> He was unusually discreet about his duties there, and was in fact working for the [[Secret Intelligence Service]] (MI6) gathering intelligence from arriving escapees.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://phoenixarkpress.com/2010/12/15/drue-heinz-and-the-literary-mystery-of-a-wartime-striptease/ |title=Drue Heinz, and the little literary mystery of a wartime striptease |work=phoenixarkpress.com |access-date=10 October 2011}}</ref>

===Postwar===
Reid left the army on 29 March 1947, but remained a member of the [[Military reserve force|Regular Army Reserve]] until reaching mandatory retirement age on 15 November 1965. On that day he was awarded the honorary rank of Major.<ref name="unithistories"/>

Reid served in the British embassy at [[Ankara]], [[Turkey]], as First Secretary (Commercial) from 1946 until 1949, then as Chief Administrator for the [[Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development|Organisation for European Economic Cooperation]] in [[Paris]], [[France]], until 1952.<ref name="unithistories"/>

Reid then returned to his prewar career in [[civil engineering]], serving as a director of the construction companies [[Costain Group|Richard Costain (Projects) Ltd.]] and Richard Costain (Middle East) Ltd. between 1959 and 1962, and working for the consulting engineers [[Atkins (company)|W.S. Atkins & Partners]] in 1962–63.<ref name="unithistories"/>

===Personal life===
Reid was married three times; first in 1943 to Jane Cabot. They had three sons and two daughters, and were divorced in 1966. His second marriage in 1977 to Mary Stewart Cunliffe-Lister ended with her death in 1978. In 1982 he married his third wife, Nicandra Hood, but they separated after a few years.{{citation needed|date=February 2013}} He died at the [[Frenchay Hospital]], Bristol,<ref name="highbeam"/> on 22 May 1990, at the age of 79.<ref name="unithistories"/>

===Other activities===
Reid served as president of the Blackboys Cricket Club in [[Framfield]], [[Sussex]] in 1972.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.blackboyscc.co.uk/presidents.htm |title=Blackboys Cricket Club – Past Club Presidents Page |work=blackboyscc.co.uk |year=2009 |access-date=10 October 2011}}</ref> He actively went on lecture tours in the early 1970s with his models of Colditz Castle and other memorabilia and photographs.

==Awards==
For his "gallant and distinguished services in the field" during the [[Battle of France]] Reid was awarded the [[Military Cross]] on 4 May 1943,<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=36000 |date=30 April 1943 |page=1997 |supp=y }}</ref> and was made a Member of the [[Order of the British Empire]] (Military Division) on 20 December 1945.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=37396 |date=18 December 1945 |page=6187 |supp=y }}</ref>

==Publications==
* ''The Colditz Story'' ([[Hodder & Stoughton]], 1952) was Reid's memoir of his time in Colditz, which later became the basis for the 1955 film ''[[The Colditz Story]]'', directed by [[Guy Hamilton]], with [[John Mills]] playing Reid. Although focusing mainly upon life inside Colditz and the development of an 'escape academy', the final chapters of the book are devoted to Reid's own escape. The book chronicles everyday prison life, in which characters such as [[Douglas Bader]] and [[Airey Neave]] appear with no special mention, reporting events in an anecdotal and almost comical style. On 14 October 1942 Reid, along three other British officers, escaped and made their way to neutral [[Switzerland]]. What Reid does not mention in his book is that he escaped using [[Hans Larive]]'s [[Singen]] route. Larive, a Dutch naval lieutenant, attempted his first escape from Oflag VI-A in [[Soest, Germany|Soest]] in 1940, but was caught at the Swiss border. The interrogating Gestapo officer was so confident the war would soon be won by Germany that he told Larive the safe way across the border. Larive memorized the information, and many prisoners later escaped using this route.<ref>{{cite book |last1= Larive |first1=E.H. |author-link1=Hans Larive |title=Vannacht varen de Hollanders |trans-title=The Man Who Came in From Colditz |year=1950 |publisher=[[Elsevier]] |location=[[Amsterdam]] |language=nl }}</ref>
* ''The Latter Days'' (Hodder & Stoughton, 1953), republished as ''Latter Days at Colditz'', also published with the title ''Men of Colditz'':<ref>{{cite web | title = Catalog record: The latter days | url = http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006030631 | publisher = Hathi Trust Digital Library | access-date = 2014-11-11}}</ref> Whilst his first book ended with Reid and Wardle shaking hands under the first Swiss lamp post, the sequel follows the trials and tribulations of the escape committee until the eventual liberation of the castle by U.S. troops on 15 April 1945. It gives even more anecdotal insight into the events following his escape, including [[Attempts to escape Oflag IV-C#The French Tunnel|the French Tunnel]] and the [[Colditz Cock|Colditz Glider]], or the occasion when the entire Dutch contingent unhooked their POW railway car from the rest of the train unbeknownst to the German guards. This last part of the Dutch prisoners cannot be confirmed by any Dutch reference about POWs. Reid probably refers to the mass escape of Dutch officers from train transports towards the end of the war when they were transported from [[Ivano-Frankivsk|Stanislau]] to [[Neubrandenburg]].
* ''Escape from Colditz: The Two Classic Escape Stories: The Colditz Story, and Men of Colditz in One Volume'' (Lippincott, 1953)<ref name = Reid1953>
{{cite book
| author = Patrick Robert Reid
| title = Escape from Colditz: The Two Classic Escape Stories: The Colditz Story, and Men of Colditz in One Volume
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=If0LAQAAIAAJ
| year = 1953
| publisher = Lippincott
| access-date = 2014-11-11
}}</ref>
* ''Colditz'' (Hodder & Stoughton, 1962) : This was an omnibus edition of the first two books, and served as the basis for the [[BBC Television]] series ''[[Colditz (1972 TV series)|Colditz]]'', which ran from October 1972 until April 1974. Reid served as technical advisor to both the TV series and the 1955 film.
* ''From Nile to Indus : Economics and Security in the Middle East'', with [[Olaf Caroe|Sir Olaf Caroe]] and Sir Thomas Rapp (Conservative Political Centre, 1960)
* ''Winged Diplomat : the life story of Air Commodore [[Ferdinand Maurice Felix West|Freddie West]], VC, CBE, MC'' ([[Chatto & Windus]], 1962)
* ''My Favourite Escape Stories'' (Lutterworth Press, 1975)
* ''Prisoner of War : The Inside Story of the POW from the Ancient World to Colditz and After'', with Maurice Michael (1983)
* ''Colditz: The Full Story'' (1984) : While the first two books can be read as adventure narratives, and have a distinctly 'Battler Briton' ethos of 'sticking one up to the goons' this book takes a more analytic approach, and covers a number of previously suppressed details. For example, Reid describes some of the ways prisoners obtained contraband material, and how British prisoners communicated clandestinely with the authorities in London. He also gives a full account of how prisoners discovered the 'Singen Escape Route'. He also deals with some of the tensions and tragedies of wartime Europe, for example the tensions in the French contingents between [[Gaullists]] and supporters of [[Philippe Pétain|Pétain]].

==References==
;Notes
{{reflist|30em}}
;Bibliography
*{{cite book|title=The Colditz Story|author=P. R. Reid|year=1952|publisher=[[Hodder & Stoughton]]}}
*{{cite book|title=The Latter Days|author=P. R. Reid|year=1953|publisher=Hodder & Stoughton}}
*{{cite book|title=Colditz: The Full Story|author=P. R. Reid|year=1984|publisher=[[Arrow Books]] |isbn=0-09-943190-4 }}

==External links==
*[https://www.unithistories.com/officers/Army_officers_R01.html#Reid_PR British Army Officers 1939−1945]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Reid, Pat}}
[[Category:1910 births]]
[[Category:1990 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Ranchi]]
[[Category:British people of Irish descent]]
[[Category:People educated at Clongowes Wood College]]
[[Category:People educated at Wimbledon College]]
[[Category:Alumni of King's College London]]
[[Category:British Militia officers]]
[[Category:Royal Army Service Corps officers]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:World War II prisoners of war held by Germany]]
[[Category:Prisoners of war held at Colditz Castle]]
[[Category:Escapees from German detention]]
[[Category:British escapees]]
[[Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Military Cross]]
[[Category:British non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:British male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:British World War II prisoners of war]]
[[Category:British Army General List officers]]
[[Category:Military personnel of British India]]

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Pat Reid