The role of Ed Tovrea, grandson of E.A. Tovrea, in the Great Escape

Don Dedera – Arizona Republic – 9-14-1967

“Phoenician Real-Life Organizer of Television’s ‘Great Escape’”

This article recounts the involvement of Ed Tovrea, EA Tovrea’s grandson (oldest son of EA’s son Phil) in the event that would be re-created as the movie “The Great Escape.”  The movie was about to be shown on local TV.

Ed was 21 when he joined the Air Corps early in 1940.  In 1942, after he had shot down his first German plane, his own plane was shot down and he ended up in the English Channel, where he was captured by a German patrol boat.  For the next 33 months, “Ed was consumed by one burning ambition:  to escape.”

           

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            As an officer under Geneva rules he was not allowed to work.  He was given standard duties in camp administration.  But his secret, primary responsibility was bossing the X-Committee, which planned and organized escapes.

            “We had tunnels going on all the time,” said Ed.  “We’d start with inventing the trap – the hidden entrance – and if we could build it so well that our own leaders could not find it, we were allowed to continue.

            “Usually we’d dig straight down 25 feet, to get below the range of German listening devices, then strike out horizontally.  We’d have a chamber for storing gear, a chamber for the air pumps, another chamber for storing sand while the tunneling progressed.

            “Sand disposal was our greatest problem.  We literally built roads with it.  Our flower gardens became raised. We flushed the sand down toilets.

            “Our cleverest trap was in the bathroom under a sump covered with water.  The trap of the tunnel of The Great Escape was the barracks stove and its brick foundation, which could be swung off the tunnel entrance.  To discourage German investigators, we kept that stove blistering hot at all times.”

The Americans even built decoy tunnels meant to be discovered by the guards. 

            “We never gave a thought to internal security,” said Ed.  “Americans of that camp were loyal to a man.  In a prison camp, you can fid any talent you need:  Pick-pocket, forger, engineer, photographer.  In the final few weeks before an escape a lot of things had to happen.  Civilian clothing had to be made.  Documents had to be drawn. Every American knew an escape was in the works, but we never had a traitor.

            “Sometimes I think the difference in the record of prisoners of our war and those of later wars was that we knew we were in our war to win.  We weren’t in the thing halfway, and we knew our country was behind us.”

As it happened, Tovrea was transferred to another camp before The Great Escape.  Of the 86 prisoners who made it out, 50 were shot and only 3 were able to reach friendly lines.  Ed was not liberated until the war was over.

While watching “'The Great Escape,'” he said, “I think I’ll be telling myself that I wouldn’t do it again for a million dollars, but I wouldn’t take a million for the memories.”