#section hands

“Railway Section Hand Captures Three Escaped Nazis,” Toronto Star. November 24, 1941. Page 19. ---- ITALIAN AND FINN HELP TO ROUND UP FUGITIVES WHO FLED PRISON TRAIN --- ‘We Will Own This Country Soon,’ Recaptured Prisoners Boast at Sudbury --- LIBERTY IS BRIEF --- By JAMES V. NICOL Sudbury, Nov. 24 - Captured by kindness and in their bare feet, three of Hermann Goering’s pilots today are in the hospitable jail maintained here y the province for malefactors here by the province for malefactors whose sins against society are less than theirs. They are taking turns at being sultry, sulky, defiant, and diplomatic, and in each role they cut very sorry figures.

These noblemen of a pure Aryan nature were caught by as cosmopolitan a passe as ever hung a horse thief or flushed a Luftwaffer. The men to whom they owe their downfall, include several Canadians, one Pole, one Ukrainian, at least one Irishman, plus one Finlander, and last but not least, an Italian.

The notebook of a reporter for The Toronto Star who had a ringside seat for the flushing of the Luftwaffe trop after they had bolted from a prison train at or near Sudbury records the following under the title of ‘We Will With Kindness,’ as suggested by Provincial Police Inspector Percy T. Hake.

Saturday, 11.10 p.m. - Double-header prison train of 15 pasenger cars arrives from a northwestern Ontario point with right of way over everything. The speed is that of a regular through train plus half of what a regular through train could ordinarily do.

Launch Wide Search Sunday 2.10 a.m. - Message from Chief Dispatcher of the C.P.R. at Parry Sound reaches mounted, provincial, and city police reporting following prisoners as having escaped:

Waller, camp number 14923. Malischewski, camp number 51981 Manhert, camp number 14917. All are of the rank of first lieutenant and were sent to Canada after being shot down by British fliers.

Sunday, 2.31 a.m. - Mounted, provincial, and city police on trail comb taxi stands, flop-houses, highways and byways.

7.55 a.m. - Naughton station, 12 miles west of Sudbury, John Fedan, a Ukrainian section hand, begins Sunday patrol of tracks on Soo line.

8.15 a.m. - Fedan reaches red tool shed, notices tracks of ‘drunken’ men in snow outside, sees window of shed broken.

8.15 1/4 a.m. - Fedan unpadlocks door, finds three ‘hoboes’ sitting on hand car and velocipede inside, becomes ‘outraged’ at noticing window in tool shed missing.

8.16 a.m. - ‘You will have to pay for that glass,’ says John Fedan. 8.16 1/4 a.m. - Things begin to happen.

8.20 a.m. - Waller and Malischewski in custody in their stocking feet.

8.21 a.m. - Manhert on the lam and into the northern bush with shoes on.

10.49 a.m. - Manhert captured in bush four miles from Naughton; surrenders with sheepish grin to Constable Jack Campbell, R.C.M.P.

Had Food, Clothes 11 a.m. - All three en route to Sudbury district jail. Manhert still wearing sheepish grin. Malischewski happy, Waller saying ‘This is not the first time I try to escape. Every chance I get I will try to escape.’

All three had maps of Northern Ontario. Malischewski had divested himself of his air force tunic and obtained a red turtle-necked sweater. Waller had discarded his tunic for a navy blue civilian jacket with a tear under the left vest pocket. Manhert had picked up a brown overcoat. They carried a considerable amount of silver. In the Sudbury yard of the C.P.R. there are two block signals which necessitate the slow movement of any train in passing through. When the prison train set out, all of the Nazis aboard were accounted for as being present. Mounted and railway police were on hand at the time.

It was while the train was easing through the signal blocks that the three got away. Reports persist that they opened the windows of their coach and jumped. No notification of their escape was received until the train reached Parry Sound, about 110 miles south.

Guarded With Axe Eight miles from Sudbury, at Romford Junction, two men were noticed on the railway tracks acting suspiciously, but they soon set the authorities at ease.

Police were in the dark until Stanley M. Stadnyk, a Russian Pole, age 51, section foreman, reported over the C.P.R. telephone to J. W. McVey, dispatcher. My man Fedan has two men here. They are wacting suspiciously. Is anything wanted?’ Dispatcher McVey advised Stadnyk to see that the men were kept and then called all three police forces.

When a Star reporter arrived, following Inspector Hake of the provincials, Fedan kept guard at the section shelter with an axe.

‘I got ‘em,’ he explained. ‘I do not know that German prisoners are missing at the tme, though. I am walking the tracks when i come to the tool shed. I see marks in the snow as if they were made by drunken men. I unlock the door, and there I see the three of them.’

‘They had their shoes and stockings off. Waller had his feet wrapped in an old bag: Malischewski had a railway flag around his feet; Mannhert had a handkerchief over his.

‘I look up and see they have put a board over the window. It is about a foot high and a foot and a half wide. The glass is out.’

‘I say, ‘What do you do here?’ They say, ‘Oh, we just come from Sudbury’ and I think they are drunk. But then I get suspicious.

Offered to Pay ‘I ask what nationality they are and Waller says, ‘Two of us are Finns and the other is a Hollander.’ I think to myself, ‘Those men have a German accent. I will kind them and be nice to them so they will not run away.’

‘I tell them, ‘You pay for that window you broke.’ They say, ‘Sure we pay.’ Mannhert offers me 25 cents, then 50 cents and keeps on going until he offers three, four dollars for the window. I say, ‘I cannot take the money, you must see the foreman; that is the way the railway wants it done.’

‘They put on their shoes and stockings and walk on the track. Just then I see the foreman. I am ahead and they are behind. Mannhert says, ‘I forgot my packsack; I must get it.’ I tell him, ‘No, do not do that; we will get it.’ But he runs away and I watch the other two till I get them to our shelter about 400 yards away.’

At this stage the ‘boss’ entered in the person of Constable Ken Brides of the R.C.M.P. and Detective Paul Tapper, of the Sudbury city police, a Finn.

Waller and Malischewski both his eyes are keenly set. Malischewski has a stubby nose and assumes a jollier aspect when under duress.

In the shelter which the section foreman provided for them as he telephoned for help, Waller became loquatious.

‘If you do not treats us properly,’ he said. ‘We will complain to the Swiss consul who sits on the commission that looks after us. If you get nasty with us it will be too bad with the Canadians who are prisoners in Germany.’

‘We Will Own This Country’ Almost as he spoke Detective Pat Moroney of the Sudbury city police (an Irishman) entered the shelter.

‘My goodness, bhoys, what are you doing here?’ he asked, joshingly.

The prisoners said: ‘There is a newspaper reporter here. According to the Geneva convention we are not to be subjected to this sort of publicity. The mounted police tell us that. We shall tell the Swiss consul and he will make it hot for you. Six months from now we will own Canada, be careful what you say. Heil Hitler!’ (They both heiled).

‘My boys,’ replied Officer Moroney. ‘I have a son of mine learning to be a wireless air gunner at Fingal. I am afraid he will not stand for the likes of you - and I have always brought him up as a gentle child. Now, let us be on our way.’