Flight Lieutenant Bill Goldfinch RIP

Kyt · Oct 11, 2007

Another sad loss. I remember reading about him and the glider when I was very young - it was one of the things that got me interested in the war

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=A1&xml=/news/2007/10/12/db1201.xml

Flight Lieutenant Bill Goldfinch, who died on October 2 aged 91, designed the glider built in the eaves of Colditz Castle, as part of the most audacious of all the projected escapes from the Second World War's most famous prison camp.

He and one of his fellow prisoners, Tony Rolt, a racing driver, realised separately that the roof of the 11th-century Saxon fortress, several hundred feet above the local town, would make a perfect launching point.

Goldfinch drew up plans for a craft which could fly over a river and land on a green field 500 yards away.

Known as the "Colditz Cock", it was approaching completion when the camp was relieved by the Allies on April 16 1945.

For a long time after the war the glider was largely dismissed as a wartime myth, since the only evidence seemed to be a single photograph, said to have been taken by an American soldier.

But Goldfinch, a private man, had kept his drawings, which enabled a miniature version, about one-third the size of the original, to be constructed.

It was eventually launched from the castle roof in 1993, when a party of former prisoners visited the castle; and six years later Channel 4 commissioned the glider to be built to Goldfinch's original specifications for the television series Escape from Colditz, which appeared in 2000.
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The construction was undertaken in Hampshire, using modern technology, while Goldfinch and Flight Lieutenant Jack Best (who died in 2000) eagerly observed and commented on its progress.

When the glider was finally launched for a three-minute flight, reaching 700ft at RAF Odiham, about a dozen of the veterans who had worked on the original more than 55 years earlier proudly looked on.

Leslie James Edward Goldfinch, who was known as Bill, was born on July 12 1916 at Whistable, Kent. He was a second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers (TA) from 1935 to 1939.

After enlisting in the RAF he began training at Martlesham Heath, Suffolk, was then sent to Rhodesia and completed his operational training in Egypt. Posted to No 228 Squadron, flying Sunderlands, he took part in two epic sorties during the evacuation of Greece.

On April 25 1941 52 RAF men were rescued and flown to Kalamata, where a further 20 were picked up. The grossly overloaded Sunderland failed to get airborne on its first attempt, but after a five-mile run on its second attempt, it staggered into the air and headed for Suda Bay, Crete.

Goldfinch and his crew were immediately ordered to return to Kalamata. As the aircraft attempted to land in the dark it hit an object in the water and sank. Goldfinch was one of four survivors from the crew of 10. Badly injured, he was taken to a military hospital, where he met Best, who had also crashed off southern Greece.

The hospital fell into German hands some days later. First they were sent to Stalag Luft I near the Swiss border, where Goldfinch started to dream of building a bi-plane glider which — with the aid of a rope and a strong wind — might be launched over the wire to reach nearby woods.

At Stalag Luft III he toyed with the idea of a giroplane, but the practical difficulties led him and Best to switch to "moling".

Emerging from their tunnel outside the perimeter fence, they set off for an airfield, where they hoped to steal an aircraft. But, finding all the planes securely locked, they headed for the Oder river, where they discovered a rowing boat.

They then drew attention to themselves by rowing on the wrong side of the river, and were captured as they slept on the bank. With established reputations as "bad boys", the pair were dispatched to Colditz, where they were known as "the two old crows" or "the wicked uncles".

They proved themselves the finest craftsmen in the camp, according to Pat Reid, the chairman of the escape committee; he noted that Goldfinch's equanimity made him the kind of man "who would survive in a lifeboat after weeks of exposure, long after the other occupants had gone overboard".

It was while watching the snowflakes drifting in the wind that Goldfinch realised a launch from the roof would be like a dive into a swimming pool.

Some prisoners simply laughed when first told of the idea, and since the execution of 50 prisoners who had taken part in the "Great Escape" from Stalag Luft III the Allied High Command had discouraged further escape attempts.

But it was a year since the last successful break from Colditz, and the camp escape committee recognised that the proposal would provide a good opportunity to divert the younger prisoners' energies.

Goldfinch was aided by his discovery in the prison library of Aircraft Design, a two-volume work by CH Latimer which explained the necessary physics and engineering and included a detailed diagram of a wing section.

There was no indication as to how this invaluable textbook had arrived in the castle, or why the Germans had permitted it to remain. One theory was that building an aircraft seemed so impossible that even the most desperate Englishman would not consider it.

Goldfinch duly started on his meticulous drawings for a craft with a 33ft wingspan which, with two men aboard, could be launched into the wind at 31 mph. A secret workshop behind a false wall was devised in an attic above the chapel.

Best took on the practicalities of making the tools, the Canadian "Hank" Wardle helped with the construction, and Rolt was the overall organiser; they were joined by 12 "apostles" and then by 40 "stooges", who acted as lookouts.

On the day of the flight a hole was to be made in the wall of the attic and the glider hauled on to the roof, where it would have its wings attached. It was then to be launched by a catapult system, with an earth and concrete-filled bathtub weighing one ton being dropped from the roof to the ground.

Goldfinch, however, favoured using 10 men with a rope, though they would have had to land on mattresses below.

On the morning the camp was liberated he and Best brought down the different sections to the British quarters and assembled them for the first time, showing the craft to some astonished GIs. When they left the castle two days later Goldfinch took his drawings, but the glider had to be left behind.

An attempt to retrieve it later met with no co-operation from Colditz's Russian masters. The townspeople believe that it was either burnt for firewood by the Russians or deliberately destroyed because its growing fame was irritating the new East German authorities.

After the war Goldfinch settled with his wife Pauline and their daughter at Poole, Dorset, where he was borough engineer. On retiring as acting city engineer of Salisbury in 1974, he devoted himself to his love of flying and making aircraft. He built a Luton Minor in the 1970s, which he flew regularly from Old Sarum flying club until he was in his late eighties.

Over the last 11 years Bill Goldfinch had worked for five days a week, with secondhand materials, on his version of a seaplane which had been developed for the US Navy in the 1920s. It was to have had its second taxiing trials the day after he died.
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Antipodean Andy · Oct 11, 2007

And a Sunderland man on top of the glider. What a man. He wil be missed.

On April 25 1941 52 RAF men were rescued and flown to Kalamata, where a further 20 were picked up. The grossly overloaded Sunderland failed to get airborne on its first attempt, but after a five-mile run on its second attempt, it staggered into the air and headed for Suda Bay, Crete.

Stirring stuff!

spidge · Oct 11, 2007

The feats are heroic, the stories great.

If you said you put that many bodies in a Sunderland without proof, they would lock you up.

Antipodean Andy · Oct 12, 2007

Sounds like something uni students would do, doesn't it?!

Kyt · Oct 12, 2007

I would love to try that on a Friday night - beats a Mini anyday.

Antipodean Andy · Oct 12, 2007

Hell yeah, even the five mile take off run would be "fun".

Kyt · Oct 12, 2007

Very true.......but, err, you go first

Antipodean Andy · Oct 12, 2007

Me, go first in an airworthy, if slightly overloaded Sunderland? Okie dokie...

spidge · Oct 12, 2007

Andy in West Oz said: ↑

Me, go first in an airworthy, if slightly overloaded Sunderland? Okie dokie...
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Slightly seems a gentle description?

Kyt · Oct 12, 2007

How much would 72 men weigh? Approx 11 stone a man? 792 st = 11088 lb. Capacity of a Sunderland - 24000 lb, including fuel, crew and weapons etc. Approx allowance for more than that - probably 5000lb (id weapons and some of the fuel is dumped).

Ergo - we'll have to throw Andy out.

Antipodean Andy · Oct 12, 2007

RAF/RAAF understatement, Spidgeman (says Andy with great pretence to knowing the culture!).

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