Memoirs of Scottish naval officer tell of daring escapes - Press & Journal it was third time lucky for World war II pow who managed to stow away on ship By Morag Lindsay Published: 23/02/2009 The extraordinary memoirs of a Scottish naval officer who escaped three times from a prisoner of war camp during World War II have been republished 65 years on. David James first described his adventures on the run in a magazine serial in the late 1940s. The tales were later brought together in a book, Escaper’s Progress, which was published in various forms over the decades and became a popular souvenir for visitors to his family’s home, Torosay Castle, on Mull. Now, more than 20 years after his death, the stories have been reprinted, together with photographs and original documents, including the official report taken by the Royal Navy upon his return. Mr James’s son, Chris, who now lives at Torosay and runs it as a summer visitor attraction with wife Sarah, first read the book as a small boy and was bowled over by his father’s sense of adventure. “He loved to tell a good story, and it’s real Boy’s Own stuff,” he said. Escaper’s Progress opens with his capture after his ship was bombed by the Germans off the Hook of Holland in February 1943, and details his three daring escape attempts, the first via a tunnel under the camp which he and his friends dug in secret. His second attempt saw him clamber out of a bathroom window dressed as an officer of the Royal Bulgarian Navy and go on the run for a week before being captured. For his third, successful, escape he dressed as a Swedish sailor and managed to smuggle himself on board a ship and hide under the floor above the boiler room, enduring two-and-a-half days of suffocating heat on the voyage to Stockholm and freedom. Mr James was on the run around the same time as the prisoners whose escape from Stalag Luft III was told in the book and film, the Great Escape. Of the 76 men who dug their way out of that camp, 73 were captured and 50 were executed by the Gestapo on Hitler’s orders. Mr James jun said: “My father told me in later life that if he’d known at the time what had happened to them he’d have stayed put. But I’m not so sure he would. “He was always an adventurer. Before the war he sailed round the world on one of the last of the windjammers and, after he escaped, the Navy sent him to Antarctica to work with the dogs on one of the early scientific expeditions.” On his return to civilian life Mr James forged a successful career in publishing and served two terms as a Conservative MP. He acted as polar adviser to the film Scott of the Antarctic, and was the subject of the television show This Is Your Life in 1962. After leaving politics he devoted his life to opening the family home Torosay Castle to the public and was a welcoming host until his death in 1986. In a foreword to the new book, author Eric Williams, himself a former PoW who specialised in writing about escapes, says Mr James comes across as “a resourceful and likeable young man whose ready wit and pleasant manner proved a sound defence against rising suspicion”. He adds: “I am certain that it will be enjoyed by everyone who believes in that indestructible British spirit which can be so clearly recognised between its pages.” Escaper’s Progress is published in hardback by Pen and Sword Books, priced £19.99.
