[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
Raid at Ožbalt
The Raid at Ožbalt was the most successful known prison break of the Second World War. It was an
operation on 31 August 1944 in which 105 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) were rescued by Slovene
Partisans, Special Operations Executive (SOE), and MI9. The majority were liberated from a work site at
the village of O žbalt (German:
St. Oswald an der Drau
) about 25 kilometres (16 mi) west of Maribor on
the railway line to Dravograd in the German
Reichsgau Steiermark
(Styria), now part of modern-day
northern Slovenia. Six of the liberated POWs were separated from the group during an engagement with
the Germans a few days after their liberation. One later reunited with the escape group. Following a 14-day
trek across 250 kilometres (160 mi) they were flown out of a Partisan airfield at Semič to Bari, Italy. The
successful escapees consisted of twenty Frenchmen, nine New Zealanders, twelve Australians, and fifty-
nine British POWs.
Contents
Background
Escape
Raid
Trek to Semič and aftermath
Conflicting accounts of events
Notes
References
External links
Ožbalt
Semič
Map of modern-day Slovenia
showing the locations of Ožbalt
and Semič
Background
Allied POWs (with the exception of officers and airmen of the Western Allies) were used as laborers in
working camps for various industries in the Third Reich. In 1941, there were a number of working camps
administered by Stalag XVIII-D which was located in Maribor, Slovenia (German:
Marburg an der
Drau
). By 1944, Stalag XVIII-D had been closed down, and its camps were administered by Stalag
XVIII-A in Wolfsberg. The prisoners of Working Camp 1046/GW Prisoners lived in a barracks of the
former Stalag XVIII-D camp, and were used for maintenance of the railway between Maribor and
Dravograd (German:
Unterdrauburg
) which continued through the Drava valley and into Austria.
The representative of the prisoners in 1046/GW, known as the 'Man of Confidence' (German:
Vertrauensmann),
was Private Ralph Frederick Churches, an Australian Army infantry soldier of the 2/48th
Battalion who had been on temporary duty with Headquarters ANZAC Corps when he was captured
during the Allied withdrawal from Greece in April–May 1941. In early 1944, Churches and his second -
1046/GW translator Driver Leslie Arthur Laws, a British Army soldier of the 127th (Dorset) Electrical and
Mechanical Engineers, Royal Engineers, agreed to cooperate on an escape attempt. Their hope was to
contact Slovenian Partisans and break out while on the railway work site.