Jens Müller
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Photo courtesy Jonathan F. Vance, Canada Research Chair, The University of Western Ontario.
Jens Müller was a Norwegian pilot trained in Little Norway in Canada and POW in the German POW camp called Stalag Luft III. In 1942 he was an officer in the Norwegian 331 squadron at North Weald in England.
On June 19, after completing a so called Roadsted mission his Spitfire Mark V (tail number AR298) was shot down by a German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 just off the Belgian coast after running out of ammunition. He escaped the plane by parachute and in his inflatable dinghy managed to paddle unseen to shore after 66 hours, but was caught by a German sentry almost immediately.
In what later became known as The Great Escape, he was among the 76 prisoners of war that managed to escape from the camp.
He and Per Bergsland caught a train to Szczecin (then called Stettin) where they met one of Roger Bushell's contacts in a local brothel. While there however, a local Pole and Swede offered to aid their escape, telling them to wait down at the pier where they quietly impersonated local sailors for several hours before realizing that their aid was not coming. They spent the night at an Inn, and the next day returned to the brothel where they met a pair of Swedish sailors who again agreed to help smuggle them past Nazi harbour authorities.
After first stopping in Gothenburg the ship finally docked in Stockholm, where the two Norwegian pilots quickly sought out the British consulate.
Out of these 76 escapees, only three made it to neutral countries and freedom. The third escapee was the Dutchman Bram van der Stok, who escaped to Spain with the help of the Dutch resistance.
The remaining 73 escapees were captured. Hitler wanted to have them all shot, but Himmler persuaded him not to do this, and fifty were shot to state an example. The remaining 23 were held in the custody of the Gestapo before being sent off to other camps. 17 were returned to Stalag Luft III, four were sent to Sachsenhausen, and two to Colditz Castle.
Jens Müller wrote a book in Norwegian, published in 1946, about his experiences titled "Tre kom tilbake" ("Three returned").
