😲 Escape Routes 😲

On the night of 22nd of September 1943, Johnny Pohe's plane (The first Maori to become a qualified pilot) was hit twice over the German city of Hanover. Johnny and two of his crew floated in an emergency dinghy for two days until they were spotted and captured by the Luftwaffe (German air force). Since Johnny was an officer, he was sent to Stalag Luft |||. This was a German prisoner-of-war camp for officer airmen.

My reading groups task was to re-create the image of the Stalag Luft ||| camp.. Here is my copy:

Even though 600 men had worked together to finish "Harry" in a year, there was only enough time for 200 to escape. So, the men divided themselves in two groups. The first one contained men who spoke German, had a history of escape, and men who had done a most of the work, this included Johnny. They had to wait for a moonless night to escape the camp (Further information down below). That night had finally come on 24th of March 1944. Their escape plan went ahead from 10:30 pm, and at 1 pm the tunnel collapsed and they worked desperately to repair it, then at 4:55 am the seventy-seventh man was spotted by a guard and surrendered. This created suspicion and the camp was searched, and luckily they were unable to find the tunnel's entrance. Eventually, all was revealed when a guard crawled back from the exit of the tunnel. Men had missed their trains and had to wait for the next one because of the delays, and for those who had escaped (Johnny was one of them) had to spread out on foot and were forced to leave the safer woods and fields to follow the roads. Only 3 men were able to make it back to England and 73 men were captured, including Johnny. These men were either shot individually or in pairs and we are not sure if Johnny died alone. Though another New Zealand pilot named Arnold Christensen was executed at the same time as him. Johnny was cremated and his ashes were buried in Sagan, a town near the camp. 

About the Stalag Luft |||: Stalag Luft ||| was a German prisoner-of-war camp for officer airmen. It had been carefully designed to prevent prisoners from escaping. The prisoners' barracks were raised off of the ground so the guards could spot any signs of tunnelling. The German's also used microphones to detect any sounds of digging, in case they couldn't see it with their own eyes. The camp was was built on sandy soil that easily collapsed and was built hundreds of kilometers away from safety and allied territory.

About the Tunnels: Tom, Dick and Harry were the escape tunnels. If one of them were found, it was thought that the German's wouldn't search for another. The prisoners hypothesis proved to be right, and by September 1943, hundreds of men were working on these three tunnels. One of the tunnels, Dick, was abandoned after it's planned exit point was built over during a camp extension. Tom was discovered by the Germans and was dynamited. Eventually, Harry became everyone's only hope. Building this tunnel took around a year to create, and was finished in March 1944.

Rangi Mclean - Ta Moko!

When Rangi Mclean was 18, he had dreamt about a moko. He could still picture the moko in his head and decided to draw it. He didn’t know what it meant so his parents suggested to take the drawing back to the elders. They had a big meeting at the marae and the elders asked what the moko meant to him. All Rangi could say was that it came to him in a dream. Rangi wanted to get their blessings so he could get his moko done but they said he wasn’t ready. 20 years passed and the elders continued to mentor him whenever he got home. Then one day the elders told him he was ready to get his moko done. They said because the moko came to him in a dream, the wairua (spirit) should dictate who would do it. Rangi visited seven ta moko artists. Six of them were his own people, but the wairua didn’t feel right. The seventh was a ta moko artist in Papakura. He was a Pakeha. After Rangi shared his story to him he was honored to complete his journey. It took 9 hours straight to do the moko and something in the tattoo artist encouraged him to keep on going no matter how tired he was. After his ta moko was done, he felt relieved and blessed.

Steam Station Description!

There is nothing at the station that can fill my empty stomach. While trying very hard not to think about how hungry I am, the saliva in my mouth has begun to dry up. I stopped fidgeting with my jacket to look around the station. The first person I see is a tired mother whose eyes had dark circles under them. She had her arms around a small child who coughed every few seconds without rhythm. It was hard to fall asleep because of the scent of people's B.O mixed with the smell of the salty sea. 

My family plan in case of an emergency (Civil Defence)

In one of our reading slides, it said for us to visit a "Get your household ready" website. Then we had to create a poster of what we might need in case of an emergency. Here is my poster: