Colditz Glider

Taken from The Latter days at Colditz by P.R. Reid M.C. MBE

Click on the Plan for a close up

The glider was started in late 1944, Goldfinch and Best were the craftsmen behind the construction of the glider, it was built in the attic of Colditz behind a dummy wall.

The tool kit comprised of:

• A side-framed saw, the handle of beech bed-board, the frame of iron window bars and the blade of gramophone spring with eight teeth to the inch.
• A minute saw for the very fine work, with gramophone spring blade, twenty-five teeth to the inch.
• A square, made of beech and gramophone spring.
• A gauge, made of beech, with a cupboard bolt and a gramophone needle.
• A large plane, fourteen and a half inches long with a two-inch blade, bribed from the Goons, the wooden box made of four pieces of beech screwed together.
• A small plane, eight and a half inches long, with a blade made from a table knife.
• Another plane, five inches long.
• Drills for making holes in wood were made of nails; a five-eighths-inch for metal was obtained by bribery.
• And lastly there was a set of keys, including a universal door pick, forged from a bucket handle.

It took ten months to make and the launch was planed for the spring of 1945.

The glider was never used as Colditz was liberated in April 1945.