Francis Steinmetz
| Francis Steinmetz | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Franciscus Steinmetz |
| Born |
20 September 1914 Batavia, Netherland East Indies |
| Died | 2 January 2006 (aged 91) |
| Allegiance |
 Netherlands
|
| Service/branch |
 Royal Netherlands Navy
|
| Years of service | 1932–1959 |
| Rank | Kapitein Luitenant ter Zee (commander) |
| Awards | |
Francis Steinmetz (20 September 1914 – 2 January 2006) was an officer in the Royal Netherlands Navy who escaped from Oflag IV-C, Colditz Castle, a German POW camp, during World War II, making a "home run" to safety.
Steinmetz was born 20 September 1914 in Batavia, Dutch East Indies and entered the Dutch Royal Navy in September 1932. After periods on various boats he was posted to the submarine service. He was captured in 1940 in Amsterdam by advancing German forces.
Initially sent to a prison camp at Soest, Germany, Steinmetz was then transferred to a POW camp Silesia. He refused to sign a German parole saying he would refrain from any hostile act towards Germany and was transferred to Sonderlager IVC, at Colditz Castle.
At Colditz all Dutch escapes were coordinated by the Dutch escape officer Captain Machiel van den Heuvel, known as "Vandy" by the British. Van den Heuvel quickly recognised the possibilities of the exercise park and soon had his first escape plan ready. On 15 August 1941 Steinmetz and Hans Larive hid under a manhole cover under the cover of a rugby scrum. Lieutenant Gerrit Dames then created a diversion by cutting a hole in the barbed wire fence, before allowing himself to be caught, shouting to imaginary escapers to run, so that the Germans would think that the missing officers had already escaped.
Larive and Steinmetz hid for several hours. The cover was fixed with a heavy bolt, which Van den Heuvel had replaced with a fake made of glass. Once it was dark the two men forced the manhole cover open from below, and replaced the now broken glass bolt with the original one. They then made their way out of the castle. (This escape method was repeated on 20 September 1941 by two other Dutch officers, C. Giebel and O. L. Drijber.). At Leisnig Steinmetz and Larive took a train to Nuremberg where they waited for their next train in a nearby park. To avoid attracting unwanted attention, they pretended to be a courting couple, with Steinmetz pulling a blanket down over his shorts so it looked like a skirt. They crossed the Swiss border on 18 August 1941.
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