Patrick Robert Reid, (13 November 1910 – 22 May 1990) was a
British Army
The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
officer and author of history. As a British
prisoner of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...
during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, he was held captive at
Colditz Castle
Colditz Castle (or ''Schloss Colditz'' in German) is a Renaissance architecture, Renaissance castle in the town of Colditz near Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz in the States of Germany, state of Saxony in Germany. The castle is between the towns o ...
when it was designated
Oflag IV-C
Oflag IV-C, generally known as Colditz Castle, was a prominent German Army prisoner-of-war camp for captured Allied officers during World War II. Located in Colditz, Saxony, the camp operated within the medieval Colditz Castle, which overlooks th ...
. Reid was one of the few to escape from Colditz, crossing the border into
neutral Switzerland in late 1942.
After the war Reid was a
diplomat
A diplomat (from ; romanization, romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one ...
and administrator before eventually returning to his prewar career in
civil engineering
Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...
. He also wrote about his experiences in two best-selling books, which became the basis of a
film
A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...
,
TV series
A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming platf ...
and
board game
A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...
.
Biography
Early life and education
Patrick Reid was born in
Ranchi
Ranchi (; ) is the capital city and also the largest district by population of the Indian state of Jharkhand. Ranchi was the centre of the Jharkhand movement, which called for a separate state for the tribal regions of South Bihar, northern ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
, the son of John Reid
CIE ICS,
of
Carlow
Carlow ( ; ) is the county town of County Carlow, in the south-east of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, from Dublin. At the 2022 census of Ireland, 2022 census, it had a population of 27,351, the List of urban areas in the Republic of Ireland, ...
, Ireland, and Alice Mabel Daniell.
He was educated at
St. Dominic's Preparatory School,
Cabra,
County Dublin
County Dublin ( or ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland, and holds its capital city, Dublin. It is located on the island's east coast, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. Until 1994, County Dubli ...
,
Clongowes Wood College,
County Kildare
County Kildare () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster and is part of the Eastern and Midland Region. It is named after the town of Kildare. Kildare County Council is the Local gove ...
, and
Wimbledon College, London, and graduated from
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...
in 1932. He then trained as a
civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...
, working for
Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners from 1934 to 1937, and becoming an Associate Member of the
Institution of Civil Engineers
The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a Charitable organization, charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters ar ...
in 1936.
Military service
Reid joined the
Territorial Army and was commissioned as a
Second Lieutenant on 16 June 1933 on the General List. He joined the
Royal Army Service Corps
The Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) was a corps of the British Army responsible for land, coastal and lake transport, air despatch, barracks administration, the Army Fire Service, staffing headquarters' units, supply of food, water, fuel and do ...
(
Supplementary Reserve) with the same rank on 5 June 1935. He was promoted to Lieutenant exactly three years later on 5 June 1938.
Reid was
mobilised for active duty on 24 August 1939, and served in the
2nd Infantry Division, receiving promotion to Temporary
Captain
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...
on 1 December 1939. On 27 May 1940, while serving as a member of the
British Expeditionary Force during the
Battle of France
The Battle of France (; 10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign (), the French Campaign (, ) and the Fall of France, during the Second World War was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembour ...
,
he was captured by the Germans near
Cassel.
He was sent to
Laufen castle,
Bavaria
Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...
, designated
Oflag VII-C, arriving there on 5 June 1940.
Within days of his arrival, Reid was planning an escape, determined to return home by Christmas. After seven weeks digging Reid and a group of prisoners completed a tunnel, long, from the prison basement to a small shed adjoining a nearby house. At 06:30 on 5 September 1940, Reid and five others broke out and made for
Yugoslavia
, common_name = Yugoslavia
, life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation
, p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia
, flag_p ...
, only 150 miles away. Initially they made some progress walking across country at night, but as they entered more mountainous terrain they were forced onto the roads. The escapees were recaptured after five days in
Radstadt, Austria, travelling around 50 miles. They were stopped by some locals; one of the escapees spoke fluent German, and by himself he might have bluffed it, but as they did not have any identification and the others did not speak German the locals became too suspicious.
[Reid, Pat ''The Colditz Story''] Reid was sentenced to a month of
solitary confinement
Solitary confinement (also shortened to solitary) is a form of imprisonment in which an incarcerated person lives in a single Prison cell, cell with little or no contact with other people. It is a punitive tool used within the prison system to ...
, on a diet of bread and water.
As one of the "Laufen Six", Reid was then sent to
Colditz Castle
Colditz Castle (or ''Schloss Colditz'' in German) is a Renaissance architecture, Renaissance castle in the town of Colditz near Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz in the States of Germany, state of Saxony in Germany. The castle is between the towns o ...
, designated
Oflag IV-C
Oflag IV-C, generally known as Colditz Castle, was a prominent German Army prisoner-of-war camp for captured Allied officers during World War II. Located in Colditz, Saxony, the camp operated within the medieval Colditz Castle, which overlooks th ...
, a special "escape-proof" camp, arriving there on 10 November 1940. It was not long before Reid attempted an escape. He bribed a seemingly willing German guard to look the other way. On the night of 29 May 1941 twelve prisoners crawled through a sewer pipe from the canteen to an outer courtyard, planning to then descend a forty-foot wall, and then over another wall 12 feet high topped with barbed wire. However, although the guard had accepted the bribe, he also reported the escape plan to his superiors, and the Germans were waiting for them. After another spell in solitary, Reid accepted the position of Escape Officer, responsible for overseeing all British escape plans. Reid assisted in many escape attempts, some successful,
until April 1942, when he was replaced as Escape Officer by fellow member of the "Laufen Six"
Captain Richard "Dick" Howe.
Escaping Colditz

Reid finally took his own chance to escape on the night of 14/15 October 1942, along with Major
Ronald Littledale,
Lieutenant Commander William L. Stephens
RNVR, and
Flight Lieutenant Howard Wardle RAF. They cut through the bars on a window in the prisoners' kitchen, and climbed out onto the flat roof of the German kitchen. They then crossed the brightly lit outer yard, and avoided being seen by a guard. They entered a storage cellar under the ''Kommandantur'' (Commandant's HQ), crawled out through a narrow air shaft leading to the dry moat, and exited through the park.
This escape was much more professional than Reid's first escape, e.g. they had fake identities as Flemish workmen, to explain their lack of fluency in German and French. They split into pairs, with Reid and Wardle travelling by train to
Tuttlingen, near the Swiss border, via
Zwickau
Zwickau (; ) is the fourth-largest city of Saxony, Germany, after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz, with around 88,000 inhabitants,.
The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: ''Zwickauer Mulde''; progression: ), ...
and
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
. They crossed the border near
Ramsen on the evening of 18 October. Stephens and Littledale also travelled to Tuttlingen by train, via
Chemnitz
Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt (); ; ) is the third-largest city in the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden, and the fourth-largest city in the area of former East Germany after (East Be ...
,
Nuremberg
Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...
and
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...
, then followed Reid and Wardle across the border in the early hours of 20 October.
[
Reid remained in Switzerland until after the end of the war, serving as an Assistant Military Attaché in ]Bern
Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...
from 9 March 1943 until early 1946, and receiving promotion to Temporary Major on 1 November 1945. He was unusually discreet about his duties there, and was in fact working for the Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 (MI numbers, Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of Human i ...
(MI6) gathering intelligence from arriving escapees.
Postwar
Reid left the army on 29 March 1947, but remained a member of the Regular Army Reserve until reaching mandatory retirement age on 15 November 1965. On that day he was awarded the honorary rank of Major.
Reid served in the British embassy at Ankara
Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...
, Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
, as First Secretary (Commercial) from 1946 until 1949, then as Chief Administrator for the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. It is a forum whose member countries ...
in Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, until 1952.
Reid then returned to his prewar career in civil engineering
Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...
, serving as a director of the construction companies Richard Costain (Projects) Ltd. and Richard Costain (Middle East) Ltd. between 1959 and 1962, and working for the consulting engineers W.S. Atkins & Partners in 1962–63.
Personal life
Reid married three times. The first was while serving as military attaché; hearing that "Pat Reid married an American heiress in Switzerland!", as one wrote in his diary, amazed prisoners still in Colditz who had not seen a woman in years. Reid married Jane Cabot in 1943. They had three sons and two daughters, and were divorced in 1966. His second marriage in 1977 to Mary Stewart Cunliffe-Lister ended with her death in 1978. In 1982 he married his third wife, Nicandra Hood, but they separated after a few years. He died at the Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, on 22 May 1990, at the age of 79.
Other activities
Reid served as president of the Blackboys Cricket Club in Framfield, Sussex
Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...
in 1972. He actively went on lecture tours in the early 1970s with his models of Colditz Castle and other memorabilia and photographs.
Awards
For his "gallant and distinguished services in the field" during the Battle of France
The Battle of France (; 10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign (), the French Campaign (, ) and the Fall of France, during the Second World War was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembour ...
Reid was awarded the Military Cross
The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level until 1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) Other ranks (UK), other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth of ...
on 4 May 1943, and was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...
(Military Division) on 20 December 1945.
Publications
* ''The Colditz Story'' (, 1952) was Reid's memoir of his time in Colditz, which later became the basis for the 1955 film ''The Colditz Story
''The Colditz Story'' is a 1955 British prisoner of war film starring John Mills and Eric Portman and directed by Guy Hamilton. It is based on the 1952 memoir written by Pat Reid, a British army officer who was imprisoned in Oflag IV-C, Coldit ...
'', directed by Guy Hamilton
Mervyn Ian Guy Hamilton (16 September 1922 – 20 April 2016) was an English film director. He directed 22 films from the 1950s to the 1980s, including four James Bond films.
Early life
Hamilton was born in Paris on 16 September 1922, son of ...
, with John Mills
Sir John Mills (born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills; 22 February 190823 April 2005) was an English actor who appeared in more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades. He excelled on camera as an appealing British everyman who often portray ...
playing Reid and with Reid himself serving as a technical advisor. Although focusing mainly upon life inside Colditz and the development of an 'escape academy', the final chapters of the book are devoted to Reid's own escape. The book chronicles everyday prison life, in which characters such as Douglas Bader
Group Captain Sir Douglas Robert Steuart Bader, (; 21 February 1910 – 5 September 1982) was a Royal Air Force flying ace during the Second World War. He was credited with 22 aerial victories, four shared victories, six probables, one shared ...
and Airey Neave
Lieutenant Colonel Airey Middleton Sheffield Neave, () (23 January 1916 – 30 March 1979) was a British soldier, lawyer and Member of Parliament (MP) from 1953 until his assassination in 1979.
During the Second World War he was the first ...
appear with no special mention, reporting events in an anecdotal and almost comical style. On 14 October 1942 Reid, along three other British officers, escaped and made their way to neutral Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
. What Reid does not mention in his book is that he escaped using Hans Larive's Singen
Singen (; Low Alemannic German, Low Alemannic: ''Singe'') is an industrial city in the very south of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany and just north of the German-Swiss border.
Location
Singen is an industrial city situated in the far sout ...
route. Larive, a Dutch naval lieutenant, attempted his first escape from Oflag VI-A in Soest in 1940, but was caught at the Swiss border. The interrogating Gestapo officer was so confident the war would soon be won by Germany that he told Larive the safe way across the border. Larive memorized the information, and many prisoners later escaped using this route.
* ''The Latter Days'' (Hodder & Stoughton, 1953), republished as ''Latter Days at Colditz'', also published with the title ''Men of Colditz'': Whilst his first book ended with Reid and Wardle shaking hands under the first Swiss lamp post, the sequel follows the trials and tribulations of the escape committee until the eventual liberation of the castle by U.S. troops on 15 April 1945. It gives even more anecdotal insight into the events following his escape, including the French Tunnel and the Colditz Glider, or the occasion when the entire Dutch contingent unhooked their POW railway car from the rest of the train unbeknownst to the German guards. This last part of the Dutch prisoners cannot be confirmed by any Dutch reference about POWs. Reid probably refers to the mass escape of Dutch officers from train transports towards the end of the war when they were transported from Stanislau to Neubrandenburg
Neubrandenburg (, Low German ''Niegenbramborg'', both lit. ''New Brandenburg an der Havel, Brandenburg'') is a city in the southeast of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is located on the shore of a lake called Tollensesee and forms the urban c ...
.
* ''Escape from Colditz: The Two Classic Escape Stories: The Colditz Story, and Men of Colditz in One Volume'' (Lippincott, 1953)[
]
* ''Colditz'' (Hodder & Stoughton, 1962) : This was an omnibus edition of the first two books, and served as the basis for the BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1 January 1927. It p ...
series ''Colditz
Colditz () is a small town in the district of Leipzig (district), Leipzig, in Saxony, Germany. It is best known for Colditz Castle, the site of the Oflag IV-C prisoner-of-war camp, POW camp for officers in World War II.
Geography
Colditz is situa ...
'', which ran from October 1972 until April 1974. Reid served as technical advisor to the TV series and would also co-design a board game with Bob Brechin and Brian Degas as an official licensed tie-in to the TV series. The game, ''Escape from Colditz
''Escape from Colditz'' is a board game produced by Gibsons Games of London in 1973 that simulates attempted escapes by Allied prisoners-of-war (POWs) from Oflag IV-C (better known as Colditz Castle) during World War II. Designed in part by Pat ...
'', was published in the UK by Gibsons Games in 1973.
* ''From Nile to Indus : Economics and Security in the Middle East'', with Sir Olaf Caroe and Sir Thomas Rapp (Conservative Political Centre, 1960)
* ''Winged Diplomat : the life story of Air Commodore Freddie West, VC, CBE, MC'' (Chatto & Windus
Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his busines ...
, 1962)
* ''My Favourite Escape Stories'' (Lutterworth Press, 1975)
* ''Prisoner of War : The Inside Story of the POW from the Ancient World to Colditz and After'', with Maurice Michael (1983)
* ''Colditz: The Full Story'' (1984) : While the first two books can be read as adventure narratives, and have a distinctly 'Battler Briton' ethos of 'sticking one up to the goons' this book takes a more analytic approach, and covers a number of previously suppressed details. For example, Reid describes some of the ways prisoners obtained contraband material, and how British prisoners communicated clandestinely with the authorities in London. He also gives a full account of how prisoners discovered the 'Singen Escape Route'. He also deals with some of the tensions and tragedies of wartime Europe, for example the tensions in the French contingents between Gaullists
Gaullism ( ) is a French political stance based on the thought and action of World War II French Resistance leader Charles de Gaulle, who would become the founding President of the Fifth French Republic. De Gaulle withdrew French forces from ...
and supporters of Pétain.
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
*
*
*
External links
British Army Officers 1939−1945
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reid, Pat
1910 births
1990 deaths
People from Ranchi
British people of Irish descent
People educated at Clongowes Wood College
People educated at Wimbledon College
Alumni of King's College London
British Militia officers
Royal Army Service Corps officers
British Army personnel of World War II
British escapees from Colditz Castle
Members of the Order of the British Empire
Recipients of the Military Cross
British non-fiction writers
British male writers
20th-century British non-fiction writers
British male non-fiction writers
British Army General List officers
Military personnel of British India
British World War II prisoners of war