Table of contents:
The original postscript version of the newsletter is available here.
Annual party: The MITSA annual meeting will be on Saturday evening, February 17, at Dolphin Seafood Restaurant in Natick Center (the same location as last year). Hors d'oeuvres will be served and the cash bar will open at 6:00, followed by a buffet dinner at 7:00. After the dinner there will be some brief MITSA business, including presentations by the board of directors. Awards, announcements, a door prize, and non-MITSA entertainment will wrap up the evening. The cost is $35 per person, with kids 13 and under free. Please let Carl Johnson know if you will be attending as soon as possible. You can reach Carl at (617) 946-3531 or cjohnson@alum.mit.edu.
The address for the restaurant is
The restaurant gives the following directions: Take Route 128 to Route 9 West to Route 27 South, left on Route 135 in Natick Center, and the next left onto Washington Street. For more information, see the MITSA web site at www.mitsa.org.
Elections: The elections are on for the next board of directors. As usual, our president received no nominations other than the slate of candidates whose nominations were announced in the last newsletter. Please send your ballot to Phil Gaisford so that he receives it on or before February 17. You can also give your ballot to Phil at the annual meeting.
New certificates: Peter Foley was an instructor and tow pilot who gave his time enthusiastically to MITSA and to the Sterling airport community in general for many years before he moved to Sacramento around 1997. He wrote to the club last month to say, "I wanted to let you know that I have just completed my ATP with Dick Buckau in Florida. I thought it would be appropriate to thank my many friends at MITSA for helping me get to this stage. MITSA flying accounted for a large part of my log book, and I look back on those times with great memories."
New gliders: Roy Bourgeois has sold his glider, and is looking forward to his Nimbus 3 in spring.
Baby: Jim Tsillas and his wife had a baby in January. "Her name is Christina Marie, and she was born Friday, January 5, at 6:36 am at Brigham and Women's Hospital. She was 8 pounds, 4 ounces, and 19.5 inches. She can't wait to meet everyone."
Departing members: Andrew Watson is leaving for England. "On June 15, 1996, I took my 283rd glider flight, but only my 31st aerotow, in Blanik N118BB behind the old Cessna 152 tow plane. It was my introductory check flight with MITSA, and from the back seat Roy Bourgeois noted that my flying was okay, but he could tell that I hadn't done much aerotowing. Now, five years and 330 MITSA tows later, I think I've mostly got the hang of it, so in January I'll be returning to the land of the winch. Many thanks to all the instructors, tow pilots, duty officers, and wing runners who have helped me get airborne and work on my commercial and instructor certificates during that time. MITSA helped keep me sane (more or less) during my temporary self-imposed exile in America. I'll keep up my membership, and will be popping up at the field every now and then as my travels take me through Boston in the coming months. If I know my itinerary far enough in advance, you may even see my name on the instructor roster occasionally. Meanwhile, if you're ever near Cambridge (the original one, in East Anglia), send me email and I'll be happy to show you a place where landable fields stretch as far as the eye can see and launching is a thirty-second rocket ride on the end of a winch cable. Goodbye, fly safely, and remember to keep those tow plane wheels above the horizon."
These minutes have been edited for publication in the newsletter. --Editor
January 4, 2001
Directors present: Ian Clark, Bruce Easom, Phil Gaisford, Steve Glow, Walt Hollister, Carl Johnson, and Peter Vickery.
Finances: Steve Glow reported on the current balance in the bank. The outstanding bill has been paid to the airport manager for fuel for the 2000 season. The negotiation with 3B3 has been completed with partial payment made and the balance due in the spring. The loan on the Blaniks has been paid up. There is an outstanding bank loan on the tow plane plus the bonds sold to MITSA members. The next major expense expected will be the annual on the tow plane which comes at about the same time that annual membership dues come due. Members accounts are now available to the members via the Internet.
Operations: Peter Vickery again presented his detailed, four-page, up-to-the-minute, statistical report, but there were operations on only two days in December. He predicted there will be no operations without a major thaw, as the snow banks surrounding the plowed areas are frozen solid. With the air temperature below freezing, the tow plane should not be started without preheat. N117BB was found without its gust lock installed. There was a scare that the tow plane door had been damaged in high wind, which appears to have been a false alarm. Peter agreed to give a presentation of his historical data on flight operations at the annual meeting. It was requested that the golf carts be parked nose in, parallel to the Citabria, so there is no temptation for someone to touch the propeller of the Citabria. It requires that the right hanger door be fully opened. The chief tow pilot has purchased new tow rings of each variety for new weak links.
Annual meeting: Carl Johnson reported on plans for the annual meeting. It will be held on Saturday, February 17, 2001, at "Dolphin Seafood Too" in Natick, the same locale as last year. The cost is expected to be $35 per person. The announcement will go out to the membership with the next mailing. There was a discussion of entertainment and nominees for awards to be presented at the meeting.
Elections: New elections for members of the board are scheduled for January 2001. The president reported that he has received at least one nomination for each office. It is still possible for additional nominations to come forward before the ballots are mailed later in the month.
There was no board meeting in February due to lack of business to discuss. --Editor
| Date | D.O. | Instructor | AM Tow | PM Tow |
| 2/03 | Moysey | Gaisford | Gammon | Friedman |
| 2/04 | Nelson | Johnson | Poduje | Clark |
| 2/10 | Nordmann | Newman | Fletcher | Easom |
| 2/11 | Ozbas | Rosenberg | Hollister | Fletcher |
| 2/17 | Rossoni | Wren | Gammon | Pugh |
| 2/18 | Ruel | Krueger | Poduje | Pugh |
| 2/24 | Timpson | Baxa | Gammon | Friedman |
| 2/25 | Tsillas | Bourgeois | Easom | Hollister |
| 3/03 | Vickery | Gaisford | Gammon | Clark |
| 3/04 | Waitekaitis | Johnson | Fletcher | Easom |
| 3/10 | Wong | Krueger | Pugh | Fletcher |
| 3/11 | Ballou | Newman | Poduje | Friedman |
| 3/17 | Brine | Wren | Clark | Hollister |
| 3/18 | Blieden | Rosenberg | Easom | Pugh |
| 3/24 | Cary | Baxa | Gammon | Friedman |
| 3/25 | Detrich | Bourgeois | Poduje | Clark |
| 3/31 | E. Frere | Johnson | Gammon | Easom |
| 4/01 | Gold | Krueger | Hollister | Pugh |
At the end of World War II, prisoners of war built a glider in the attic of the Colditz prison to escape their captors. This story was recounted in the August 1998 newsletter in an obituary for Lorne Welch, and a recent episode of Nova on PBS told of even more ingenious escape attempts. Morrie Tuttle, my father, brought to my attention the following article by John Crossland and Maurice Chittenden that appeared in The Sunday Times (London) on November 12, 2000, and it makes these escape attempts even more remarkable. --Editor
He was the rat of Colditz. As British prisoners of war dug tunnels and built gliders to help them escape from the castle, Walter Purdy, a naval lieutenant, was tipping off their German captors.
Newly released files belonging to MI5 at the Public Record Office in southwest London give details of the extent of his betrayal inside the second world war maximum security prison for persistent escapers.
Purdy was arrested after the war but his trial was held partly in camera and few people outside military circles knew of the treachery inside the castle that has become a symbol of British resilience in captivity.
Instead, he was sentenced to hang in 1945 for making Lord Haw-Haw-style radio broadcasts to Britain, but was reprieved two days before the date of his execution and served nine years in prison.
The files, unveiled for the first time yesterday, express fears that Purdy passed information to the Nazis about MI9, a secret intelligence network between prisoners of war and agents in London that relied on coded messages in letters that were sent home. While he was in Colditz he betrayed at least one escape attempt by a group of prisoners after spotting a man crawling out of a tunnel.
Purdy, who was described by Margaret Joyce, Haw-Haw's wife, as "dotty, without much brains, and what he had was in a whirl," was the son of a docker from Barking, east London.
Before the war he was a member of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. He joined the merchant navy as an engineer and on the outbreak of war was transferred to the Royal Navy.
When his cruiser was sunk off the coast of Norway by the Germans, he was captured and put in a prison camp for naval personnel.
Once there he tried to contact Haw-Haw and was moved to a "rest camp" near Berlin where the Germans kept those they hoped could be pressed into a new force known as the British Freikorps to fight the Russians. While in Berlin he had an affair with a German pastry cook, who had a child by him.
The Nazis then persuaded him to become a "plant" inside Colditz after a series of breaks from the supposedly escape-proof prison had embarrassed the German high command.
An MI5 report, probably drawn up by Captain Neil Skardon, the officer who was largely instrumental in trapping Klaus Fuchs, the atom spy, and Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, says: "There is a very strong indication that Purdy gave the Germans information about the activities of John Brown [MI9's agent inside the German camps], which he obtained during his brief period in Oflag 4C [Colditz]."
The report continues: "That Purdy was at Oflag 4C is corroborated by letters written to his mother on 16th March 1944 and the 20th March 1944. In his statement, Purdy mentions that immediately after his arrival in Colditz he was interviewed by Lieutenant Colonel C Merritt, VC, [Cecil Merritt, a Canadian hero of the raid on Dieppe who died in August]."
When suspicions were raised later, he was interviewed again. "He admitted to Merritt after initial denials that he had left the naval officers' camp to go to a German propaganda camp from which place he agreed to broadcast on behalf of the Germans and had been engaged on that work for eight months.
"He claimed that while free in Berlin at one stage, he had broadcast for the allies and had carried out sabotage for them by throwing lighter fuel into Luftwaffe headquarters."
The report adds: "Purdy, when asked if he would tell the Germans about anything which he might see in Oflag 4C, replied that if the Germans would send him back to Berlin to the woman with whom he was living in return for telling them about anything, he might."
Merritt had been tipped off by Julius Green, a captain who traveled from camp to camp carrying out dental surgery, who had picked up on Purdy's apparent friendliness towards the Germans. The Germans withdrew Purdy from Colditz after little more than a month once they realized his cover had been blown.
Veterans of Colditz spoke yesterday of their feelings towards him. Colonel Peter Storie-Pugh, 81, who escaped 17 times before being imprisoned in Colditz and now lives in France, said: "We would have killed him as a traitor after holding a court martial. That is what the Polish prisoners did to an informer."
Purdy was arrested at his home in Putney, southwest London, at the end of the war. He told a British officer: "I realize I have acted as a traitor and a rat."
Kenneth Lockwood, a former army captain imprisoned at the castle for four years and secretary of the 54-strong Colditz Association of remaining former inmates, said: "Even the German army officer in charge of security at Colditz told us after the war that he did not approve of Purdy. After his release, he had the nerve to change his name to that of a naval colleague."
Purdy married after his release from a British prison but never told his wife of his treachery. He died of cancer in 1982.
Vote for one person for each position:
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Mail this ballot to Phil Gaisford, 1A Corcoran Rd, Billerica, MA 01821, or hand it to him at the annual meeting. Phil must receive this ballot on or before February 17, 2001.
Club email address: mitsa@deas.harvard.edu
Club web page: http://www.mitsa.org
For more information about MITSA, you can contact the club by email, visit our web page, or contact Joe Kwasnik, our director of membership listed above.
The Leading Edge is the newsletter of the MIT Soaring Association, Inc. The newsletter is edited by Mark Tuttle, and published every other month (more frequently during the soaring season). The submission deadline is the first of each month. Please send any inquiries or material for publication to Mark Tuttle, 8 Melanie Lane, Arlington, MA 02474; tuttle@crl.dec.com.