The Mammoth Book of Prison Breaks by Paul Simpson

have become lost in the mists of time, including what may well be one of the largest prison escapes of the twentieth century, if not ever. The aftermath of the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III during the Second World War horrified the world when 50 of the prisoners were executed, but that number pales compared with the statistics for the escape from Fort San Cristobal on 22 May 1938. Nearly 800 prisoners fled; over 200 of these were killed, and only three made it safely across the border into France.
    Construction on a military fortress had begun at the tail end of the nineteenth century in the Ezcaba enclave, not far from Pamplona in the northern Spanish Navarre region. It was designed to be a formidable defensive structure, built into the top of a mountain, within which were three buildings that could not be seen from the outside, and a moat to deter infantry attack. Unfortunately what the designers didn’t anticipate was the advent of aviation, so when the fortress was completed in 1919, it was immediately redundant.
    San Cristobal was used as a prison between 1934 and 1945, and throughout that time there were complaints about the dreadful conditions within its walls. Hundreds of prisoners were installed there after the October Revolution in 1934, and deaths led to a mutiny within the fort, as well as strikes in nearby Pamplona and other cities around Spain calling for a change in the way the men were treated. From November 1935, some of the 750 prisoners began to be moved out but not in particularly large numbers; three months later, an amnesty for political prisoners saw four hundred released, many of whom immediately condemned the insanitary and unhygienic conditions.
    The military coup on 18 July 1936 led by General Francisco Franco saw the prison refilled to its capacity and beyond, with two thousand or so inmates housed within its walls. Conditions remained harsh, with reports of beatings, extreme hunger and outbreaks of lice. Some prisoners were apparently told that they were free to go, so set off down the mountain, only to be killed when they reached the foot. Twenty men were shot on 1 November 1936, four more sixteen days later – official records indicate that 305 prisoners died, although many of the deaths are ascribed to anorexia, heart attacks, or tuberculosis. By spring 1938, there were 2,487 prisoners held at San Cristobal, many of whom had no real idea what crimes they had committed to be incarcerated in such a hellhole. They weren’t allowed to look through the windows – the guards would fire at them if they did – and their correspondence was censored, if it even reached them at all. It was against this background that a small group decided to make a break for it in May that year.
    The vast majority of those who decided to flee San Cristobal that day had no idea that there was any form of escape being planned. They took the chance to flee an oppressive regime, and many of them paid the ultimate price. A small group of prisoners were looking out for any weaknesses among the prison guards’ routine, and they realized that Sundays would be the best day to strike – in common with many other prisons, less went on that day since it was deemed a day of rest, so less guards were on duty. Led by Leopoldo Pico, prisoner number 319, the twenty or so men used the made-up language Esperanto to keep their plans concealed from eavesdropping guards, or fellow prisoners who might overhear something and try to gain capital with the authorities by betraying them.
    On Sunday 22 May, there were only ninety-two guards at San Cristobal to monitor over twenty-five times that number of men; in Pamplona, six miles away, there were 331 soldiers. At eight o’clock in the evening, Pico and another prisoner, Baltasar Rabanillo, took hostage the guard who was bringing them dinner, seized his keys and locked him up. They then went up to the next floor of the prison, and captured the four guards there. Pico put on one of the