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Second Lieutenant Richard Michael Clinton Codner MC (1920-1952) was a British Second World War prisoner of war, best known for being one of the three men to escape successfully from Stalag Luft III in the escape known as ''The Wooden Horse''.〔Obituary, ''The Times'', 28 March 1952〕 ==Biography== Born in Malaya on 29 September 1920, Michael Codner was educated at Bedford School and Exeter College, Oxford University. He received a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on 2 August 1941, served in North Africa during the Second World War, and was captured on 14 December 1942 at Majaz al Bab in Tunisia. He was sent first to Rome, then to Dulag Luft in Frankfurt, which was a mistake as the camp acted as collection and interrogation centre for newly captured aircrew, and then to Oflag XXI-B in Poland, where he became good friends with fellow prisoner Flight Lieutenant Eric Williams. Together they planned and executed an escape through a tunnel, which was later described by Williams in his book ''The Tunnel''. However, they were quickly recaptured and sent to Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Poland.〔Eric Williams, ''The Tunnel'', Collins, 1951, ISBN 1-8441553-8-2〕 Stalag Luft III was designed to be a highly escape-resistant camp. Tunnelling in particular was made harder: the perimeter fence was placed some distance from the huts, necessitating longer tunnels; the soil changed colour markedly when dry, making disposal of freshly dug tunnel soil difficult; and the Germans employed seismographs to detect vibration caused by digging. Pondering the story of the Trojan Horse, Michael Codner developed the idea of employing a wooden vaulting horse in order to escape from Stalag Luft III. He approached Williams and they developed the idea together. They approached a third prisoner, Flight Lieutenant Oliver Philpot, in June 1943 to 'register' their escape scheme with the escape committee, as Philpot was the escape co-ordinator for the hut in which the three of them lived. The scheme was approved and so, using bowls for shovels, Codner, Williams and Philpot dug for three months whilst the other camp inmates vaulted continuously over the wooden horse in order to mask the vibration from the tunnelling work. Sand was carried back inside the horse and dried in the attic of the camp canteen before being distributed in the compound.〔Oliver Philpot, ''Stolen Journey'', London, 1950, ISBN 1-8747670-0-9〕 On the evening of 29 October 1943, the three men made their escape. Travelling north, Williams and Codner reached Stettin where they stowed away on a ship to neutral Sweden. Philpot, posing as a Norwegian businessman, took a train to Danzig and stowed away on a ship to Stockholm. From Sweden, all three officers were repatriated to Britain. The three men were the only prisoners successfully to escape from Stalag Luft III's eastern compound.〔Eric Williams, ''The Wooden Horse'', Collins, 1949, ISBN 978-1783462414〕 Michael Codner returned to combat in the Royal Artillery in Italy and was subsequently posted to India where he served with his brother, Christopher John Codner, on the North West Frontier. After the Second World War Michael Codner completed his degree at Oxford. In 1948 he married Florence Isobel Rosemary Moseley-Leigh. He joined the Colonial Service and became an Assistant District Officer in Malaya at the time of the Malayan Emergency. On 25 March 1952, Codner and eleven other men were killed in an ambush by communist guerrillas at Tanjung Malim, Malaya, where they were repairing a sabotaged water pipeline. He was thirty-one years of age.〔Obituary, ''The Glasgow Herald'', 28 March 1952〕 He and Rosemary who died in 1985 are survived by heir son, Peter Codner, and grandsons, Michael, Christopher, Jean-Pierre and Anthony. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Michael Codner」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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