C. W. Hill
Lieutenant Cedric Waters Hill (3 April 1891 – 5 March 1975) was an Australian officer in the Royal Flying Corps (later RAF) who, together with E. H. Jones, escaped from the Yozgad prisoner of war camp in Turkey during the First World War.[1] Their epic story was told in Jones' book The Road to En-dor.
Between February 1917 and October 1918, Jones and Hill convinced their Turkish captors that they were mediums adept at the Ouija board. Taking advantage of the greed of the Turkish camp Commandant, with promises of buried treasure via the Ouija board, the two men managed to engineer the circumstances of their imprisonment to favour their escape. Eventually they convinced their gaolers to repatriate them by feigning insanity, arriving home only a few months before the Armistice.
He continued in the RAF after the war, becoming a Wing Commander in 1937, and commanding RAF Tangmere. He retired from the RAF in 1944, and then acted as a ferry pilot for the Air Transport Auxiliary.[1]
On 5 March 1975, Hill died at his home in Windsor, Berkshire. He was survived by his wife and daughter.
References
- The Road to En-dor, E. H. Jones, 1921, John Lane the Bodley Head ltd., London
- 1 2 Darryl Bennet and Neville Parker. "Hill, Cedric Waters (1891–1975)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Retrieved 10 November 2013.