Tim and Stephen were unfortunately among the black nightmares of the 60s and 90s, with whites in power and long-standing apartheid rulers who suppressed popular revolts and arrested all those involved in resisting racism.
Tim Jenkin is 29 years old
They were two staunch democracy fighters who, in order to fight racial discrimination, built propaganda bombs and scattered leaflets throughout the city to call on the population to resist the government.
Stephen Lee is 26 years old
In June 1978, the two were arrested by the local police station for involvement in terrorist activities, with Tim sentenced to 12 years in prison and Stephen to 8 years in prison.
They were held in Pretoria Prison, where Mandela, the "Father of the Nation of South Africa", was held at the highest level of local security.
Although there were facilities everywhere to prevent prisoners from escaping, the two had decided to escape long before they came in, because there was nothing wrong with what they had done, and it was not them who were guilty, it was the authoritarian government that was guilty.
Jailbreak preparation
As soon as the two entered the prison, they began to gather intelligence, where a total of 10 political prisoners were held, the cell was on the second floor of the prison, the first floor was the office of the prison guard, the prison was surrounded by a 6-meter-high iron fence, and the prison guards patrolled in shifts in the courtyard, each with a gun.
To escape, you first have to get out of the cell, and the only way is to open the cell door.
Gate 1
Tim had been a locksmith in the early years, and he knew how the cylinder worked, so he got a piece of paper, wrapped it around a jam-coated knife, and stuffed it into the keyhole, figuring out the length and shape of the key.
The next day after breakfast, the prisoners were taken to work in the carpentry room, where Stephen helped cover up, and Tim took the opportunity to make the keys out of wood, and he fixed the keys and files in a glue bottle to evade the guards.
In the evening, when the guards were roll called, Tim patiently sharpened the key with a file and opened the first cell door (gate 1) that same night.
But it is not so easy to get out of the cell, there are two doors, the No. 2 cell door is a strong metal door, and the keyhole is outside, although there is a iron window on the door, but it is far from the keyhole, it is not possible to reach from the cell, to know the structure of the No. 2 lock, you can only get it from the outside.
Gate 2
Every Friday morning, the inmates clean the prison, and only this time can stop in the corridor outside the cell, and they can only take advantage of this time to get the key to gate 2.
They are not worried that other prisoners will know about their escape plans, and the prisoners here are political prisoners arrested for opposing racism, not only will not report, but also fully support them.
By Friday, Stephen was in charge of looking at the wind, and Tim first drew the shape of the key with a well-made mold, and then quickly polished it with a file, and the prison guards did not notice anything unusual.
After several attempts, Tim successfully opened door 2, but the latch popped out, and he couldn't put it back on the outside, just when it was time to clean up, the prison guard came over, and Tim quickly drew the key and stood aside, his nervous palm sweating.
Pop-up latch
Fortunately, the guards just thought that the door was not locked, put the latch back in place and left, and they luckily escaped the disaster.
The No. 2 key was ready, and the problem of opening the door from the inside was solved, Tim first stuffed the key into a piece of wood, then nailed the wood to the broom, stretched out the broom, just enough to reach the lock core, by shaking the wood, successfully opened the No. 2 door.
The wooden block can be rotated around the broom head
Tim walked out of the cell, opened the door for Stephen, and came to Door 3 at the end of the hallway.
The lock looked the same as the No. 1 lock, And Tim took out the No. 1 key and tried it, but the No. 3 door opened all of a sudden, and they were so excited, which meant they could go downstairs.
After opening 3 doors in succession, the two men were so confident that the best way to escape was to go out through the main entrance of the prison.
At the end of the corridor is Gate 3
In order to figure out how many doors were still to be opened, Stephen pretended to have a toothache and asked the prison guards to take him to the dentist, taking the opportunity to figure out that there were 10 doors to open to get out of the prison.
In other words, they also have 7 doors to open, and all of them are on the heavily guarded first floor, the risk is too great to rely on them alone, it is difficult to do it, they need help.
So they found Alexander, also arrested for terrorism, and wanted to escape from here.
Alexander Mumbaris
Jailbreak plan
Open door 3, is the descending staircase, down to the first floor is door 4, open door 4 can enter the administrative district, the right side of the corridor is the office of the prison guard, continue to walk forward is gate 5, out of the door 6 is outside the administrative district, gate 7, 8, 9 is not guarded by prison guards, and then there is gate 10, the main entrance of the prison.
Escape route and location of all doors
After a long period of investigation, the 3 people quickly formulated a prison escape plan: the escape time was set at 9:30 p.m., after 9:30 p.m., there would only be one prison guard on duty inside the prison, and after counting the number of people, the prison guard would go downstairs to the office to rest. Before each count, the prison guards would play music to the prisoners through the intercom, and after the music ended, they would go upstairs to roll call, and each count was about 15 minutes, which was their escape time.
At 9:30, the music began, and Tim made a dummy out of scrap paper, then opened his and Alexander's cell, opened door 3, and while the guards were still in the office, the two hid in the cupboard under the stairs.
Inside the quilt is a dummy
The cupboard is the only place where they can hide, and they need to open door 4 after the prison guard goes upstairs to patrol, go through the borough, continue to open the remaining 6 doors, and then return to the cupboard within 15 minutes, and after the prison guard returns to the office, go upstairs to return to their cell.
Cupboard in the corner of the stairs
The three had a clear division of labor, with Tim in charge of unlocking the locks, Alexander in charge of keeping the wind, and Stephen in charge of chatting with the guards and helping them stall for time.
After the guards went upstairs, the two quickly climbed out of the cupboard, because the prisoners would pass through Gate 4 for three meals a day, and the guards would unlock the lock in front of them, so Tim knew the shape of Key 4, had made the key out of wood, and opened Door 4 smoothly.
When he came to door 5, Tim grinned happily, and it turned out that it was the same lock as door 1, and he opened door 5 without effort.
Door 6 was a heavy iron door, Tim took out all the keys and tried it again, but he couldn't open it, he was in a hurry, the sweat on his forehead kept dripping, Alexander stood behind him to help him with the wind, and soon heard the sound of door 3 upstairs opening.
Gate 6
Alexander grabbed Tim and quickly returned to the cupboard, and as soon as the door closed, the guards stepped down, their nervous knees trembling, and they might have been spotted a step later.
Over the next few days, Tim made a shaftless key out of a cable that could be turned in any direction.
No shaft key
At 9:30 p.m., the two went downstairs again to hide in the cupboard, and after the guards went upstairs, they came to gate 6, and after a few spins and pulls, Tim managed to open door 6.
Gate 7 was an iron fence, and Tim didn't have the key to open it, but he found that the case could be removed, so he unscrewed the screws and pulled the latch from the inside, and door 7 opened as well.
To their surprise, door 8 was unlocked, and they went straight to door 9.
Time had passed 15 minutes, and in order to buy time for the two, Stephen and the prison guards talked about rugby, South Africa was once a British colony, and they would talk about rugby with white people.
Door 9 was an ordinary wooden door, and Tim took out an existing key and only turned it once, and door 9 opened.
Gate 9
They came to gate 10, a wooden door of the kind used by ordinary countrymen, and the last door, which connected the outside world, and as long as they opened it, they would be free.
But they ran out of time, the guards had begun to walk back, and they had to hide in the cupboard again.
Jailbreak begins
The 9 doors had been opened and the time was ripe for them to begin their formal escape the next night.
At 9:30 p.m., the music sounded, they put on civilian costumes, made dummies, and when they went downstairs, they first pulled off the electric gate and then hid in the cupboard.
The prisoners shouted loudly because of the power outage, and the guards immediately went upstairs to check the circuit, and they quickly climbed out and came all the way to gate 10.
Gate 10 - The main entrance of the prison
Tim grossly underestimated the difficulty of lock number 10, and he tried all the keys and tried everything in his power, but the latch didn't loosen in the slightest.
As the minutes and seconds passed, the guards turned on the cell lights and counted the number of people, he did not notice the dummies in the cell, and after chatting with the prisoners about rugby for a while, the guards began to go downstairs, while the three were in front of the 10th gate.
They were getting more and more anxious, the guards had returned to the office, they were trapped, the cell could not go back, and at the moment they had only one choice - to break the door violently.
Alexander took out his chisel and began to break the door lock, the scraping noise made the three people nervous, the prison guards were just a few meters away, they could be found at any time.
"Snap!" Door 10 opened, and Alexander gasped, "Let's go!" ”
They pushed open the door, and though nervous, they strode out of the prison with their heads held high, and there were two patrolling guards talking, but did not pay attention to them, thinking they were just ordinary people.
Three escaped from prison
Without sounding the alarm, without interception, and without tracking, the three escaped successfully.
Later, the 3 escaped from South Africa, smuggled to Europe, and gained freedom, they did not give up their careers, and continued to fight for south African democracy and justice.