The Check-Six story states 'late April 1945'. I have not found a more specfic date anywhere.
To keep things interesting:
- Hoover's autobiography tells of his escape by climbing over the fence, along with two others, a swim across a bit of water, several days wandering around the countryside encountering Russians, witnessing atrocities, being given a pistol and then stealing the Fw190 from an airfield they encountered.
- Another Stalag I survivor, Albert S. Tucker, tells a different story. He explains that there was an airfield right next to Stalag I and they could see aircraft operating from it from the camp. He explains how they bargained with the guards as to how to deal with the advancing Russians, getting them to leave the lights on and the water running in exchange for a good word about their treatment to the Russians. He covers Hoover's flight in the following quotes:
“We had a pilot from Wright Field, Gus Lundquist, he was a test pilot. Gus was designated to get one of those Fw 190s at the airfield next to our camp ready once the Germans left. Bob Hoover, however, who arrived in the camp toward the end of the war, got impatient and decided he couldn't wait. Bob managed to get to that airfield, found a German crew chief and got him to start a Fw 190 for him. He flew west and was home free. He was the first out of our camp.”
While at Barth, and with little else to do, Gus Lundquist talked about flying the Fw 190. Bob Hoover took advantage of that opportunity, gaining a level of familiarity with the 190’s cockpit layout. Once Hoover managed to get into one of the abandoned German airplanes, he wasn't a total stranger to the situation.” “Although Bob Hoover was the first to flyout of Barth, mind you, in a most unusual way, we soon followed,’ Al Tucker recalled. “The 8th Air Force came for us in a massive armada of B-17 bombers. A small party had arrived earlier in a couple of C-47s and set up an approach control system, tower, and so on at the German airfield."
Not quite the same stories....