The past few days he has begun randomly trying to escape his crate. No howling just silent determined digging that usually goes on when I'm not home and when I am home I have to be in the same room or close to it at night. It's gotten so bad his little paws were rubbed raw recently. I'm at a loss for how to fix this. I really don't want to put him back in there without any idea of how to put an end to his harming himself in his bid for freedom.

Has he been properly crate trained?

Try spending loads of extra time with him and his crate when your next home. Buy him really nice dinners and feed him in the crate and praise him for eating in there. Put loads of chew toys in there during the day. Also, try putting a blanket over the crate so he feels safer in there. If none of that works get a bigger crate so he has more room to manoever.

Good luck!

Nova is like that at times. We have started feeding him in his crate and he has gotten a lot better and knows the crate is a 'happier' place. He will make a fuse when we leave but after 5 minutes or so he goes to sleep.
What toys are you putting in the create? We do a kong and 3 toys to keep him busy for over 1 hour of crate time.