Allied prisoners of war face off with nasty Nazis.
Heroic American soldiers together with calm and calculated British officers plan to do
the impossible- dig three tunnels named Tom, Dick, Harry, and get everyone out of the camp.
It’s a brilliant plan.
The Allied men are nothing but courageous.
The Nazis, well, they’re Nazis.
Bullets fly, there’s motorcycle mayhem and amazing stunts.
Two men steal an airplane and joyously fly over the German border.
A hero fills your eyes with tears as he gets thrown into the cooler for yet another time.
It’s a jolly good show by all involved, even though the backs of heads become home
to made-in-Germany bullets.
The End.
So, there you go.
That’s the condensed version of the 1960s Hollywood hit, “The Great Escape.”
The Brits are very British, the Germans so darn German, and the main American prisoner,
played by Steve McQueen, he’s so cool he could walk through fire with a smile on his
face.
But, there's a big but.
When Hollywood does a based on a true story war movie, you can count on the fact that
nine times out of ten the based part is very flexible.
But the actual true story is amazing in itself, in fact, we like the real version much better
than the fictional version.
It’s all quite dark, naturally.
This was war.
Brutal things happened, perhaps too brutal for the sensitive minds of your regular movie-goer.
The truth is bleak indeed, but the question is, did anyone actually escape?
In 1942, when the Stalag Luft III camp got going, just about all of the prisoners there
were British and Commonwealth officers, although there were some Polish soldiers, too.
The camp was in present day Poland, then part of Nazi Germany.
Come 1943, the north compound of the camp was home to the Brits, and then a bit later,
the south side and later the west side was filled with captured men from the US air force.
Each different compound had 15 huts.
The huts were 3.0-by-3.7-meters (10-by-12-foot) with 15 bunk beds in each hut.
When the camp was at its fullest, there were almost 11,000 inmates.
Around three-quarters of them were from the US Air Force, with the rest being British,
along with some other Allies from Commonwealth nations, such as Canada, Australia, and New
Zealand.
As for building escape tunnels, this was actually very hard to do because the huts were raised
off the ground.
If anyone went below the huts, they were very easy to spot.
On top of that, the soil was a sandy color, so, if a man was covered in the stuff the
Germans would get very suspicious.
Very suspicious could mean a bullet to the brain.
Even if the guys could get the soil off of them, where could they put that stuff where
it wouldn’t be seen?
The Germans knew all of this, and so they believed there was no way these prisoners
were going to escape.
They were proud that they’d built an escape-proof camp.
They also knew that because the soil was so loose, even if someone did manage to dig down,
the tunnel would collapse, likely killing or injuring anyone in it.
As we said, those forward-thinking Germans thought a lot about possible escapes, and
that’s why they had special microphones in the camp that would pick up any tunneling.
Life in the camp was also not quite what you’d expect.
Remember a lot of prisoners were officers, and while each side in the war was trying
to kill the other, there was a certain amount of respect between enemies, especially when
a man held a high rank.
Life was certainly not all about torture and general barbarity, as you might have thought,
especially if you’ve heard about the horrors of some other German POW camps.
The main reason for this hospitality was the German guards were mostly men fighting with
the mighty German air force, the Luftwaffe.
Many honorable soldiers were part of the Luftwaffe, or at least, they thought they were honorable.
As British co-pilot Jimmy James would tell the BBC many years after the war:
“The camp staff were all members of the Luftwaffe and behaved, for the most part,
in a civilized manner towards the prisoners.
In the early days, particularly, our relations with the Germans were good, provided that
Higher Authority and the Nazi Party were kept at a distance.”
James talked about one of the German commanders at the camp he was at first, also run by the
Luftwaffe, which was camp Stalag Luft 1.
There he said Major Von Stachelski one evening felt so sorry for the British prisoners that
he sent them some crates of beer.
James called him “a humane and thoughtful man”, but when the higher-ups found out
about Von Stachelski’s kindness, he was relieved of his duties.
James later became part of the escape team when he was sent to Stalag Luft III.
The prisoners actually ate pretty well, very well compared to the starved men in some camps
that looked a day away from death.
The prisoners got parcels from the Red Cross and from families back home, while the Germans
gave them a daily diet constituting almost 2,000 calories.
POWs could also earn in the camp as they were paid by the Germans.
You heard that right.
What was called “camp money” was supposed to help prevent escape attempts.
They used a camp currency that prisoners could use to buy goods, and on occasion, beer that
was brewed by the Germans.
Believe it or not, the British government took money away from its officers knowing
that they were being paid.
This was something said in an official report: “Health of Ps/W is good.
Calisthenics are compulsory by order of the Senior American Officers.
Adequate medical care is provided by British & French doctors.
Dental care is not satisfactory, and difficulty is experienced in obtaining glasses.
Washing & toilet facilities are adequate although hot water is scarce.”
Another part of the report said: “Athletics were second only to reading as
the most popular diversion.
Camp areas were cleared and made fit playing fields at first for cricket and rugby and
later for softball, touch football, badminton, deck tennis and volleyball.
In addition, POWs took advantage of opportunities for ping-pong, wrestling, weight lifting,
horizontal & parallel bar work, hockey, and swimming in the fire pool.”
POWs were also able to study and actually get degrees.
They put on dramatic shows based on plays that were popular in London.
They even built their own theater and a little radio station called Station KRGY.
Two newspapers they published were called Circuit and the Kriegie Times.
The latter word is related to POW.
Still, the Germans were paranoid about men escaping.
It turned out, of course, that their paranoia was very much justified.
The Allies were paranoid, too, so when a new guy came to their barracks they were vetted.
Maybe, they thought, the new guy is an undercover agent for the Germans, reporting back about
the activities of the prisoners.
What’s amusing, is the Allies called the Germans “Goons.”
The Germans readily accepted the term, having been told it stood for “German Officer Or
Non-Com.”
The word goon was a relatively new word, slang most or all Germans wouldn’t have understood.
As we said, the Germans were right to be paranoid.
Every single movement a German guard made outside of his quarters was tracked by the
Allies, who wrote all the information down in a book.
They knew who would be standing where or walking where at each time during the day and night.
The Germans knew they were being monitored but seemed to put up with it.
One time they even got information from the prisoners about guards that had been rather
lazy.
Some of those 800 guards were past their prime.
Others were slow on their feet due to having been injured.
Ok, so the scene is set.
Some of you might now be wondering why those POWs were so desperate to risk their lives
and try and escape.
Let’s remember that prison is prison.
Those men wanted to rejoin the war or go back to their families.
Some, though, didn’t want to risk being shot for trying to escape.
Jimmy James later wrote: “Of the 1,500 in the north compound at Stalag
Luft III only about six hundred were in the Escape Organization.
The others weren't interested.
I would say about a third of the prisoners were, like myself, hard-core escapers.
Of the others, some had been very keen in the early days but now thought it wasn't worth
it, and the rest were either against it or just didn't think it was worthwhile.
My motivation was simply freedom.”
The first notable escape was in 1943, which famously involved the prisoners using a wooden
gymnastic vaulting horse to get away with digging holes.
They could dig under it, and they could put men in it.
It was a genius thing, and three RAF soldiers escaped.
The Great Escape took place a year later in 1944.
RAF Squadron Leader Roger Bushell had for many months been thinking about an escape
plan.
Bushell’s other main escape artist was British officer Jimmy Buckley.
Together and with other men they were going to do the impossible.
Bushell formed a British and Commonwealth escape committee and one day made his important
announcement.
This is how it went: “Everyone here in this room is living on
borrowed time.
By rights, we should all be dead!
The only reason that God allowed us this extra ration of life is so we can make life hell
for the Hun...
In North Compound we are concentrating our efforts on completing and escaping through
one master tunnel.
No private-enterprise tunnels are allowed.
Three bloody deep, bloody long tunnels will be dug – Tom, Dick, and Harry.
One will succeed!”
Bushell thought that if the Germans found one tunnel, they wouldn’t expect there to
be another tunnel.
He just needed manpower, which he got.
He wanted over 200 men to escape when the time came.
Unlike the Hollywood movie, Americans didn’t really figure in the escape.
About 600 men got to work secretly digging Tom, Dick, and Harry, called those names because
Bushell never wanted the word “tunnel” to be spoken.
He even said anyone who says that word will be court-martialed, a very serious thing to
happen to a soldier.
Bushell knew that failure meant death.
He could have no loose lips in the camp.
The tunnels themselves were about 9 meters (30 feet) below the surface.
They were tiny, though, only about 0.6 meters (2 feet) square, just enough space for a man.
It was hard to breathe in there, so at points in the tunnel, the guys dug a larger outlet
for an air pump.
Importantly, though, getting through the tunnel was slow with one man crawling at a time.
As for the possibility of collapse, there were certainly some hairy moments, but the
prisoners managed to steal a lot of wood from the camp – mainly from beds – to use as
support beams.
To dig, they used metal taken from cans of food to fashion little shovels.
Digging, of course, was time-consuming work.
But how to get rid of the soil?
Like the movie showed, the prisoners blocked their pants at the bottom and put the soil
inside them.
They’d then walk around the camp, letting little bits of soil sprinkle everywhere.
As they had hundreds of guys doing this they could get rid of a lot of soil.
200 men in total made around 25,000 dumping trips.
Since they walked and looked funny, they got the name “Penguins.”
The Germans in the meantime knew the prisoners were up to something, but they couldn’t
figure out what exactly.
Then, they caught some penguins in the act of dumping.
Sensibly, the Germans transferred a bunch of guys to other camps.
The most notable of them was the Canadian fighter pilot Wally Floody, who was one of
the most important people behind the tunnel construction.
It should be said here that some of the Germans inside the camp helped the Allies, as did
some Germans outside the camp who helped the prisoners with getting certain documents.
A fair few anti-Nazi Germans provided practical assistance in tunnel construction, which meant
they were risking their lives, too.
As time went on, the tunnel Dick was used for storing important things such as compasses,
maps, documents, forged travel permits, and clothes.
All this was required to get out of Germany.
Tom was then discovered by the Germans, after which it was blown up.
Dick, although later retired as an escape route, functioned as another storage facility.
Harry was undiscovered and almost completed.
As we said, 200 men were chosen to escape.
The first group was either important figures in the tunnel building, or they spoke German
really well, or they’d been in trouble before and were close to some serious punishment.
These guys had a much higher chance of escape.
In the second group, which were designated as the “hard-arsers”, it was expected
they would have a hard time escaping.
They spoke little German and were given few documents.
Capture and death were very much a possibility for these people, hence, they were hard ass.
On March 24, as night fell, a soldier went into the tunnel, only when he came out at
the other end, he wasn’t anywhere near as far as he thought he would be.
He was actually dangerously close to the guard tower and not close enough to the safety of
the woods.
But one by one, men went through.
It was terribly cold and snow lay on the ground.
That didn’t help at all, because they made footprints in the snow.
There were other problems, though, such as tunnel collapses and sentries walking around.
So, with only 10 men being able to crawl through per hour, it was decided that 100 men would
go in total.
In all, 76 got out.
When 77 made his way out, he was spotted by a guard, and the alarm was raised.
Those prisoners already in the nearby forest scattered.
The Germans flew from their huts, guns in hand.
Those guys made their way as best they could in five-foot-deep snow.
They headed towards various railway stations, which wasn’t easy at all in that snow.
Their lives were certainly in the balance.
Meanwhile, back in the camp, the Germans were startled to see what those men had done.
The German officers made a list of what had been used in the construction of the tunnel.
That list included: “Four thousand bed boards.
90 complete double bunk beds.
635 mattresses, 192 bed covers, 161 pillowcases, 3,424 towels.
And 1,700 blankets.
52 twenty-man tables, 10 single tables, 34 chairs, 76 benches, 1,212 bed bolsters, and
1,370 beading battens.
1,219 knives, 478 spoons, 582 forks, 69 lamps, 246 water cans, 30 shovels, 300 meters of
electric wire, and 180 meters of rope.”
Those escapees trod through that deep snow, but they were like sitting ducks.
73 men were eventually picked up, and later on the orders of Adolf Hitler, they were sentenced
to be shot.
All of them.
Hitler’s main generals said there might be a problem with conducting a massacre.
They asked the boss, what will the Allies do with our prisoners if we do that?
Hitler thought for a while and said, ok, “more than half” of them shall be executed.
They were, including Mr. Bushell, the brains of the operation.
He managed to travel 400 miles during his escape but sadly he was picked up when he
was only 20 miles from the French border.
17 men were sent back to the camp and some were sent to other camps.
50 men were executed in all: 20 British, 6 Canadian, 6 Polish, 5 Australian, 3 South
African, 2 New Zealander, and a few ones from various nations.
Most of them were told to turn around and then were shot from behind with a pistol or
machine gun.
Soon after, notices were pinned to other POW camps which read, “THE ESCAPE FROM PRISON
CAMPS IS NO LONGER A SPORT.”
Jimmy James was one of the men that had trudged through the snow thinking he was almost home
free.
He later said, “It was a freezing cold night and we must have walked about ten miles before
we reached our objective, which was a country station called Tshiebsdorf where we knew we
could take a train south.
I was feeling terribly excited.
The plan was that we would get down to Czechoslavakia.”
He was asked for his papers in the railway station.
He said he was just going to see his mother in Belgrade, which the officer didn’t believe.
James was subsequently taken along with some others to the police station to be interrogated.
That didn’t go too well.
James said later, “It was only twelve hours since our escape.
We were prisoners again and it was shattering...
Our natural reaction was that we thought they were going to be taken back to the camp.
In fact, they were taken off to be shot.”
He was transferred to another camp, one of the notorious killing camps.
When he got there, he asked another prisoner where he was.
The prisoner said, “This is Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.
The only way out of here is up the chimney.”
There, James said people were tortured and starved and routinely shot dead.
If any Germans so much as got a whiff of an escape plan, the POWs would be killed.
In his own words, he said, “We knew the dangers of being in the cell block.
You could smell the smoke from the crematorium.
The SS sergeant who was in charge of it was a man who went around and murdered people
in their cells with his own hands.
His normal method was strangulation.”
In 2004, James, then an old man, returned to the place where the camp had been.
He remarked, “I never thought 60 years ago when I crawled out of the hole in the snow
that there would be a ceremony to commemorate the event.”
But remember, 76 men escaped and 73 were caught.
What of the remaining three from the Great Escape?
They were Per Bergsland, a Norwegian pilot for the RAF.
Jens Müller, another Norwegian pilot for the RAF.
And Bram van der Stok, a Dutch pilot for the RAF.
Muller later recalled his escape, “It took me three minutes to get through the tunnel.
Above ground I crawled along holding the rope for several feet: it was tied to a tree.
Sergeant Bergsland joined me; we arranged our clothes and walked to the Sagan railway
station.”
All three men went on to live long lives.
The camp commandant, von Lindeiner-Wildau, was captured at the close of the war and spent
some time in a camp in England called the “London Cage.”
Even though 50 men had been massacred by the Germans, senior British officers testified
that von Lindeiner-Wildau had treated them humanely.
Anyway, it wasn’t his decision to execute the escapees.
He died aged 82 having long since returned to Germany.
Nonetheless, some Gestapo and German military personnel were found guilty of war crimes
for what became known as the Stalag Luft III murders.
By this time, many of those involved were already missing or dead.
13 were tried for the crime and executed.
Some were imprisoned.
One of the last survivors involved in the Great Escape didn’t think it was that great
at all.
He was the Australian pilot, Paul Royle.
When he reached the age of 100 in 2014, when asked about the escape, he said, “While
we all hoped for the future, we were lucky to get the future.
We eventually defeated the Germans and that was that.”
He died aged 101.
The grim reality is, he was fortunate not to get the bullet to the back of the head.
Until he was released, he spent the rest of his time at the camp half-starved in solitary
confinement thinking about his murdered friends.
He loathed the movie because it glamorized such a shameful event in the history of human
existence.
He said there were no heroics, just “darkness, cold and terror.”
He added, “The movie I disliked intensely because there were no motorbikes...and the
Americans weren't there.”
Let’s just hope none of you get your education from movies “based on a true story.”
Now you need to watch “POW Soldier Who Blinked "TORTURE" in Morse Code on TV.”
Or, watch the full story about the other escape at that camp, “Escaping A Nazi Prison With
A Wooden Horse.”