The Great Escape

On the night of 24th/25th March 1944 - seventy five years ago today - allied airmen being held as prisoners of war at the Nazi camp Stalag Luft 3 attempted a mass escape.

More than 600 prisoners took part in the attempt, headed by an escape committee under Squadron Leader Roger Bushell. The aim was for 220 prisoners to escape: in fact 76 men made it through the escape tunnel and out of the camp to a nearby wood before the German guards spotted the 77th escaping prisoner.

Sadly only three of the 76 made it home safely: the other 73 were recaptured by the Germans and 50 of them, including Bushell, were murdered on Hitler's orders. 

There was a ceremony today at the site of the former POW camp to commemorate all those who took part. The RAF was represented by a contingent of the RAF police, the unit which painstakingly tracked down the murderers after the war, and brought most of the surviving culprits to justice.

The story of the mass escape was told by Australian journalist Paul Brickhill, who was a prisoner in the camp and had helped to dig the tunnels. Determined that his murdered friends would not be forgotten, he kept and hid as many records as he could and used them after the war as the basis for his book "The Great Escape," which in turn formed the basis of the classic if someone fictionalised film of the same name.

In memory of the brave allied airmen of Stalag Luft 3, today's Sunday Music Spot is the theme song from the film "The Great Escape."

Comments

Anonymous said…
If only we had such an escape committee today
7:23 pm
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