One of the most famous prison escapes in the history of World War II

A still from the 1963 "The Great Escape" movie

Prison escape is an enduring feature in many movies. Popular themes, such as "The Shawshank Redemption", "Air Prison", "Prison Break", etc., the tense and thrilling atmosphere, the exciting plot, and the whimsical methods are all amazing.

These fictional plots may have their origins, but the real history is even more amazing. On March 24, 1944, 76 Allied pilots made a mass escape from a Nazi prisoner of war camp. It remains one of the most famous prison escapes in the history of World War II.

One survivor, Lieutenant Paul Royle, died in 2015 at the age of 101. When he recalled those thrilling past events, he showed people all the details of the prison escape.

Survivor Paul Royle

The Stalag Luft III prisoner of war camp was a heavily guarded camp where the Luftwaffe held Allied pilots during World War II. , west, south, north and central five courtyards, with a total area of ??2,400 acres.

Each compound has 15 cells, holding more than 11,000 pilots from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other places.

The East Compound was first built on March 21, 1942, and mainly housed British Commonwealth Air Force officers. Subsequently, the central compound (April 1942), the north compound (March 1943), the south compound (September 1943), and the west compound (July 1944) were completed one after another. A large number of prisoners of war continued to come here, and it became Nazi slave labor.

They live a miserable life every day. The rations distributed are far from meeting normal needs and can only be supplemented by packages sent by the Red Cross and family members.

Stalag Luft III Prisoner of War Camp

In order to prevent prisoners of war from escaping, the German army tried various methods:

First, the camp was built in the center of the battlefield-Berlin About 100 miles southeast, the Sagan area of ??Lower Silesia, Germany (near the present-day town of Sagan, Poland), is far away from both the Allies and neutral countries. More than 800 guards with machine guns guarded the area day and night.

Secondly, this is sandy land. The soil is loose and easy to collapse, making it very unsuitable for digging tunnels. The top soil at the camp is dark gray, and it's easy to spot if someone dumps the lighter yellow sand on the ground or simply gets it on their clothes.

The Germans also raised the cells 60 centimeters above the ground, making it difficult to hide any tunnel exits. A large number of listening devices are buried around the camp, and the sound of tunnel digging can be heard.

It is simply harder to escape from here than to reach the sky, but no matter how tight the prison is, it cannot stop the Allied pilots from yearning for freedom.

In the spring of 1943, British Air Force Major Roger Bushell conceived a large-scale escape plan, preparing to dig three deep and long tunnels and evacuate 200 people in civilian clothes. , leaving here with forged passes and documents.

He was shot down over France during the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940. He is now a member of the Prisoner of War Camp Escape Committee, responsible for managing all escape opportunities in the North Yard, and therefore convened a committee meeting to present the plan.

Busher said: "Everyone in this room is living on borrowed time, and by rights we all deserve to die! The only reason God gave us extra life was to fight the Germans to the end. ...I suggest digging three deep and long tunnels in the North Compound and escaping through one of them. One of them will succeed!"

Roger Bushell (right) ) and his comrades

Colonel Herbert Massey, the camp’s top officer, believed that this method of using three tunnels might be successful. The Germans might find one or even two tunnels, but it was hard to imagine that there were other tunnels at the same time. carried out, so the "Great Escape" operation was approved.

The scale of the escape was unprecedented, requiring the participation of a large number of personnel and efficient organization. Bushell, as the planner, became the commander of the operation, code-named "Big X".

The three tunnels are named "Tom", "Dick" and "Harry" respectively. In order to maintain strict confidentiality, Bushell required everyone to be called only by code names and never mention the word "authentic". Anyone mentioned would be tried by a military court. In the end, more than 600 prisoners of war participated in the construction of the tunnel.

After some preparations, this great project began in full swing.

Escape Plan

"Tom" started digging from a dark corner next to the chimney of Cell 123 and extended westward into the forest, but was discovered and blown up by the Germans midway through the digging. . The guards did not expect that there were two more tunnels being secretly constructed.

The entrance to "Dick" is hidden under the drainage basin of Cell 122, covered with a trap door. It was in the same direction as Tom, but further away from the wall and less likely to arouse suspicion.

Only when the German army expanded the camp halfway through the excavation, the exit position of "Dick" happened to be occupied, so the tunnel had to be suspended and converted into a warehouse for storing sand and excavation tools, which played a certain role.

Only "Harry" succeeded in the end, and it headed north through cells, wards and watchtowers until it reached the woods next to the camp.

The prisoners painstakingly dug through the support columns of Cell 104 so that the guards would not notice them working underneath the house. The entrance to the tunnel is hidden under the stove, and the main body is 9 meters deep, so guards generally won't get close and can avoid monitoring.

Schematic diagram of Harry Tunnel

In order to prevent the golden sand from getting on their clothes, the prisoners of war took off all their clothes and worked in the dark and terrifying underground. They put the sand into small bags made of towels and clothes and hid it under their pants. They wore coats to hide the bulges, so they were called "penguins".

They carefully spread the sand into the similar-colored soil at the camp or into the small gardens they usually tend. The two pretended to have a conversation, while one turned over the soil and the other quickly spread the sand into the pit.

After more than 200 people and about 25,000 "ant moves", they successfully processed more than 100 tons of sand under the eyes of the guards!

The Germans also had a vague sense that something was wrong, but found nothing. In order to disrupt the suspicious operation, the German army transferred 19 of the most suspected people to other prisons, 6 of whom were involved in tunnel construction.

Inside the prisoner of war camp

The tunnels are getting longer and longer, and skilled craftsmen have made many technological innovations. They built an underground network of ropes and wooden trolleys and named intersections after two famous London squares.

Captain Bob Nelson of the 37th Squadron invented a crude air pump system using a hockey stick, a backpack, and a ping-pong paddle to deliver fresh air into the tunnels.

They also made shovels and oil lamps from tin cans donated by the Red Cross, used the grease in the soup as fuel, and used ropes as wicks. He even used stolen wires to connect to the power supply and lit a few light bulbs.

To prevent the tunnel from collapsing, they removed about 4,000 bed boards to support the 0.6-meter-wide sandy wall, and laid 1,700 blankets on the wall to silence the sound. So there were originally 20 wooden slats on each bed board, but in the end there were only 8 on average left.

Some people bribed the guards with money and in-demand goods to obtain key materials such as maps and passes, and then a few highly skilled guys forged replicas. Several anti-Nazi guards also provided substantial assistance and played a key role.

In March 1944, the "Harry" tunnel was finally dug. The first group of people included 30 people who were fluent in German or had prison escape experience and had the best chance of survival. The remaining 70 people had the most credit in tunnel construction. The second batch of 100 people were selected by drawing lots. They could hardly speak German and had little hope of survival. They could only hope to escape from Germany at night.

On March 24, the escape operation began on a dark night. But there were many accidents. The exit trap door was frozen at the beginning, and it took an hour and a half to repair.

Secondly, the tunnel was not long enough and the exit position was deviated. When the first person climbed out at 10:30 pm, he found himself at the edge of the woods, not far from the observation tower. There are too few trees to provide adequate cover.

The weather is very cold and there is snow on the ground, and crawling will leave obvious traces. To avoid detection by the guards, they could only reduce the number of escapes from once per minute to about ten per hour.

Part of the tunnel collapsed around 1 a.m., and it took some time to clear it.

After a night of hard work, 76 people escaped from the tunnel by 5 a.m. on the 25th. The 77th man's escape attempt failed when a guard on patrol nearly fell into the exit, exposing his plan.

Those who had not escaped quickly burned their documents and evacuated. The Germans crawled back from the exit and found the entrance.

A shrill siren sounded, and the German army conducted a large search of the entire camp. The results were shocking. The entire jailbreak operation was massive, involving 4,000 bed planks, 1,700 blankets, 635 mattresses, 192 bedspreads, 52 long tables, 478 spoons, 582 forks... as well as 300 meters of wires and 180 meters of rope. and more than 1,400 tin cans.

The people in the woods struggled to escape. The German army blocked the border and set up roadblocks, searched farms and hotels, and captured 73 people in two weeks. Only three people managed to escape and returned to England with the help of Swedish sailors and the French resistance, becoming the only lucky ones left.

The monument at the end of the tunnel

In January 1945, the Soviet army liberated the concentration camp, and all prisoners of war were given a new lease of life. After Germany surrendered, the International Military Tribunal in 1947 tried 18 Gestapo officers who killed prisoners of war and sentenced them to death and imprisonment for war crimes.

In 1963, this tragic and surprising story was made into the movie "The Great Escape" by Hollywood, which caused a sensation after its release.

However, the movie made some fiction and changed the ending to American pilots leading everyone to freedom. Therefore, some survivors were dissatisfied. Mr. Royle said: "I don't like this movie very much. There are no motorcycles to help us escape... and there are no Americans involved."

The centenarian, who never thought he had done anything special, said calmly: "We all want a future and I'm lucky to get one.

We finally defeated the Germans and that was it..."

The fictional protagonist and the motorcycle in the movie