The Great Escape – 80 Years On
[With thanks to our friends in 460 SQN Veterans & Friends Group for allowing us to reproduce their article.]
On 24 March 1944 during WWII, one of the most audacious prison breaks in history was carried out with the mass escape of Allied soldiers from the German prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III.
Although the German Luftwaffe designed the Stalag Luft III camp to be escape-proof, the audacious, real-life prison break immortalised in the 1963 movie ‘The Great Escape’ proved otherwise.
Stalag Luft III was a maximum-security camp built 160km southeast of Berlin near what is now Zagan, Poland. It was built to house captured Allied airmen, mostly officers, many of whom had made previous escapes. Elaborate measures were taken to prevent tunnelling, such as raising huts off the ground and burying microphones along the camp’s perimeter fencing.
The audacious break-out was masterminded by RAF pilot Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, who had been shot down over France while assisting with the evacuation of Dunkirk. It was the largest of its kind during World War II and involved the construction of not one but three tunnels.
Bushell appointed F/L Wally Flood RCAF to design and oversee the construction of the tunnels and in the spring of 1943, over 600 prisoners of war began building three tunnels with the code names of ‘Tom’, ‘Dick’ and ‘Harry’. The plan called for each tunnel to stretch for more than 350 feet to the protective cover of the forest outside thecamp’s perimeter fence.
On the night of 24th/25th March 1944, the daring escape took place...
with the original plan to get at least two hundred prisoners out at 30-second intervals. Each man would head to Block 109, where they would then be directed to Room 17, which was the final check out station before crossing to Block 104. However, on the night of the escape only 76 men, dressed in makeshift civilian clothes and carrying forged identification documents, managed to get away before the alarm was raised. Unfortunately, the prisoners found that ‘Harry’ had not been dug far enough and came up a little short of the tree line beyond the camp’s perimeter fence, slowing the extraction of men considerably.
460 Squadron had 204 aircrew taken prisoner during WWII with many ending up in Stalag Luft III, one notable officer was 460 Sqn Commanding Officer, W/C Robert Norman who, after only a few weeks in command, was shot down on the 8th October 1943, whilst on the second operation of his second tour. W/C Norman’s job was to sit with a list of the 200 escapers and 20 reserves, ticking each name off as they entered. The list was quickly destroyed once the Germans became aware of the mass escape in progress.
Following the escape, the Germans made an inventory of the camp and uncovered how extensive the operation had been...
Four thousand bed boards had gone missing, as well as 90 complete double bunk beds, 635 mattresses, 192 bed covers, 161 pillowcases, 52 twenty-man tables, 10 single tables, 34 chairs, 76 benches, 1,212 bed bolsters, 1,370 beading battens, 1,219 knives, 478 spoons, 582 forks, 69 lamps, 246 water cans, 30 shovels, 300 m (1,000 ft) of electric wire, 180 m (600 ft) of rope, and 3,424 towels. 1,700 blankets had been used, along with more than 1,400 Klim cans.
Electric cable had been stolen after being left unattended by German workers and because they had not reported the theft, they were executed by the Gestapo. Thereafter each bed was supplied with only nine bed boards, which were counted regularly by the guards.
Above: Artist, Nicolas Trudgian’s, impression of tunnel “Harry”.
Oberst Friedrich Wilhelm Von Lindeiner was Commandant of Stalag Luft III...
from its opening in April 1942 until he was relieved of command after the Great Escape in February 1945. He was later wounded by Russian troops advancing towards Berlin while acting as second in command of an infantry unit and then surrendered to advancing British forces as the war ended. Von Lindeiner donated material and a stone for the memorial to the murdered 50 escapees down the road toward Sagan.
Von Lindeiner was imprisoned for two years at the British prisoner of war camp known as the “London Cage”. He willingly testified during the British investigation concerning the Stalag Luft III murders and Allied former prisoners at Stalag Luft III testified that he had followed the Geneva Conventions concerning the treatment of POWs and had won the respect of the senior prisoners. He wasrepatriated in 1947 and died in 1963 at the age of 82.
A furious Adolf Hitler personally ordered the execution of 50 of the 73 re-captured escapees...
as a warning to other prisoners. In violation of the Geneva Convention, Gestapo agents drove the airmen to various remote locations near their capture points and executed them.
Left: Markings in the forest today show the route of “Harry, the perimeter fence and the exit point, just short of the tree line.
Following the war, British investigators brought the Gestapo killers to justice. In 1947, a military tribunal found 18 Nazis guilty of war crimes for shooting the recaptured prisoners of war, and 13 of them were executed. Only three of the 76 escapees got away successfully and eventually made it back to England, Sgt Per Bergsland (NOR) 332 Sqn RAF, 2nd Lt Jens E. Muller (NOR) 331 Sqn RAF and F/L Bram van der Stok (NED) 41Sqn RAF.
Above L - R: Australian John “Willy” Williams was one of the escapees with fellow POW and former Sydney schoolmate "Rusty" Kierath. Both were recaptured and executed | Australian Paul Royle (d 2015), a former RAF pilot was one of 76 prisoners who carried out the Great Escape. Of 73 airmen who were recaptured, Royle was among just 23 who were spared execution.
MORE: Read about S/L John E. A. Williams Audacious Escape (Source: abc.net.au)
LEST WE FORGET
On this 80th Anniversary, we remember the 50 allied airmen, named below, executed by the Gestapo between the 29th and 31st March 1944.
Above: Memorial to the fifty Allied airmen executed after the Great Escape
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F/O Henry J. Birkland (CAN) 72 Sqn RAF |
F/L Patrick W. Langford (CAN) 16 OTU RAF |
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F/t Gordon E. Brettell (GBR) 133 Sqn RAF |
F/L Thomas B. Leigh (AUS) 76 Sqn RAF |
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S/L Leslie G. “Johnny” Bull (GBR) 109 Sqn RAF |
F/L James L. Long (GBR) 9 Sqn RAF |
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S/L Roger J. Bushell (GBR) 92 Sqn RAF |
F/L Marcinkus Romas (LTU) 1 Sqn RAF |
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F/L Michael J. Casey (GBR) 57 Sqn RAF |
Lt Clement A. N. McGarr (ZAF) 2 Sqn SAAF |
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S/L James Catanach (AUS) 455 Sqn RAAF |
F/L George E. McGill (CAN) 103 Sqn RAF |
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P/O Arnold G. Christensen (NZL) 26 Sqn RAF |
F/L Harold J. Milford (GBR) 226 Sqn RAF |
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P/O Dennis H. Cochran (GBR) 10 OTU RAF |
F/O Jerzy Mondschein (POL) 304 Sqn RAF |
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S/L Ian E. K. Cross (GBR) 103 Sqn |
F/O Kazimierz Pawluk (POL) 305 Sqn RAF |
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Lt Halldor Espelid (NOR) 331 Sqn RAF |
F/L Henri Picard (BEL) 350 Sqn RAF |
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F/L Brian H. Evans (GBR) 49 Sqn RAF |
F/O John Pohe (NZL) 51 Sqn RAF |
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Lt Nils Jorgen Fuglesang (NOR) 332 Sqn RAF |
Lt Bernard W. M. Scheidhauer (FRA) 131 Sqn RAF |
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Lt Johannes S. Gouws (ZAF) 40 Sqn SAAF |
P/O Sotiris Skanzikas (GRC) 336 Sqn RAF |
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F/L William J. Grisman (GBR) 109 Sqn RAF |
Lt Rupert J. Stevens (ZAF) 12 Sqn SAAF |
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F/L Alastair D. Gunn (GBR) 1 PRU RAF |
F/O Robert C. Stewart (GBR) 77 Sqn RAF |
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F/L Albert H. Hake (AUS) 72 RAF |
F/O John Gifford Slower (ARG) 142 Sqn RAF |
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F/L Charles P. Hall (GBR) 1 PRU RAF |
F/O Denys O. Street (GBR) 207 Sqn RAF |
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F/L Anthony R. H. Hayter (GBR) 148 Sqn RAF |
F/L Cyril D. Swain (GBR) 105 Sqn RAF |
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F/L Edgar S. Humphreys (GBR) 107 Sqn RAF |
F/O Pawel Tobolski (POL) 301 Sqn RAF |
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F/O Gordon A. Kidder (CAN) 156 Sqn RAF |
F/L Amost Valenta (CZE) 311 Sqn RAF |
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F/L Reginald V. “Rusty” Kierath (AUS) 450 Sqn RAAF |
F/L Gilbert W. Walenn (GBR) 25 OTU RAF |
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F/L Antoni Kiewnarski (POL) 305 Sqn RAF |
F/L James C. Wernham (CAN) 405 Sqn RCAF |
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S/L Thomas G. Kirby-Green (GBR) 40 Sqn RAF |
F/L George W. Wiley (CAN) 112 Sqn RAF |
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F/O Wlodzimierz A. Kolanowski (POL) 301 Sqn RAF |
S/L John E. A. Williams DFC (AUS) 450 Sqn RAAF |
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F/O Stanislaw Z. Krol (POL) 64 Sqn RAF |
F/L Marcinkus Romas (LTU) 1 Sqn RAF
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