Acknowledgements
I must start by thanking Roy Conyers Nesbit, the Royal Air Force editor at the Public Records Office (now renamed the National Archives) and prolific aviation writer. Roy has extended me endless help and guidance on all matters relating to the RAF, and I will not forget his kindness and generosity in entertaining me at the RAF Club in Piccadilly. Thanks to Roy, I have acquired an abiding interest in aviation and the RAF, and I hope this will not be my last book on the subject. I owe an equal debt of gratitude to Ian Sayer, the author and chronicler of Nazi misdeeds, who offered me access to his extensive Second World War archive and very kindly allowed me permission to reproduce letters written by some of the Great Escapers. Ian has been continuously generous with his advice on this book and others. I’d like to thank Hugh Alexander and Paul Johnson at the National Archive’s Image Library, as well as all the staff of the Archive’s reference library at Kew, the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth and the British Library. Over the years I have been given a great deal of assistance by the staff of the United States National Archives in Maryland, USA, providing material for this book and documentary films. I am particularly indebted to General Albert Patton Clark, late of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, USA, and the Academy’s archivist, Duane Reade. I recall with great fondness my visits to the Academy, and am grateful for Duane’s invaluable assistance when I produced and directed a short documentary about the Great Escape in 1999. Duane also gave me a copy of Colonel von Lindeiner’s (unpublished) memoirs, and British Air Ministry records of the post-war SIB investigation into the killings of the 50 airmen from Sagan. I must thank Jimmy James, one of the greatest of the Great Escapers, for his invaluable help, encouragement and advice, and the use of much of his private archive. Thanks too to his escape partner Sydney Dowse as well as the four of the other remaining officers who actually made it out of the tunnel that March night 60 years ago. Tony Bethell, now living in Canada; Les Brodrick in South Africa; Mike Shand in New Zealand; and Paul Royle in Australia were all kind enough to help me with their reminiscences of the escape, as was Desmond Plunkett although, sadly, he has subsequently passed away. Thanks to Peter Elliott at the Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon. Thanks to Halvor Sperbund in Bergen for providing me with help and assistance regarding the two Norwegian escapers, Per Bergsland and Jens Muller; and to the Dutch flier Bob van der Stok’s son, also named Bob, in California, USA. Thanks to the Air Force Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand. Many thanks to Charlotte Bergsland for the photographs of her late husband; Elizabeth Carter for her help regarding her brother Roger Bushell; and Bushell’s biographer, John D. Carr. I must not forget the other authors whose efforts have cast intriguing light on this amazing period of history and without which my task would have been much harder. In particular Arthur Durand’s Stalag Luft III: The Secret Story is an incomparable and scholarly dissertation on the subject. Jonathan Vance’s A Gallant Company is the most comprehensive study of each of the individual escaper’s lives that I have ever read. Finally, I must mention Dick Churchill, the seventh Great Escaper, who is still with us. Dick says he doesn’t want to think about what happened 60 years ago, and would rather concentrate on what his five grandchildren will be doing in the future. I think that’s a very commendable attitude, but one that I hope doesn’t deter those who still find this episode of military and Commonwealth history enduringly fascinating.