Preface

This book owes its origins to a 1999 television documentary series for the Learning Channel that I was a producer and director for. It included a short episode about the Great Escape that I felt had been inadequately illustrated – which, given the comical ineptitude of the team making it, came as no surprise. I was determined to produce a better account. In fact I had hoped to make a full-scale documentary for either the BBC or Channel 4 to accompany a book. I didn’t get anybody to take up the idea, but am pleased to know that Mark Radice of Windfall Films succeeded where I failed. His programme, which I think pursues a highly intelligent ‘angle’, should be broadcast around the same time this book appears.

What intrigued me about the Great Escape was the sheer scale and complexity of the achievement. I grew up with the film The Great Escape, as did probably every child of my generation. One summer I set myself the task of producing an authentic British passport for myself. I reasoned that if some half-starved Allied officers could produce thousands of bogus identity papers amid the deprivations of a freezing Second World War prison camp, I could surely make myself a passport in the comfortable surroundings of my home and with all sorts of modern technology at my disposal. I was wrong, of course, and the final product of my summer’s efforts was lamentable.

The question that comes up time and again about the Great Escape is: how on earth did they do it? By simplifying the story I don’t think the Hollywood version of events casts much light on this question. I’ve discovered that the answer is a complicated one. On the one hand it was not quite so difficult as it seemed. The officers imprisoned in Stalag Luft III, the German Air Force camp from which they escaped, were a privileged bunch, probably better treated than any other POWs in the European or Asian theatre. They were the elite of the Allied air forces and were treated as such. Their rations were good, and they were supplied with sporting equipment, books and materials to put on theatre productions that would have been the envy of many a regular soldier, whose treatment at the hands of the Germans was appalling.

It was not extraordinarily difficult for the officers to obtain the materials necessary for producing false identity cards. Their privileged status helped because the war, by the time of the Great Escape, had been going against Germany for some time and it was apparent to everybody that the Allies were going to win. Most of the German staff of Stalag Luft III were anxious to stay on the right side of the officers, many of whom had connections in high places and might reciprocate the favour in the post-war world. Many of the German security staff were impoverished and starving. It did not take a lot to win them over.

But, on the other hand, the Great Escape was an extraordinary achievement, far more so than it appears in the film. The figures who were involved in the prisoners’ clandestine escape activities were extraordinary men; some, admittedly, because they came from wealthy and well-connected backgrounds, but most because they were an indomitable clan of adventure- and life-loving characters who all refused to accept captivity and were prepared to do anything to cock a snook at those who would oppress them.

It may come as a surprise to readers to learn that there were not just three tunnels, the famous Tom, Dick and Harry. There were 100 tunnels constructed in Stalag Luft III alone, and easily that amount in other Luftwaffe camps across occupied Europe. I’ve tried in my account to show just how indefatigable these men were in their desire to get out of these camps at any cost. And the extraordinary number of tunnels they constructed is surely testimony to this.

There is a tragic side to the Great Escape, of course, but I don’t think the tragedy should be exaggerated and I think those contemporary writers who strike a mawkish pose about ‘the 50’ who were murdered by the Germans, are letting the side down. They were brave men and their murders were dreadful. But they were in the middle of a brutal war in which many millions suffered far more heinous crimes. They were fighting men who had chosen to continue the war with the Germans from behind the barbed-wire confines of their camps. They were officers who were treated, for the most part, with extraordinary leniency by the enemy. They would be the last to complain about their treatment, I suspect.

In this book, I haven’t succeeded in writing the comprehensive and definitive account that I had hoped for. But then I’ve discovered that there are so many stories associated with the Great Escape and Stalag Luft III, so many different angles and so many interesting avenues to go down, that it’s an impossible task. I hope, though, that this is an interesting account that casts just a little light on this remarkable episode of our history.