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Stalag Luft III (German: Stammlager Luft III; literally "Main Camp, Air, III"; SL III) was a Luftwaffe -run prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during the Second World War, which held captured Western Allied air force personnel. The camp was established in March 1942 near the town of Sagan, Lower Silesia, in what was then Nazi Germany (now Żagań ...
- They Built Three Escape Tunnels: ‘Tom,’ ‘Dick’ and ‘Harry’
- Only 76 of The Planned 200 Prisoners Escaped
- Nazis Caught 73 Escapees—And Executed 50
The secret operation was led and organized by Roger Bushell, a Royal Air Force pilot who had been shot down over France while assisting with the evacuation of Dunkirk. In the spring of 1943, Bushell and 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 m...
The Nazis eventually discovered the tunnel Tom and summoned photographers to chronicle their find before its demolition. While the Nazis celebrated their discovery, however, they were unaware that work on the two other underground passages continued. The prisoners eventually turned Dick into a storage space and focused all construction on Harry, wh...
The audacity and resourcefulness demonstrated by the Allied pilots was the stuff movies are made of, and the breakout was immortalized in the 1963 blockbuster The Great Escape, which starred Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson and James Coburn. There was no Hollywood ending, however, for most of the 76 men who broke o...
The Stalag Luft III murders were war crimes perpetrated by members of the Gestapo following the "Great Escape" of Allied prisoners of war from the German Air Force prison camp known as Stalag Luft III on March 25, 1944. Of the 76 successful escapees, 73 were recaptured, most within several days of the breakout, 50 of whom were executed on the ...
NameOfficeFateAbsalon, GuntherDied in Soviet prison in May 1948BaatzPrematurely released from Red Army campBoschert, HeinrichSentenced to death on 3 September 1947, ...Breithaupt, WalterSentenced to life imprisonment on 3 ...Mar 2, 2024 · In episode 7 of Masters of the Air, The Great Escape was a risky escape attempt by POWs. Only 76 men out of the planned 200 managed to escape from Stalag Luft III, with harsh consequences for the rest. The Great Escape altered life in the POW camp significantly, leading to stricter conditions and repercussions for the prisoners.
Sep 5, 2024 · The Great Escape from Stalag Luft III. By Terry C Treadwell. The escape of 76 POWs from Stalag Luft 3 on 24 March 1944 was the greatest mass escape from a prisoner-of-war camp ever known. It caused the Germans serious problems and great embarrassment, and tied up thousands of troops and civilians in a huge two week long search for the prisoners.
Great Escape homepage. Editor's Note: On the night of March 24-25, 1944, 76 Allied prisoners of Stalag Luft III, a German prison camp in Sagan, 100 miles southeast of Berlin, escaped through a ...
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In the dark hours of March 24, 1944, a daring and meticulously planned operation unfolded within the confines of Stalag Luft III, a German prisoner-of-war camp in Sagan, now modern-day Żagań, Poland. Known as the "Great Escape," this audacious act involved 76 Allied airmen tunneling their way to freedom through a 336-foot-long underground passage. While the escape itself was a feat of human ...
