The Great Escape at 50
Today marks the 80th anniversary of “The Great Escape,” the largest Western Allied prisoner-of-war breakout of the Second World War (only surpassed by the mass escape of 300 Jews– spearheaded by a force of 100 Soviet POWs from the extermination camp at Sobibor in 1943).
The Escape, from Stalag Luft III in the German Silesian town of Sagan (now Zagan, Poland), was carefully planned for a full year and required the effort of hundreds of the camp’s captured pilots and aircrews to allow 76 men (of the planned 220) to escape the stalag via tunnel system on the night of 24/25 March 1944.
“British prisoners of war tend their garden at Stalag Luft III” German propaganda image
It was a Pyrrhic victory, with 73 of 76 soon recaptured. The three who escaped, two Norwegians and a Dutch pilot, spoke passible German. Some 50 of the 76 including 20 Brits, 6 Canadians, 6 Polish, 5 Australian, 3 South African, 2 Kiwis, 2 Norwegians, and a single Argentine, Belgian, Czech, French, Greek, and Lithuanian, were executed.
Military personnel from allied nations, with a 50-strong RAF contingent led by Air Commodore Andrew Dickens, convened at the Old Garrison Cemetery in Poznan, Poland to commemorate those lost in the days after the escape. Wreaths were also laid by ambassadors from Australia, New Zealand, and Norway, alongside defense attachés from the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Germany.
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