The true story of The Nice Escape

On 24 March 1944, 76 allied officers broke out of a German prisoner-of-war camp, Stalag Luft III – a mission that was memorialised in a basic movie, The Nice Escape. In 1977, a key member of the escape staff, Ley Kenyon, was interviewed on the BBC’s Nationwide.

On a snowy moonless evening in 1944, greater than 200 allied officers tried to interrupt out of a German prisoner-of-war camp. It was the fruits of an extremely bold plan that entailed greater than a yr of bribes, tunnelling, and the assembly-line manufacturing of kit, uniforms and paperwork, all of which needed to be painstakingly hidden from the camp’s guards and spies.

The Nice Escape, John Sturges’s 1963 movie concerning the breakout, is a much-loved basic starring Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough and James Garner. Nevertheless it incorporates many inaccuracies. Jem Duducu, historian and presenter of the Condensed Historical past podcast, described it in an interview in Metro as “a wierd combination of fastidious creation and pure Hollywood fantasy”.

The story was first informed by Paul Brickhill, one of many individuals who helped with the escape try, in his 1950 guide, The Nice Escape. He describes Ley Kenyon, who illustrated the guide, because the mission’s “star counterfeiter”. Discussing the movie with Dilys Morgan on the BBC’s Nationwide in 1977, Kenyon stated: “It was good leisure, nevertheless it definitely did not categorical the actual horror of being a prisoner of warfare, the horror being, after all, in a single’s private emotions about being behind barbed wire – the boredom, the starvation. The starvation was fairly grim.”

Different ex-prisoners had a special view of the movie. Charles Clarke, who was within the camp on the time, and had aided the plot as a look-out, informed the BBC in a 2019 radio interview: “Even in spite of everything these years, I’ve at all times thought what a exceptional movie it was.”

One main change that the movie made was to the personnel concerned. Whereas the occasions of The Nice Escape are principally rooted in truth, names have been modified, and varied folks have been mixed into composite characters. On the time of the escape, no People remained within the compound, and the person who was stated to be the mannequin for McQueen’s Virgil Hilts, William Ash, didn’t participate. The plan was spearheaded by Squadron Chief Roger Bushell – who within the movie was renamed Bartlett, and performed by Attenborough. First captured in 1940 after being shot down, Bushell had a formidable file of escape makes an attempt, as soon as getting inside 100 yards of impartial Switzerland.

Stalag Luft III was the Germans’ try at an escape-proof camp, particularly for air power officers from the UK, Canada, Australia, Poland and different allied international locations. It was constructed and run by the Luftwaffe as a safe place to carry folks they believed have been escape dangers. What they’d not carried out, nonetheless, was take into account the ramifications of trapping so many escape specialists in a single place.

The camp was constructed over sandy soil that was troublesome to tunnel by. This subsoil was additionally lighter and extra yellow than the darkish topsoil, making it apparent if any appeared on the bottom of the camp. Huts have been perched on brick legs to make tunnels down from them apparent. Brickhill describes in his guide a “double barbed wire fence nine-feet (2.75m) excessive”, simply exterior of which have been 15-ft (4.5m) excessive “goon-boxes” each 100 yards or so, manned by sentries with searchlights and machine-guns. Moreover, microphones have been buried within the floor across the wire in order that they may decide up the sounds of any tunnelling.

As you would possibly anticipate from a plan hatched by troopers, the tunnel-digging enterprise was run with army effectivity. Bushell – also called “Massive X” – was in cost, and delegated sure components of the organisation to different males. The planning started even earlier than Stalag Luft III was constructed: Bushell and others knew it was coming, and volunteered to assist construct it. Consequently, they have been capable of map it out and decide one of the best spots for a tunnel. Bushell had the concept they’d dig not one tunnel however three concurrently. The logic was that if the Germans discovered certainly one of them, they’d by no means suspect that there have been two others. They have been to be referred to solely by their codenames of Tom, Dick and Harry. Bushell threatened to court-martial anybody who even uttered the phrase “tunnel”.

The purpose was for 200 males to flee. This was a colossal enterprise. Every man wanted a set of civilian garments, solid passes, a compass, meals, and extra. Some passes wanted pictures, so a digital camera was smuggled in by a guard who had been bribed. Within the movie, Donald Pleasence’s character is accountable for the forgery. In actuality, Kenyon was one of many forgers who needed to counterfeit the hundreds of items of paperwork essential. Within the Nationwide interview, he recalled how they made it occur: “We made a printing press, for one factor, and every letter needed to be hand-carved out of rubber which we acquired from the cobbler – rubber heels – or bits of wooden minimize with razor blades.” Each doc needed to be good. They replicated passes and paperwork that they’d both stolen from the guards or persuaded the guards to point out them. “One thing like 7 or 8,000 items of paper have been produced,” he stated.

The tunnels themselves have been additionally miracles of engineering and ingenuity. An air pump was made with kit-bags and wooden, and air was pumped by a line manufactured from empty milk tins that had been despatched by the Crimson Cross. A serious subject was the dispersal of the soil that had been dug up, so luggage that hung inside trousers have been normal from lengthy underwear and used to drop the sand across the camp, the place it may very well be kicked into the bottom.

Of the three tunnels, Tom was found by the guards solely a short time earlier than it will have been accomplished. After a break, the choice was made to proceed solely with Harry. This tunnel was completed within the winter of 1943, and sealed up till circumstances have been appropriate for a breakout. That point lastly got here on the evening of 24 March 1944. Many issues went unsuitable, however finally, of the 220 folks chosen, 76 made it out earlier than the 77th was noticed by a guard.

An enormous operation was mobilised to recapture the 76. All of them knew that it was seemingly that they’d be caught, however many considered it as their obligation to try escape. One other purpose of the lads was to make the Germans pull assets from their warfare effort to protect and seek for them. In response to Brickhill, 5 million Germans have been concerned within the seek for the escaped prisoners. All however three of the 76 have been recaptured. Two managed to make it to Sweden, and one to Spain.

Hitler needed all 73 of the recaptured prisoners to be shot. These round him managed to speak him out of it – in spite of everything, the British held German prisoners of warfare, and wouldn’t take kindly to the bloodbath of their officers. Nonetheless, Hitler declared that fifty of them ought to die. Ken Rees, who was within the tunnel when it was found, recounted listening to that these murdered have been “taken out in twos and threes, and shot”, in a BBC Witness Historical past podcast in 2010.

Within the fictionalised model, the entire males are pushed to a area and shot by a machine-gun, however the actuality concerned extra deceitful measures. Brickhill’s guide notes that the lads have been taken in small teams within the course of the unique camp and shot on the way in which. He wrote, “The shootings will likely be defined by the truth that the recaptured officers have been shot whereas making an attempt to flee, or as a result of they provided resistance, in order that nothing could be proved later.” The entire our bodies have been cremated, and, as Overseas Secretary Anthony Eden identified in a parliamentary speech given in June 1944, the one cause for this may have been to cover the way of demise.

Bushell was one of many males caught and murdered. He died aged 33. Particulars of his demise got here out within the investigation afterwards: alongside along with his escape companion, he was shot within the again by Gestapo officers. His ashes have been returned to the camp with the remainder of the useless, however, in keeping with his niece, the casket was damaged when armies superior on the camp, and so, greater than 80 years later, he stays there.

Two of the lads who managed to keep away from execution have been Jimmy James and Sydney Dowse. In a 2012 documentary, Dowse gave his perspective as a survivor. “You reasonably marvel why the hell you your self weren’t shot. That is what Jimmy and I felt, anyway. Why we weren’t shot. We might have been. It was simply luck. And… fairly horrible.”

The execution of fifty prisoners of warfare prompted outrage within the UK. Eden stated in his speech to Parliament: “His Majesty’s Authorities should, due to this fact, file their solemn protest in opposition to these cold-blooded acts of butchery. They may by no means stop of their efforts to gather the proof to determine all these accountable. They’re firmly resolved that these foul criminals shall be tracked right down to the final man wherever they could take refuge. When the warfare is over they are going to be delivered to exemplary justice.” After the warfare, an enormous effort was put into investigating the killings. Consequently, the small print emerged, and 13 Gestapo officers have been hanged for his or her half within the executions.

It was solely six years after the escape, in 1950, that Brickhill printed his account of it, which was subsequently tailored into the well-known movie. When Charles Clarke was requested about his opinion of the Hollywood model of occasions, he stated, “With out the movie, who would bear in mind what a powerful achievement it was?”

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