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 traditional movie, The Nice Escape. In 1977, a key member of the escape workforce, Ley Kenyon, was interviewed on the BBC’s Nationwide.

On a snowy moonless night time in 1944, greater than 200 allied officers tried to interrupt out of a German prisoner-of-war camp. It was the end result of an extremely formidable plan that entailed greater than a yr of bribes, tunnelling, and the assembly-line manufacturing of apparatus, 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 in regards to the breakout, is a much-loved traditional starring Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough and James Garner. Nevertheless it comprises 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 advised by Paul Brickhill, one of many individuals who helped with the escape try, in his 1950 e-book, The Nice Escape. He describes Ley Kenyon, who illustrated the e-book, because the mission’s “star counterfeiter”. Discussing the movie with Dilys Morgan on the BBC’s Nationwide in 1977, Kenyon mentioned: “It was good leisure, however it actually did not categorical the actual horror of being a prisoner of battle, the horror being, in fact, 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, advised the BBC in a 2019 radio interview: “Even in spite of everything these years, I’ve at all times thought what a outstanding 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 had been modified, and numerous individuals had been mixed into composite characters. On the time of the escape, no Individuals remained within the compound, and the person who was mentioned 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 powerful 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 pressure officers from the UK, Canada, Australia, Poland and different allied nations. It was constructed and run by the Luftwaffe as a safe place to carry individuals they believed had been escape dangers. What that they had not performed, nevertheless, 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 had been perched on brick legs to make tunnels down from them apparent. Brickhill describes in his e-book a “double barbed wire fence nine-feet (2.75m) excessive”, simply outdoors of which had been 15-ft (4.5m) excessive “goon-boxes” each 100 yards or so, manned by sentries with searchlights and machine-guns. Moreover, microphones had been buried within the floor across the wire in order that they might choose 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 referred to as “Huge X” – was in cost, and delegated sure elements 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. In consequence, they had been in a position to map it out and choose the perfect spots for a tunnel. Bushell had the concept that they’d dig not one tunnel however three concurrently. The logic was that if the Germans discovered one in every of them, they’d by no means suspect that there have been two others. They had 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 goal was for 200 males to flee. This was a colossal endeavor. Every man wanted a set of civilian garments, cast 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 1000’s of items of paperwork mandatory. 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 that they had both stolen from the guards or persuaded the guards to point out them. “One thing like 7 or 8,000 items of paper had been produced,” he mentioned.

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

Of the three tunnels, Tom was found by the guards solely a short time earlier than it could 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 had been appropriate for a breakout. That point lastly got here on the night time of 24 March 1944. Many issues went flawed, however finally, of the 220 individuals 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 possible that they’d be caught, however many seen it as their obligation to try escape. One other aim of the boys was to make the Germans pull sources from their battle effort to protect and seek for them. In line with Brickhill, 5 million Germans had been concerned within the seek for the escaped prisoners. All however three of the 76 had been recaptured. Two managed to make it to Sweden, and one to Spain.

Hitler wished 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 battle, 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 had 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 subject and shot by a machine-gun, however the actuality concerned extra deceitful measures. Brickhill’s e-book notes that the boys had been taken in small teams within the route of the unique camp and shot on the way in which. He wrote, “The shootings will probably be defined by the truth that the recaptured officers had been shot whereas making an attempt to flee, or as a result of they supplied resistance, in order that nothing will be proved later.” All the our bodies had been cremated, and, as International Secretary Anthony Eden identified in a parliamentary speech given in June 1944, the one cause for this might have been to cover the way of dying.

Bushell was one of many males caught and murdered. He died aged 33. Particulars of his dying got here out within the investigation afterwards: alongside along with his escape associate, he was shot within the again by Gestapo officers. His ashes had been returned to the camp with the remainder of the useless, however, in accordance 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 boys who managed to keep away from execution had been Jimmy James and Sydney Dowse. In a 2012 documentary, Dowse gave his perspective as a survivor. “You moderately 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 battle brought about outrage within the UK. Eden mentioned in his speech to Parliament: “His Majesty’s Authorities should, subsequently, file their solemn protest in opposition to these cold-blooded acts of butchery. They are going to by no means stop of their efforts to gather the proof to establish all these accountable. They’re firmly resolved that these foul criminals shall be tracked all the way down to the final man wherever they might take refuge. When the battle is over they are going to be delivered to exemplary justice.” After the battle, an enormous effort was put into investigating the killings. In consequence, the main points emerged, and 13 Gestapo officers had been hanged for his or her half within the executions.

It was solely six years after the escape, in 1950, that Brickhill revealed 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 mentioned, “With out the movie, who would keep in mind what a powerful achievement it was?”

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