Stark reminder of how famed film fable was airbrushed propaganda
‘Awful though incarceration was, we are reminded people could still thrive in their privations’
By Alexander Larman
EVER since 1963’s seminal (and historically dubious) film The Great Escape, complete with Steve Mcqueen performing near-impossible feats of derring-do, there has been a tendency to view prisoner-of-war escape attempts in the Second World War as something exhilarating and heroic. This was supported by the stiff-upperlip terminology around these actions – “a home run to Blighty” – as well as countless films and books that detailed successful attempts by those who managed to flee and returned to a hero’s welcome in Britain.
The National Archives’ fascinating new exhibition Great Escapes is a stark reminder that this propaganda was an airbrushed attempt to boost morale. Needless to say, most prisoners of war didn’t escape and suffered from inadequate rations, boredom and frustration – and, for those unfortunate enough to be quartered in the notorious Changi Prison in Singapore, considerably worse conditions.
The exhibition tells the stories of a variety of men and women, wellknown and obscure. PG Wodehouse, interned in a French POW camp in 1940-41, is a familiar presence, and although the heroic story of the British officer Airey Neave, who escaped Colditz Castle, remains stirring, there are far more unusual figures. Few have heard of Patrick Nelson, a Jamaican POW who was the artist Duncan Grant’s lover, but he is given his due here, and Ralph Goodwin’s escape from Sham Shui Po Camp in 1944 offers proof prisoners in the Far East could draw upon reserves of courage to flee.
Where Great Escapes is at its most revelatory is in the admirably comprehensive depiction of imprisonment that people of all nations faced. The story of Margarete Klopfleisch, a German art student who arrived in Britain as a refugee in 1939, only to be interned on the Isle of Man while her husband, Peter, was deported to Australia, shows the British were also capable of unfair behaviour. Klopfleisch suffered a miscarriage, and subsequently created a heartbreakingly poignant sculpture titled Despair. But there are lighter moments in this show. Awful though incarceration was, we are reminded people could still thrive in their privations. One of those was the future Carry On actor Peter Butterworth, who helped organise the real-life Great Escape from Stalag Luft III. Forming a double act with his future screenwriter Talbot Rothwell, their singing and comic stylings hid the sound of escape tunnels being dug under the camp.
Letters show how Butterworth also managed to send coded information to MI9, a government agency that aimed to assist military personnel in escape attempts. The display of MI9 artefacts are proper James Bond stuff, with gadgetry including playing cards with concealed maps, and a hairbrush with a blade, showing a rare kind of ingenuity. War may have been hell, but as this display reminds us, it could also bring out the very best in people.