THE NOT SO GREAT ESCAPE
Undoubtedly courageous. Certainly ambitious. But was the mass breakout from Stalag Luft III 80 years ago this weekend really worth the lives of the 50 Allied PoWs murdered by the Gestapo? GUY WALTERS unpicks the legend and argues the breakout was poorly-planned, counter-productive and served in large part as an ego trip for the ‘alpha male’ officer behind it
AS THE men emerged from the tunnel, the first thing they noticed was the cold. The temperature was below freezing and a thick layer of snow lay on the ground. Silently and nervously, each escapee waited for the two tugs on the guide rope to signal it was safe to leave. Just 50ft away was a watchtower – but, thankfully, its occupant’s full attention was on the prisoner of war camp from which the men had tunnelled.
When the rope was tugged, the men hauled themselves out of the tunnel and scurried to the woods. There, they reassembled in small groups to try to look like teams of workmen. Then they made their way across the countryside to try to find a railway station. A few decided to go it alone, reckoning it would make them less conspicuous.
As they tramped through the snow – their worn boots and thin trousers hopelessly ineffective – they probably longed for the warmth of their bunk beds in the barrack huts. Nevertheless, the Allied airmen were encouraged by the fact they were taking part in what they hoped would be the greatest British-led mass escape from a German PoW camp.
But at around 5am, as dawn was breaking, a patrolling guard stopped in his tracks .A small cloud of condensation rising from a hole in the ground had caught his eye. He cautiously investigated and saw the tell-tale footprints. And then he saw a man lying on the ground.
The guard let off a round into the air and within seconds, his shooting and shouting was answered by his colleagues. Soon, four men discovered near the tunnel were frogmarched back to camp. They could not know it, but they would be the lucky ones.
By the middle of the morning, the Germans completed their headcount. Seventy-six had escaped – which did, indeed, make it the biggest British-led breakout of the war.
What would become known as the Great Escape was now on.
Thanks to the eponymous 1963 film, what happened next is well known – or, at least, we think it is.
This weekend marks the 80th anniversary of the escape, and because of the movie, most assume the story is a straightforward tale of murderous Nazis and British derring-do.
Although I knew – like most, I suspect – there was no such thing as the motorbike chase which featured Steve McQueen, I nevertheless thought it was, as Hollywood movies go, pretty close to the truth.
WHEN I started working on my book, The Real Great Escape, I dug into the archives and listened to interviews with former PoWs. I began to realise that the Great Escape was not that great at all. In fact, far from being a source of national pride, it should be seen as largely a failure. Although the bravery and ingenuity of the men is rightly celebrated, they were misguided in their reasons for acting.
Furthermore, they were warned that by mounting a mass escape, they risked being shot – which is eventually what happened to 50 of them, on Hitler’s orders. In short, the Great Escape was almost a suicide mission and it had no value to the war effort whatsoever. To make matters worse, it actually helped the Germans.
To get the bottom of why the Great Escape was not so great, one has to look at the man who led it – Squadron Leader Roger Bushell (Richard Attenborough’s Roger Bartlett was based on him in the film). At the time of the breakout in March 1944, Bushell was 33, which made him an old man in PoW terms. Shot down in a Spitfire on his first day of combat, he’d been a prisoner for nearly four years.
Twice before, he had managed to escape, but a “home run” had eluded Bushell.
As a graduate of Cambridge, daredevil skier who had competed for Britain, combative barrister and wealthy man, he was very much what we today call an alpha male. He was certainly not among the estimated two-thirds of Allied PoWs who never took part in escape activities. Many of these didn’t think they had what it took or were simply content to sit out the war in safety behind the barbed wire. Most had survived near-death experiences and the idea of getting back into a Lancaster bomber did not appeal.
But when Bushell arrived at Stalag Luft III in September 1942, he was determined to hit back hard at the Germans, who were reputed to have tortured him when he was recaptured following his last escape.
His plan was to construct three tunnels and proceed on the assumption that if the Germans discovered one, they would not suspect a second – and if they did find a second, they would never suspect a third.
From Bushell’s arrival to when the tunnel used for the breakout was completed (it was dubbed “Harry”), a whole industry was set up to provide essential kit such as false papers and civilian clothes, which were modified from RAF uniforms with varying degrees of success. Despite all the preparations and ingenuity, though, it seems nobody stopped to ask Bushell why the escape was really taking place. Privately, some PoWs had doubts, with one calling it an “act of military madness” that served no purpose other than to satisfy Bushell’s ego.
After all, by the time the escape took place, the PoWs knew the Allies were on the front foot. There was no point in the PoWs risking their lives, with the war so clearly going Britain’s way. Even the Germans thought the escape was a “silly idea” – but for different reasons.
The guards would often tell the PoWs that if they mounted a mass breakout, all the forces available in the Reich would be put on full alert, thus making it much harder for the escapees to make their way home.
One German officer even told the PoWs they would be better off escaping in small groups, as that would avoid a general alert. Furthermore, a gen
‘A power cut didn’t help, nor did the fact it took two hours to open the exit trapdoor, swollen with damp’
eral alert would be counter-productive for the Allies. When 43 Allied PoWs had tunnelled out of another camp in 1943, the ensuing search netted not only all the escapers, but a staggering 14,000 other escaping PoWs, foreign workers and convicts.
By mounting a great escape, Bushell would be placing at risk every enemy of the Nazis who was on the run.
There was another, more sinister reason why the Germans warned the PoWs against a mass escape. Throughout 1943, as the British and US bombing campaign wreaked havoc on German cities, downed Allied airmen were often lynched by angry mobs. The Nazis decreed that escaping PoWs could expect to be shot and, although these orders exempted Americans and Britons, a provision was made that escapees of these nationalities could be handed over to the Gestapo. Everybody knew what that might entail. The Germans repeatedly warned Bushell and his fellow officers that they would be risking the ire of the Gestapo if they attempted an escape and if they did, “it would be their last”.
But with preparations so far advanced, and believing the Germans were bluffing, Bushell decided to press on.
The escape happened on the night of March 24, 1944 – and from the very start it was beset with problems.
A few of the men suffered claustrophobia attacks in the tunnel, while others forgot to pull through their fellow escapers, using special trolleys. A power cut did not help, nor did the fact that it took two hours to open the exit trapdoor because it had swollen with damp. And, infamously, the tunnel fell short of its intended target – the woods – which meant the PoWs had to emerge into the open.
Of the 76 men who managed to get away, nearly all were recaptured within 48 hours. The general alert had performed its function very well, aided by the harsh weather that meant some escapers had to seek refuge in obvious places such as barns, where they were quickly found. Not only that, but many of the forged papers also contained mistakes, and they were also frequently rumbled by their less-than-convincing “civilian” clothes.
BUSHELL was captured on the afternoon of March 26 with his French escape partner Bernard Scheidhauer at Saarbrücken railway station on the FrenchGerman border, 450 miles from the camp. Although his papers were at fault, it is also likely he inadvertently replied in English to a question put to him by a policeman – a mistake ascribed to his companion (Gordon Jackson’s Andy MacDonald) in the film.
Bushell and Scheidhauer were delivered into the hands of the Gestapo, who said they’d drive them back to the PoW camp.
However, on the way, the two men were ordered out of the car for a rest stop. As they urinated next to some trees, they were shot in the back of the head by two Gestapo officers. According to one account, Bushell writhed on the floor and had to be shot again. In total, 50 of the escapees were killed all over the Reich. Although the crime did not merit the punishment (the shootings were pure murder), it cannot be said Bushell and his men were not warned. Of course, risks must be taken in war, but they need to be taken for a good reason.
There was no really good reason for the Great Escape, other than an admirable but illconceived idea to “do one’s bit”. And the idea that a mass breakout would open a third front inside the Reich was pure fantasy, as mass escapes did not divert any resources from the war effort.
The tally was grim. For the price of 50 lives just three men – a Dutchman and two Norwegians – made it to Britain. As one former Stalag Luft III PoW told me: “I sometimes think it wasn’t worth it. Fifty men’s lives it cost to tie up those Germans. Inevitably, they would have lost the war – and 50 people would have been alive today.”