The True Story of the Great Escape: Stalag Luft III, March 1944

Written by Jonathan F. Vance and Simon Pearson

Narrated by Paul Woodson

The real history behind the classic war movie and the men who plotted the daring escape from a Nazi POW camp.



Between dusk and dawn on the night of March 24th-25th 1944, a small army of Allied soldiers crawled through tunnels in Germany in a covert operation the likes of which the Third Reich had never seen. The prison break from Stalag Luft III in eastern Germany was the largest of its kind in the Second World War. Seventy-nine Allied soldiers and airmen made it outside the wire—but only three made it outside Nazi Germany. Fifty were executed by the Gestapo.



In this book Jonathan Vance tells the incredible story that was made famous by the 1963 film The Great Escape. It is a classic tale of prisoners and their wardens in a battle of wits and wills. The brilliantly conceived escape plan is overshadowed only by the colorful, daring (and sometimes very funny) crew who executed it—literally under the noses of German guards. From the men's first days in Stalag Luft III and the forming of bonds among them, to the tunnel building, amazing escape, and eventual capture, Vance's history is a vivid, compelling look at one of the greatest "exfiltration" missions of all time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Dec 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781666146646

Jonathan F. Vance

Jonathan F. Vance is a native of Waterdown, Ontario, and the author of many books, including award-winners Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War (1997), Unlikely Soldiers: How Two Canadians Fought the Secret War Against Nazi Occupation (2008), and A History of Canadian Culture (2009).

Reviews for The True Story of the Great Escape

[drmaf-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Inspiring and tragic story of the escape that inspired the Hollywood epic The Great Escape. In March 1944, 76 men escaped through a tunnel named Harry from the main POW camp run by the Luftwaffe, Stalag Luft III, near Sagan, now in Poland. The mass escape caused panic in Germany, and literally thousands of police and troops were diverted to recapture the escapees, of whom all but three were caught. Hitler, infuriated by the escape, ordered all of them to be shot, but his underlings, terrified of the repercussions for German prisoners in Allied hands, managed to get the number of executions reduced to 50. And so 50 Allied servicemen, from Britain, France, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Norway, Belgium, Greece and Lithuania, were loaded into cars by the Gestapo taken to isolated places and shot. The executions caused outrage among the Allies, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden vowed revenge upon the killers, and revulsion and anger swept through the Allied countries. A special unit of the RAF was assigned to bring justice to the killers. Eventually 21 of those responsible were hanged and 17 imprisoned. This is a great book which not only covers the meticulous planning of the escape and the ingenious ways the POWs fooled their captors, but gives a humorous and sometimes wistful account of life behind barbed wire. Although the result of the escape was eventually horrendously tragic, the author gives a wonderful account of brave men so determined to escape and rejoin the war effort that they were prepared to risk the ultimate penalty to do so. And so they died unbowed and defiant to the end.

In memory of The Fifty.