WARSAW, Poland (AP) – The 80th anniversary of the “Great Escape,” an elaborate act of defiance in which 76 prisoners of war tunneled their way out of German captivity during World War II, will be commemorated Sunday. The ceremony was held in Poland. A war camp in a snowy forest.
The ceremony was attended by the British ambassador to Poland, and in the culmination of ceremonies that continued throughout the weekend, British soldiers held up photographs of pilots killed on Hitler’s orders.
During World War II, Nazi prisoner of war camps housed captured Allied air force personnel, including British, American, and Polish soldiers, and British airmen led the escape operations. At the time, the region was part of Germany, but today it is located in western Poland.
British soldiers pay tribute to Allied POWs who escaped through a tunnel from a German POW camp during World War II in Zagan, Poland, Sunday, March 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Jan・Mazur)
Sunday’s ceremony also included a Polish Air Force Hercules C-130 transport plane and four F-16 fighter jets that flew over the town of Zagan and the ceremony site, according to Polish media reports.
On the night of March 24, 1944, most of the soldiers who escaped from Stalag Luft III met a tragic end. Only three people made it out safely. The rest were recaptured and 50 of them were executed.
British soldiers pay tribute to Allied POWs who escaped through a tunnel from a German POW camp during World War II in Zagan, Poland, Sunday, March 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Jan・Mazur)
Although the plan largely failed, it became known as “The Great Escape” and was celebrated and heavily fictionalized in the 1963 film starring Steve McQueen.
The escape was recently featured in an episode of Apple TV+’s American war drama miniseries Masters of the Air.
A new exhibition at the British National Archives in London also pays tribute to the fugitives.
Royal Air Force officer captured on Stalag Luft 3 in 1944. It was here that 76 prisoners of war escaped in search of freedom and became the inspiration for the war film The Great Escape. (Photo courtesy of Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The prisoners spent a year secretly digging three tunnels named Tom, Dick, and Harry. The Germans discovered the first tunnel, but the other two of his remained intact.
The plan was to have 200 people escape through Harry’s tunnel, but on the night of the escape, the first men to emerge discovered that the tunnel did not extend as far beyond the power lines as they had expected. Only 76 people were able to escape before guards noticed footprints in the snow.
Only three people, two Norwegian pilots and one Dutch pilot, succeeded in escaping.
In 1944, captured Royal Air Force officers from Stalag Luft 3 laid the foundations for a new cabin. It was from here that 76 prisoners of war escaped in search of freedom, forming the inspiration for the war film The Great Escape. (Photo courtesy of Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Adolf Hitler, enraged by the escape, ordered the execution of 73 of the recaptured people, and the Nazis eventually settled on killing 50, all in violation of the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
After the war, the murders of Allied airmen were carried out as part of the Nuremberg trials, which resulted in several Gestapo agents being sentenced to death.
