Greatest Escapes WWII S01E03
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00:00In the shadows of history's darkest conflict, a flame of courage burned bright behind the walls and barbed wire of prisoner of war camps.
00:12Awe-inspiring tales of valor and resilience, as captured soldiers, sailors, and airmen dared the impossible to win their freedom.
00:22They dug tunnels, stole planes, forced their way through deadly jungles, and marched huge distances pursued by death squads.
00:34Some of these stories have become the stuff of legend, but many remain shrouded in mystery, even today.
00:43These are the greatest escapes of World War II.
00:52In this episode, forgotten by history, the German mass breakout that stopped wartime Britain.
01:10The astonishing secret behind the daring escape of an American bomber crew trapped in the Soviet Union.
01:18And the Trojan horse of Stalag Luft-3.
01:25Bridge End, a quiet market town in Wales.
01:40It isn't where you'd expect a dramatic breakout from a prisoner of war camp.
01:50But in March 1945, it's where the biggest German escape attempt of World War II takes place.
01:57The town of Bridge End is right on the South Wales coast, between Cardiff and Swansea.
02:12And it's a market town.
02:14So back in its day, it didn't have necessarily a big population.
02:18It's such an unlikely spot for such a mass breakout.
02:22You know, it's a very sleepy, tranquil Welsh countryside location.
02:27Built on the outskirts of town, Island Farm, as it was known, wasn't originally designed as a POW camp.
02:38The Ministry of Defence, early on the onset of war, decided to build one of the biggest factories in Great Britain.
02:46An ammunitions factory.
02:47And it had a workforce of 40,000 people.
02:50And originally, Island Farm was actually used as an accommodation for some of the women that worked at this factory.
02:58But they didn't want to be separated from their families late at night when they'd finished their shifts.
03:03So it ended up being abandoned.
03:05But then when we have D-Day, when we have the Normandy landings, and we have all of this fighting through towards German-occupied territory,
03:19there is this influx of German prisoners of war coming in.
03:25Rather than leaving them close to the front lines, where they could return back to the fight if they were successful in escaping,
03:33they will shift over to Great Britain.
03:34At its peak, Island Farm, or Camp 198, as it's officially called, houses 1,600 German prisoners.
03:52The town turns out to watch the first arrivals, mainly officers marching from Bridgen Station.
03:59One story in particular shows that you shouldn't be complacent, even during the transit of prisoners,
04:08because at the end of the day, the Germans had been very careful to observe their surroundings
04:13and try and see how they could use them to escape before they'd even got to Island Farm.
04:19Right at the start of the war, the Ministry of Defence had decided they were going to remove every single sign in Great Britain.
04:25But to these resourceful prisoners, that decision wouldn't matter.
04:32What did the Ministry of Defence forget to do?
04:35They forgot to take the maps down off the back walls of the railway carriages,
04:39the very railway carriages that had brought our prisoners to the camp.
04:45One of the men, with nothing to write on or draw on,
04:48he actually took the tails off his shirt and started to very carefully and surreptitiously trace the outline
04:54because he thought it could well be useful later on.
04:58The calibre of the prisoners at Island Farm was particularly high.
05:01These men were young, energetic, resourceful.
05:05They weren't hampered by any sort of class system.
05:08So they were keen to work together and to get out.
05:12As with Allied officers, German officers believe it's their duty to escape and return to the fight if they possibly can.
05:24It was understood that it was your patriotic duty to try to escape, to be of use to the war effort.
05:31If you want to look at their motivation, I think you've got to go back to this uber-patriotism.
05:36Now these people are the Nazi elite, and they are really dedicated Nazis.
05:42They would see nothing else as their goal but to escape and get back into the war, one way or another.
05:58The British camp authorities leave the prisoners almost entirely to themselves.
06:03Guards rarely enter the accommodation huts.
06:07And Island Farm becomes largely self-governing.
06:14For some of the officers incarcerated in the camp, they had lost their passion for the Nazi regime.
06:20They were starting to realise that it was an abject failure.
06:24But there was a very pro-Nazi atmosphere within the camp.
06:27All these Germans together, determined to fight back against the British.
06:32The Germans at Island Farm were disciplined, organised, and focused on picking their moment to exploit the relaxed attitudes of the camp authorities towards them.
06:46And they were determined to do that in the most spectacular way possible.
06:51And they were determined to do that in the most spectacular way possible.
06:55By 1945, the Island Farm camp at Bridgend was becoming overcrowded.
07:08Which only added to the difficulties the British authorities faced with trying to keep control.
07:17The minute the Germans got to Island Farm, they were already trying to brainstorm these ideas about how to get out.
07:27And some of them were incredibly bizarre.
07:29So, for instance, there was the idea of using electrical cables and trying to actually zipline out of the camp.
07:35But, of course, they were worried about getting electrocuted.
07:38So, this ended up being discarded quite quickly.
07:41There was talk of a hot air balloon.
07:43But, can you imagine the sheer size of a balloon that's strong enough to lift several Germans over a fence?
07:51You don't know which way the wind is going to blow on the night.
07:53And the other idea was these were fit, healthy young men.
07:57So, perhaps they could quite literally pole vault over the wire.
08:01But the issue was there were two layers of wire.
08:04It was quite wide.
08:05And it would take an Olympic athlete to be able to clear that.
08:08So, that one was put aside as well.
08:13So, they decide to go under, not over the fence.
08:17Prisoners with mining experience plan two tunnels.
08:21One of them, a decoy, intended to fool the British authorities.
08:29While the other would tunnel from Prison Hut 9 to a neighboring farmer's field.
08:38Tunnelling out of prisoner of war camps always presents huge challenges.
08:43But at Island Farm, there's a unique problem.
08:46There's two characteristics of the soil below ground here at Island Farm that's going to give the Germans a hard time.
08:54First one is the fact that the soil is very, very clay.
08:57So, it wouldn't disperse or disintegrate or dissolve in the toilet system.
09:01It would have blocked the drains up very, very quickly.
09:04And the other issue with the color of it, the soil being very orange below ground here.
09:09You can't disperse that type of colored soil above ground.
09:14The solution relied on a clever bit of home improvement.
09:19So, the Germans decided that they were going to hide the soil.
09:22So, there was a theater in the camp.
09:25They went to the theater and they got some of the hardboard from the back of the stage.
09:29And they managed to bring some of that hardboard back to the hut.
09:33And they made a false wall out of it.
09:37So, a big false cavity with a false vent in the top corner.
09:41And as the soil comes out, you squish the soil up into a clay ball and hide the soil in the cavity.
09:48The bunk beds are then rearranged.
09:50So that the guards hopefully won't notice that inside the hut, it suddenly got a lot smaller.
09:58As the tunnel gets longer, digging teams hit a new problem.
10:03Oxygen levels become too low for strenuous work.
10:11So, an ingenious ventilation system is created by the German engineers.
10:16Using pilfered milk cans and makeshift bellows to pump in fresh air.
10:21The Germans themselves were very cunning in some of the things they did.
10:28They re-ran the electrical cable from the main hut supply, the lighting supply, down the tunnel.
10:34So, their tunnel was floodlit.
10:36I think the guards didn't realize that the tunnel was going on because of all the ingenuity, the cover ploys that were used.
10:45They actually put on a theatre performance and it actually orchestrated it to a point where they would need to applaud really loudly and to create this rowdy scene in order to make sure that they're covering the noises.
10:56They put the toilets on continuous flush, so if the guards were listening, if they did have buried microphones, they couldn't hear.
11:05But it wasn't just theatre and performance that the German prisoners were using in order to distract the British guards.
11:13They were also using art in itself.
11:16And this was most notably seen when one of the German soldiers had actually painted a rather rude portrait of a lady, rather well-endowed lady.
11:25They put this painting up further towards the ceiling, because if the guards came in, they were going to look up at that, rather than to the tunnel below.
11:37So, the guards go into the room to do a room inspection and their eyes have automatically drawn away from the activity under the floor to the activity on the wall.
11:46When you are escaping, you are thinking about the psychology of the people you're escaping from.
11:52And of course that means how to allure them, how to distract them, all of that.
12:04The signs of an escape attempt were there to be seen, if only the guards were alert to them.
12:09But they're not.
12:13They never notice benches being stolen from the canteen.
12:18And beds being dismantled for the wood needed to reinforce the tunnel walls.
12:25They started taking off wood from their beds with that classic German precision of taking a little bit off each time on every bed,
12:33so that they all slightly drop at the same rate, and therefore they're all the same height.
12:38If you're doing a room inspection of 1,600 beds, you know, if the beds are concealed,
12:44and it might be the leg is against the wall, or hidden out of sight, that type of thing.
12:51In January 1945, the smaller decoy tunnel is found by the camp authorities.
12:59They congratulate themselves on the discovery, parading the German would-be escapees.
13:05And so don't go looking for the main escape tunnel, that's now only weeks away from being finished.
13:14It was incredibly hard to get together all the things that they would need once they had escaped.
13:20Food, for example, would need to be squirreled away, as Russians were given out on a daily basis, and saved somewhere.
13:27These men are really resourceful, they're really, you know, throwing everything at their escape.
13:36Late in the evening, on the 10th of March, 1945,
13:41the first of the 70 men in the escape party start crawling through the 9-metre tunnel
13:48that comes up just beyond the camp's perimeter fence.
13:58They split up and go in different directions,
14:01but all have the same goal,
14:03to make it back to Germany,
14:05where they'd be hailed as heroes.
14:07But getting safely through the tunnel is only the first step.
14:19Even as they try to melt away into the night,
14:22something happens, which no one expected.
14:25There was a chap by the name of Hermann Schallenberg,
14:30who was not part of the escape attempt.
14:32On the night of the escape, he saw the escape going on,
14:35and decided he was going to have a piece of the action,
14:37so he grabbed his kit bag,
14:39and dived down the tunnel before anybody could stop him.
14:42The unfortunate thing was the kit bag was white in colour,
14:45so as he exits the tunnel,
14:47the white kit bags shone in the moonlight,
14:50and one of the guards in the guard tower
14:51spots the kit bag moving,
14:53and shoots him.
14:55The alarm's raised,
15:03barely believing what's happened.
15:05Camp authorities at first think they've stopped the escape
15:08before it had time to get going.
15:14But they find prisoners in a nearby wood,
15:17and then start hearing from police who are capturing more,
15:20even further away.
15:23So the very next day,
15:25it's announced on the news,
15:27it's all over the wirelesses of South Wales.
15:30There was a real panic in the beginning,
15:32the 70 Germans on the run.
15:36With the war entering its crucial endgame,
15:39one of the biggest manhunts in UK history
15:42is launched to recapture the escaped Germans.
15:47Home guard,
15:48police were involved.
15:52Planes flying over South Wales.
15:54They started going to farms all in the area,
15:59searching people's barns and so forth.
16:08Four of the men immediately make a beeline for a car that's parked,
16:12and they've already fashioned an ignition key out of nails.
16:15They're ready to take it.
16:17They start pushing it down the road.
16:19They don't want to crack the engine.
16:20When some guards are coming the other way,
16:22they come into the camp to start their shift.
16:25But instead of trying to avoid them
16:29and just creating that sort of tense atmosphere
16:32as if they are in the wrong,
16:34they are very brazen.
16:36They go to the guards and they say,
16:37can you not give us a push?
16:41And they help to push them.
16:42They wave and they send them on their way.
16:45So they end up enlisting the help of the British Guards
16:49without them even knowing it.
17:00They try to make it to the Welsh capital city, Cardiff,
17:04around 30 kilometers away,
17:06but get lost.
17:10Then there's another problem.
17:12Unfortunately for them,
17:15the car is starting to sputter
17:17and it's starting to slow.
17:19And it turns out that they are running out of fuel.
17:22Now, they can't just nip over
17:24and try and get some fuel from a local depot.
17:26They are going to be caught if they're not careful.
17:29And as a result, they try and change strategy.
17:32One of the men amongst them is actually a Luftwaffe pilot,
17:36and he has the idea of trying to get to an aerodrome
17:38and finding an aircraft that the four men can go off in.
17:42So they hit on the idea of trying to get a train.
17:45And they try and go south.
17:47They know that there's plenty of aerodromes down there.
17:50The problem is, is that they end up going north
17:53and they end up going all the way to Birmingham.
17:55Having managed to make it over 150 kilometers
18:00from Farm Island to Birmingham,
18:03they find an aerodrome just outside the city.
18:08They'd already spotted a plane over the wire
18:10sitting on the end of a tarmac area,
18:13and he was all set.
18:14He was going to, at the right moment,
18:16was going to steal the plane
18:18and fly this plane to Southern Ireland.
18:20Daybreak was starting,
18:22so the Germans decided they were going to hide in a hedgerow.
18:25But the hedgerow they hid in belonged to a farmer,
18:28and his cows were in the field,
18:30and the cows mistook the four Germans hiding in the hedgerow
18:33as the farmhands surrounded around them.
18:36And the farmer's back in his field
18:38wondering why his cows aren't coming in for milking.
18:41He goes to investigate
18:42and finds these four Germans hiding in his hedgerow
18:44and apprehends him.
18:49The prisoners are caught
18:50before they can pull off their audacious plan.
18:56Another group of POWs makes it
18:58to the southern port city of Southampton.
19:04They'd stowed away on a freight train,
19:07using that hastily drawn sketch of the rail system.
19:10From the back of the POWs' shirt,
19:13when they'd first arrived at the prison camp.
19:18They're on the run for a week before they're caught
19:21and sent back to Island Farm.
19:27Considering the ingenuity
19:28that had been shown by the German prisoners,
19:30it is quite remarkable
19:31that in this really rural culture of Wales,
19:34the men were rounded up and recaptured very quickly.
19:38It seems strange
19:39that we haven't heard of the escape from Island Farm,
19:42that it is such an unknown
19:44when it comes to World War II mythology
19:46and the way that we remember the war.
19:50Perhaps it's because it's a German escape
19:52as opposed to an Allied escape,
19:54and therefore people are not keen to hear about it
19:57or to learn about it
19:58in the same way as something like
20:00The Great Escape or The Escapes from Kolditz.
20:03None of the escapees made it back to Germany.
20:09A week after the breakout,
20:12every one of them had been recaptured.
20:17And by the end of March 1945,
20:20all 1,600 German prisoners
20:22are shipped out of Island Farm
20:24to make way for a new,
20:27even more select group of Nazi prisoners.
20:33Island Farm now becomes Special Camp 11,
20:37home to the most senior
20:38Nazi military commanders and officials,
20:42awaiting trial at Nuremberg.
20:45Hutt No. 9 is now all that's left
20:50of the huge island farm camp.
20:54Scene of the least talked about
20:56mass breakout in the history of World War II.
21:03It's a massive story of part of Bridgen's history,
21:07part of Wales' history,
21:09and then part of Great Britain's history.
21:11It's the largest escape from a POW camp
21:14in Great Britain.
21:15It's on a par with the great escape from Germany,
21:18and yet Bridgen's story is very little known.
21:33Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
21:38Early on December 7, 1941.
21:41A day, history turns.
21:47Within a few minutes,
21:50there'll be the world's most astounding airstrike.
21:53The Imperial Japanese Navy's surprise attack
21:56on the American Pacific Fleet.
21:58That'll kill more than 2,400 people
22:14and catapult the United States
22:19into World War II.
22:20The effect was that it galvanized
22:25the American public.
22:26It unified them,
22:28put us on a war footing,
22:30and Americans were bent on revenge.
22:33They had been a neutral country
22:35up until this point,
22:36and all of a sudden,
22:37this attack gave them no choice
22:39but to come into the war,
22:41and they came in quite literally with a vengeance.
22:43They wanted to make it known
22:46that they were there to fight
22:47and to get their revenge on the Japanese.
22:50Since the unprovoked
22:53and dastardly attack
22:56by Japan,
22:58we will not only defend ourselves
23:01to the uttermost,
23:02but we'll make it very certain
23:05that this form of treachery
23:08shall never again endanger us.
23:13But this was 1941.
23:15They didn't have the means
23:16that they would have later in the war
23:18to bring the fight to Japan,
23:21and so the only thing they could do
23:22was come up with the risky,
23:24harebrained scheme
23:25that came to be known as the Doolittle Raid.
23:30Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle,
23:33a smart and daring Alaskan,
23:35is ordered to plan a revenge air raid
23:37on the Japanese home islands.
23:40It'll be a massive psychological blow.
23:46Without fighter escorts,
23:4916 stripped-down B-25 bombers,
23:51each with five men on board,
23:54will attack 10 military and industrial targets,
23:58two of which are in the capital, Tokyo.
24:01The Doolittle mission,
24:04as a strategic bombing raid,
24:06was a pinprick.
24:08It was more of a harassment mission
24:10than it was a damaging raid,
24:14but it electrified the American home front
24:17at a time when morale was extremely low.
24:20The dangerous mission hits a serious problem
24:24even before the planes take to the air.
24:28Heading towards Japan at top speed,
24:31the aircraft carrier with Doolittle's raiders on board,
24:35USS Hornet,
24:37is spotted by a Japanese patrol boat.
24:40Knowing Tokyo has been alerted,
24:43and any delay could spell disaster.
24:47Doolittle and his men take off immediately.
24:53But this means it's now going to be
24:55a much longer flight than planned,
24:58and that they may well run out of fuel
25:00before they can make it back to the Hornet.
25:03The men fly anyway.
25:04The attack is a spectacular success.
25:23They hit their targets,
25:25but then have to ditch into the sea
25:29or crash land in China.
25:31Most of the crews survive.
25:39But the 16th bomber,
25:41without enough fuel even to make it to China,
25:45lands on a remote airstrip
25:47at Promorsky Cry,
25:51in the far east of the Soviet Union.
25:58They didn't know it,
25:59but they'd flown into a massive new problem.
26:05The Russians found themselves in a real bind
26:07when this American aircraft landed on their soil,
26:11because even though the Russians and the Americans
26:13were allies in the war against Germany,
26:16the Russians had not yet declared war on Japan.
26:19It must be remembered
26:21that the Japanese had a huge army,
26:24the Kwantung army, 700,000 strong,
26:27in Manchuria,
26:28right up on the border with the Soviet Union.
26:30The last thing Joseph Stalin wanted to do
26:33was provoke the Japanese.
26:36So, what are they to do?
26:41Under international law,
26:43when combatants like these five airmen
26:45enter a neutral country,
26:47they must be interned until the end of the war.
26:50Technically, in this war against Japan,
26:54Russia was neutral,
26:56and so therefore they were obliged
26:57to simply hold on to the Americans
26:58to keep them safe and well.
27:02But the message from Washington, D.C. to Moscow
27:04is clear and unambiguous.
27:08Send our airmen back now.
27:10The Soviets don't want to keep the American crew,
27:18but they can't just let them go either.
27:26The Americans aren't badly treated,
27:29but the winter is bitterly cold,
27:32and rations are tight.
27:34From such a remote location,
27:41escape is impossible.
27:46The months drag by.
27:50Eventually,
27:52in March 1943,
27:56they're transferred to the city of Ashgabat,
27:59in Soviet Central Asia,
28:04near the border with Iran.
28:11Traveling to their new location,
28:13they bump into an extremely friendly
28:15and talkative,
28:17English-speaking Russian passenger
28:19named Kolia.
28:20They began conversations with him
28:25on the train.
28:26They were able to get his sympathy
28:29and his understanding,
28:30and eventually he agreed to work with them.
28:33He has connections.
28:34It seems that he will be able
28:36to move them around,
28:37and they start to form the idea
28:38that maybe they can escape
28:39from the Russians.
28:42Kolia stays in touch
28:43and slowly bonds with the Americans,
28:46who eventually asked for his help
28:51to escape.
28:54The plan was that they were going
28:55to be taken by truck
28:56to the Iranian border
28:59and then cross into Iran.
29:02This is something
29:02that was almost unheard of.
29:04This is the kind of thing
29:05that films are made of.
29:07It was an extraordinary plan
29:09they came up with
29:10to escape from Russian internment
29:12and eventually find their way
29:13back to America.
29:15They were going to need
29:15a lot of help
29:16to pull this off.
29:18Their friend Kolia
29:20introduces them to a smuggler,
29:22who, for a price,
29:25says he can get them all
29:26into British-occupied Iran.
29:37May the 10th, 1943.
29:43The smuggler hides
29:44the five Americans
29:45in the back of a truck
29:46for the 240-kilometer drive
29:49to the Soviet-Iranian border.
29:57Once they reach it,
29:59the driver orders them out
30:00and makes them crawl
30:02under a barbed wire fence
30:03across the border.
30:07They were able
30:08to slip under the fence.
30:09This had to have been
30:10a very nerve-wracking moment
30:13for them to approach
30:14the fence
30:14and face the possibility
30:17that they might be recaptured
30:19or perhaps even fired upon.
30:27As planned,
30:28another truck then takes them
30:30to the British consulate
30:31in the Iranian city of Merced
30:33before they're driven
30:35in secret to India.
30:40From there,
30:41they finally return,
30:44triumphant,
30:45to Washington, D.C.,
30:46400 days
30:49after they'd bombed Tokyo.
30:50It's a tremendous amount
30:57of area
30:57that they had to cover
30:58and it's just,
31:00it's unbelievable
31:00that they were actually
31:01able to make it all happen.
31:05The men have pulled off
31:07what seems to be
31:08one of the greatest escapes
31:09from the Soviet Union.
31:10It's almost,
31:13well,
31:14it is,
31:15too good to be true.
31:19The whole thing
31:20is a ruse.
31:22It's a,
31:22it's a set-up.
31:24The USSR
31:25are able
31:26to get out
31:27of the situation
31:28that they didn't want
31:29to find themselves in
31:30by essentially
31:31enabling the escape.
31:34Kolya
31:34was an agent
31:35of the NKVD,
31:37the forerunner
31:38of the KGB.
31:40He was a secret agent
31:43who was assigned
31:45to arrange
31:46the escape
31:47of American aviators.
31:50Their friend,
31:51Kolya,
31:52had arranged
31:53every single detail
31:54of their so-called escape.
31:57The border fencing
31:59had been put up
32:00for their benefit.
32:02The border guards
32:03turned a blind eye
32:04knowing full well
32:05that the Americans
32:06were there.
32:07The crucial element
32:08of this plan
32:09was that the Americans
32:10had to believe
32:11not only had they
32:12pulled off this escape,
32:13this miraculous escape
32:14themselves,
32:15but that it had been
32:16their idea from the start.
32:17So it was an incredibly
32:18elaborate ruse
32:20played on the Americans.
32:23It wasn't long
32:24before some of the airmen
32:25themselves became
32:26increasingly troubled
32:27about their own story.
32:28The plan was very complicated.
32:34It relied on everything
32:35going just right
32:36and it had come off
32:37without a hitch
32:38and I think they were
32:39suspicious
32:39that the Russians
32:41had made it easy
32:41for them.
32:45Decades later,
32:47the man they called
32:48Kolya
32:48admitted
32:49that the plan
32:50had been thought up
32:51by none other
32:52than Generalissimo
32:54Stalin himself.
33:01The secret agent
33:02had been ordered
33:03to make absolutely sure
33:04the Americans believed
33:06that they'd organized
33:07their own escape
33:08without any official
33:10assistance whatsoever.
33:11The greatest ever
33:15fake escape in history
33:17was so good
33:18that it would be used again.
33:26It became the blueprint
33:27technique for other
33:29American servicemen
33:30stuck in Russia
33:31during World War II.
33:41A POW camp in Silesia
33:52in German-occupied Poland.
33:57It's famous
33:58for the great escape.
34:00A mass breakout
34:01of Allied prisoners
34:02in March 1944.
34:05Immortalized in the film
34:06starring 1960s heartthrob
34:08Steve McQueen.
34:11But just five months
34:16earlier,
34:17another dramatic,
34:19not to say
34:19theatrical,
34:20escape attempt
34:21takes place
34:22at that same camp.
34:27And of all things,
34:29the most important prop
34:30is a humble,
34:32homemade gymnastics
34:33vaulting horse.
34:41summer 1943.
34:47The Allied officers
34:48at Stalag Luft III
34:49are constantly preoccupied
34:52with escape plans.
34:55They find it is good
34:56for morale
34:57and their sense
34:58of togetherness.
35:00They had this sort
35:02of stigma
35:02that came with
35:03being a prisoner of war
35:04and they wanted
35:05to change
35:06that kind of status
35:08if they could.
35:09so they were
35:10very much determined
35:11to try and plot
35:12and to escape
35:13as soon as possible
35:14and of course
35:15to use their ingenuity
35:16to try and outwit
35:18the guards.
35:21Canadian-born RAF
35:22Flight Lieutenant
35:23Oliver Philpott
35:24runs the camp's
35:25escape committee.
35:31Prisoners need
35:31to get their plan
35:32approved by his committee
35:33before any breakout
35:35attempt is made
35:36so scarce resources
35:39can be shared
35:40and to ensure
35:43it won't affect
35:43other plans
35:44already underway.
35:48Escape at
35:49Stalag Luft III
35:50is an extremely
35:52organized business.
35:57Two British officers,
36:00Flight Lieutenant
36:01Eric Williams
36:01and Lieutenant
36:03Michael Codner
36:04take a plan
36:06to Oliver Philpott.
36:10It'll require
36:11the construction
36:11of a gymnastics
36:12vaulting horse
36:13to disguise
36:15one of the most
36:16ingenious escape
36:17attempts
36:17ever conceived.
36:22One of the things
36:23that always fascinates
36:24me about these
36:25escape stories
36:25is the most
36:27ridiculous ideas
36:28are the ones
36:29that seem to work
36:30the most effectively.
36:31inspired by
36:34ancient Greece
36:35the prisoners
36:36set about
36:37building their
36:37very own
36:38Trojan horse
36:38World War II
36:40style.
36:44Plywood from
36:45Red Cross
36:46care packages
36:46is used
36:47to build
36:48the horse
36:48that'll be
36:50set up
36:50in the exercise
36:50yard
36:51close to
36:52the perimeter
36:53fence.
36:53It seems
36:58somewhat bizarre
36:59that some
37:00gymnastic apparatus
37:02could have been
37:03turned the way
37:04it was
37:04into something
37:05that would
37:06enable
37:06a huge
37:07escape attempt.
37:09So they build
37:10a wooden
37:11vaulting horse
37:11have men
37:12hidden away
37:13inside it
37:13who could
37:14begin tunnelling.
37:15A scheme
37:15that seems
37:16too ridiculous
37:16to actually work
37:17but it worked
37:18much more
37:18effectively
37:19than anyone
37:19could have
37:19imagined.
37:20The prisoners
37:24persuade the
37:25camp authorities
37:26that the horse
37:26will help them
37:27stay fit
37:27and occupied
37:28but there's
37:30also another
37:31purpose.
37:32It will in
37:33effect
37:33act as a
37:34manhole cover.
37:38They needed
37:39some means
37:40to dig a tunnel.
37:41It was very
37:42difficult to
37:43begin the
37:43construction of
37:44a tunnel
37:44and this
37:45provided the
37:46perfect solution.
37:47The men
37:48executed this
37:49plan with
37:49insane
37:50precision
37:51so they
37:51made sure
37:52at certain
37:52points to
37:53knock over
37:54the wooden
37:54horse to
37:55show that
37:55nothing was
37:56underneath it.
37:57It's almost
37:58like a
37:58magician's
37:59trick towards
38:00the German
38:00guards because
38:01it's almost
38:02a now you
38:02see it
38:03now you
38:03don't
38:03situation.
38:06Each day
38:07the horse
38:08is carried
38:09to the same
38:09spot in the
38:10exercise yard
38:11an unseen
38:13prisoner
38:13clinging
38:14to its
38:14underside.
38:18Once in
38:19position he
38:20removes a
38:21cover hiding
38:21them out
38:22of the
38:22tunnel.
38:26He drops
38:27down into
38:27it and
38:28after a few
38:29hours digging
38:29and bagging
38:30up soil
38:31waits for the
38:32horse to be
38:33carried out
38:33of the
38:34yard.
38:36The
38:36wooden horse
38:37was so
38:37successful
38:38because it
38:39was equally
38:39bizarre and
38:41brilliant and
38:42often the
38:42simple plans
38:43are the ones
38:43that work
38:44the best
38:44but it's
38:45also just
38:46hoping that
38:46there's a
38:47lack of
38:48imagination
38:48almost amongst
38:49the guards
38:50in order to
38:50make sure that
38:51you're out
38:52sinking them
38:52and that
38:53you're always
38:53ten steps
38:54ahead of
38:54them.
38:56At the same
38:57time fake
38:58identity documents
38:59are being made
39:00ready for the
39:01escape.
39:03Some people
39:04would consider
39:04the forgery of
39:05documents and
39:06creating stamps
39:07and uniforms as
39:08being a little bit
39:09dull but at the
39:10end of the day
39:11those details
39:11are so
39:12important because
39:13that bid for
39:15freedom is only
39:16part of it.
39:17You've got to
39:17sustain your
39:18journey.
39:20Once a
39:20prisoner is
39:20outside the
39:21camp they
39:22then have to
39:22flee.
39:23They have to
39:23blend in with
39:24the local
39:24people.
39:25They had to
39:25have clothing.
39:26They had to
39:26have food.
39:27They had to
39:28have forged
39:28documents in
39:29case they ran
39:30into German
39:30patrols.
39:33For three
39:34months Codner,
39:36Williams and
39:36Philpott dig
39:38until the
39:40tunnels finally
39:41ready.
39:43The fact that
39:44they were
39:45digging the
39:45tunnel using
39:46bowls and
39:47tins and
39:48that noise was
39:49being made
39:50above with
39:50the guys
39:51actually jumping
39:51over this
39:53piece of
39:53apparatus, this
39:54wooden horse,
39:55shows a huge,
39:56huge dedication
39:57to the fact that
39:58they were
39:58absolutely
39:59determined to
40:00escape from
40:00the camp.
40:01The amount
40:02of time,
40:03patience,
40:04commitment and
40:05dedication that
40:06it takes to
40:07be able to
40:07dig your way
40:08out with a
40:09bowl is
40:09insane.
40:11Many of the
40:12men would
40:12be malnourished
40:14to begin with.
40:14They probably
40:15wouldn't be in
40:15their best
40:16physical shape
40:16after having
40:17been in the
40:17camp for such
40:18a length of
40:18time.
40:19And now to
40:20have to
40:20construct the
40:21backbreaking
40:22work of
40:23digging a
40:23tunnel, it's
40:24really just
40:24extraordinary.
40:31October the
40:3229th, 1943, 6
40:36p.m., a
40:38completely moonless
40:43night.
40:50Unnoticed by
40:51guards, the
40:52three men slip
40:53into the
40:54tunnel.
41:01Once out
41:01beyond the
41:02perimeter fence,
41:03the men split
41:04up as they
41:05had prearranged.
41:05Philpott gets
41:12to Sargon
41:13railway station
41:13and heads
41:15to Frankfurt.
41:17He sleeps
41:18rough, using
41:19his fake
41:20identity papers
41:20while catching
41:22trains to
41:23Danzig.
41:27There he
41:27stows away on
41:28a ship,
41:30traveling across
41:30the Baltic to
41:32neutral Sweden.
41:40Eric Williams
41:41and Michael
41:41Kodner make
41:43their way through
41:43German-occupied
41:44Poland.
41:47They manage to
41:48hitch a ride on
41:49a boat, sail
41:50to Sweden, and
41:55reunite with
41:56Oliver Philpott at
41:57the British
41:57Embassy in
41:58Stockholm.
42:00It must have
42:01been a truly
42:02euphoric feeling
42:03because at the
42:04end of the day
42:05you've all come
42:06against the odds,
42:07you've all managed
42:07to survive, you're
42:08all on your way
42:09to freedom.
42:11To find your
42:12two comrades
42:13and all three of
42:14you reunited in
42:15the embassy must
42:15have just been an
42:17extraordinary feeling
42:18to all come
42:18together after this
42:20harrowing escape
42:20attempt and we
42:21can only imagine
42:23the elation that
42:23they felt at that
42:24moment.
42:29They return to
42:30England as
42:31heroes, the
42:33only men to
42:34successfully escape
42:35Starlog Luft
42:363's heavily
42:36secured east
42:37compound and
42:39make it home
42:40alive.
42:46Those who brave
42:48any danger for
42:48freedom had to be
42:50made of the right
42:51stuff.
42:52men with
42:56determination,
43:00nerves of steel
43:00and
43:03everything.