The true story of one of the most heroic feats of World War II...the daring prison camp breakout that inspired the classic film The Great Escape. Stalag Luft III was one of the Germans' "escape-proof" prison camps, specially built by Hermann Göring to hold Allied troops. But on March 24, 1944, in a courageous attempt by two hundred prisoners to break out through a series of tunnels, seventy-six Allied officers managed to evade capture—and create havoc behind enemy lines in the months before the Normandy Invasion. This is the incredible story of these brave men who broke free from the supposedly impenetrable barbed wire and watchtowers of Stalag Luft III—and who played an important role in Allied intelligence operations within occupied Europe. The prisoners developed an intricate espionage network, relaying details of military deployment, bombings, and raids. Some of them were involved in other daring escape attempts, including the famous Wooden Horse episode, also turned into a classic film, and the little-known Sachsenhausen breakout, engineered by five Great Escapers sent to die in the notorious concentration camp on Hitler's personal orders. Tragically, fifty of those involved in the Great Escape were murdered by the Gestapo. Others were recaptured; only a few made it all the way to freedom. This dramatic account of personal heroism is a testament to their ingenuity and achievement—a stirring tribute to the men who never gave up fighting. Includes eight pages of photographs and illustrations, excerpts from Göring's testimony during postwar investigations, and a list of the men who escaped.

I am one of those lucky ones who survived the war, and I can remember my emotional experiences, and those of my friends, as if they had happened yesterday. For many of us the horror, the injustice, and the cruelty can never be forgotten or forgiven; but I have tried to write without too much bitterness - Bob van der Stok On the night of 24th March 1944, Bob van der Stok was number 18 of 76 men who crawled beyond the barbed wire fence of Stalag Luft III in Zagan, Poland. The 1963 film, The Great Escape, was largely based on this autobiography but - with van der Stok's agreement -filmmakers chose to turn his story into an Australian character name Sedgewick, played by James Coburn. His memoir sets down his wartime adventures before being incarcerated in Stalag Luft III and then - with extraordinary detail - describes various escape attempts which culminated with the famous March breakout. After escaping Bram van der Stok roamed Europe for weeks, passing through Leipzig, Utrecht, Brussels, Paris, Dijon and Madrid, before making it back to England. He reported to the Air Ministry and two months after escaping, on 30 May 1944 he returned to the British no.91 Squadron. In the following months he flew almost every day to France escorting bombers and knocking down V1 rockets. In August 1944 he finally returned to his home. He learned that his two brothers were killed in concentration camps after being arrested for resistance work. His father had been tortured and blinded by the Gestapo during interrogation. He had never betrayed his son.

A thrilling, first-person account of one of the most famous prison escapes of World War II. Jens Müller was one of only three men who successfully escaped from Stalag Luft III on the night of March 24, 1944—the breakout that later became the basis for the famous film The Great Escape. His memoir tells how Müller, a pilot in one of the RAF’s Norwegian squadrons, was shot down by the Luftwaffe over the English Channel in June 1942. After some days at sea in his Spitfire’s life raft, he made it to land in Belgium but was soon captured by the occupying Germans and sent as a prisoner of war to Stalag Luft III (in what is now Zagan, Poland). Müller vividly describes life in the camp, how the escapes were planned, and relates the compelling story of his personal breakout. Together with Per Bergsland, he managed to make it to the coast and stowed away on a ship to Gothenburg, Sweden. The two men eventually reached RAF Leuchars base in Scotland.

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. “Shows the variety and depth of the men sent into harm’s way during World War II, something emphasized by the population of Stalag Luft III. Most of the Allied POWs were flyers, with all the technical, tactical and planning skills that profession requires. Such men are independent thinkers, craving open air and wide-open spaces, which meant that an obsession with escape was almost inevitable.” —John D. Gresham

In early 1942 the Third Reich opened a maximum security prisoner-of-war camp in Lower Silesia for captured Allied airmen. Called Stalag Luft III, the camp soon came to contain some of the most inventive escapers ever known.The escapers were led by Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, codenamed 'Big X'. In March 1944, Bushell masterminded an attempt to smuggle hundreds of POWs down a tunnel built right under the noses of their guards. In fact, 76 Allied airmen clambered into the tunnel and only three made successful escapes.This remarkable breakout would be immortalized in the famous Hollywood film The Great Escape, in which the bravery of the men was rightly celebrated. Behind the scenes photographs from the film are included in this definitive pictorial work on the most famous POW camp of World War II.

"Quickly, I climbed up to the surface and immediately found the rope… I felt no signal, so it was not safe yet. Then I felt three distinct tugs and slowly popped my head up. The nearest 'Goonbox' was at least 200 feet away; but, indeed, I was twenty feet from the edge of the woods.” - Bram Vanderstok "A born raconteur. His escapes, his operations as a Spitfire pilot, his experiences as a prisoner of war, and his incredible escape crossing the Pyrenees - all are described in a breathtaking manner which made me read his book through in one sitting' - Prof. Dr. L de Jong, Founder/Director of the Dutch Institute for War Documentation “Such a modest man, such a dramatic story – you’ll be pulled into this absorbing account” - Jonathan Vance, The True Story of the Great Escape On the night of 24 March 1944, Bram Vanderstok was number 18 of 76 men who crawled beyond the barbed wire fence of Stalag Luft III in Zagan, Poland. The 1963 film The Great Escape, was largely based on this autobiography but - with Vanderstok's agreement - filmmakers chose to turn his story into an Australian character name Sedgwick, played by James Coburn.His memoir sets down his wartime adventures before being incarcerated in Stalag Luft III and then in extraordinary detail describes various escape attempts which culminated with the famous March breakout. After escaping, Vanderstok roamed Europe for weeks, passing through Leipzig, Utrecht, Brussels, Paris, Dijon and Madrid, before making it back to England. He reported to the Air Ministry and two months after escaping, on 30 May 1944 he returned to the British no.91 Squadron. In the following months he flew almost every day to France escorting bombers and knocking down V1 rockets.In August 1944 he finally returned to his home. He learned that his two brothers had been killed in concentration camps after being arrested for resistance work. His father had been tortured and blinded by the Gestapo during interrogation. He had never betrayed his son.

During World War II, 300,000 United States Army Air Corps airmen were shot down. Of that number, 51,000 were prisoners of war or listed as missing in action. Bombardiers, positioned in the vulnerable bombardiers compartment at the front of the aircraft, were in high demand. The authors fathers were two such bombardiers, one on a B-17 and the other on a B-24. Like so many of the post-war generation, the authors traveled on their own emotional journeys to reconstruct their fathers WWII experiences. Their fathers fought in the flak-ridden blue battlefield, and like thousands of other airmen shot out of the sky, became prisoners of war. They would endure deprivation, loneliness, and great peril. Held at Stalag Luft III, where the Great Escape of movie fame took place, they, along with the British, were eventually force marched 52-miles in the dead of winter to Spremberg, Germany, and loaded onto overcrowded, filthy, boxcars, the Americans to be taken to Stalag VIIA in Moosburg, Germany, or to Stalag XIII-D in N rnberg. Languishing until their liberation in barbaric conditions with nearly 120,000 international POWs, they witnessed the death throes of the Third Reich. With many sons and daughters trying to explore the wartime histories of their loved ones, the authors supply crucial information and insight regarding the World War II POW experience in Europe. Often times, by necessity, that experience reflects the co-existence and tenuous relationship with the Germans holding them. In this book, there are stories that up until now have not been heard, and there are hundreds of pictures, many previously unseen, illustrating the prisoners plight. This book is a documentation of riveting history and a chance to vicariously live the war, told through their voices --echoes now fading with time. Their sacrifices to ensure precious freedom should never be forgotten.

In the summer of 1944 the Red Army crushed Army Group Centre in one of the largest offensives in military history. Operation Bagration - launched almost exactly three years after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union - was Stalin's retribution for Hitler's Operation Barbarossa. Earlier battles at Stalingrad and Kursk paved the way for Soviet victory, but as Anthony Tucker-Jones demonstrates in this fascinating study, Bagration ensured that the Germans would never regain the strategic initiative. In one fell swoop the Wehrmacht lost a quarter of its strength on the Eastern Front. And in a series of overwhelming assaults, the Red Army recaptured practically all the territory the Soviet Union had lost in 1941, advanced into East Prussia and reached the outskirts of Warsaw. As he reconstructs this massive and complex battle, Anthony Tucker-Jones assesses the opposing forces and their commanders and gives a vivid insight into the planning and decision-making at the highest level. He recreates the experience of the soldiers on the battlefield by using graphic contemporary accounts, and he sets the Bagration offensive in the wider context of the Soviet war effort. He also asks why Stalin's road to retribution proved to be such a long and bloody one - for the Germans, despite their crippling losses, managed to resist for another ten months.

General A.P. Clark shares how he created an elaborate escape organization while serving as a senior ranking officer at Stalag Luft III, a German prisoner of war camp, during World War II.

The famous story of mass escape from a WWII German PoW camp that inspired the classic film. One of the most famous true stories from the last war, The GREAT ESCAPE tells how more than six hundred men in a German prisoner-of-war camp worked together to achieve an extraordinary break-out. Every night for a year they dug tunnels, and those who weren't digging forged passports, drew maps, faked weapons and tailored German uniforms and civilian clothes to wear once they had escaped. All of this was conducted under the very noses of their prison guards. When the right night came, the actual escape itself was timed to the split second - but of course, not everything went according to plan...