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89 Tom Fordy Mon, June 19, 2023 at 8:02 AM CDT Steve McQueen in The Great Escape Steve McQueen in The Great Escape - Alamy In the opening minutes of The Great Escape, “the Kommandant” (Hannes Messemer) of the Stalag Luft III prisoner-of-war camp warns Captain Ramsey (James Donald) against trying to escape. Ramsey’s rabble of captured Allied airmen are prolific, well-known escapers – but the Kommandant wants a quiet life. Ramsey, however, is having none of it. As the senior British POW, he tells the Kommandant straight: “It is the sworn duty of all officers to try to escape.”...

This column was prompted by readers of last week's. As you'll recall, we marked the centenary of Donald Pleasence by celebrating his definitive cinematic Blofeld. That of course prompted some comment about his other roles. Chris Hall, everyone's favorite Macedonian Content Farmer, writes: Donald Pleasence was not only an excellent Blofeld, but he and Jim Garner basically stole The Great Escape from Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough. To which Calvert Whitehurst, a Steyn Club First Week Founding Member from Virginia, adds: The male bonding (if I may use that word) between James Garner and Donald Pleasence in The Great Escape....

A remarkable set of photographs showing how captured Allied soldiers dug a tunnel used for the famous 'Great Escape' have appeared in a new book to mark 75 years since the event. They depict the ingeniously engineered tunnels which helped nearly 80 soldiers escape from the notorious Nazi POW camp Stalag Luft III, in Sagan, Poland on March 25, 1944. Of the 76 Allied airmen who broke out, 50 were later executed by the Gestapo on the direct orders of a humiliated Adolf Hitler - only three successfully evaded capture.

The architect of the Second World War prison break immortalised by The Great Escape is to be honoured with a plaque on the spot where Gestapo officers murdered him in 1944. Daredevil skiier, ladies' man and multilingual Cambridge-educated barrister Roger Bushell helped 76 prisoners of war escape from Stalag Luft III, a Nazi camp in occupied Poland. Just 33 at the time of his death, Squadron Leader Bushell - played by Richard Attenborough in the classic 1963 film - had been in enemy hands since his first day of combat, when he was shot down in a Spitfire during the...

Inside El Chapo’s secret Mexican prison escape tunnel (VIDEO) 7/27/15 | by Chris Eger Vice News traveled south of the border and dropped down the most famous underground tunnel in the world– that used by a Mexican drug lord to vacate the premises. The figurehead of the Sinaloa cartel, drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, released himself on his own recognizance on July 11, via a tunnel from Mexico’s only maximum-security prison in Mexico. It took him a year to arrange his self-parole and Vice went to Altiplano prison– where they found a different tale than what the local media...

He was the mastermind of the mass prison break from a German camp which inspired the iconic film The Great Escape. But a new book has now suggested Spitfire pilot Roger Bushell could also have been linked to the assassination of notorious Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich, known as 'Hitler's Hangman' and the acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. Simon Pearson's The Great Escaper places Bushell in Prague at the time Heydrich's car was bombed by Czechoslovakian Jan Kubiš, and Slovak Jozef Gabčík, which led to the Nazi officer's death a number of days later.

Real life imitated art in Afghanistan's troubled Kandahar province as the Taliban took a page out of Steve McQueen's playbook, dug a tunnel underneath an Afghan prison where hundreds of high value detainees were being held, and 478 prisoners waltzed out of jail -- free men due to the incompetence of Afghan security forces. Hard to overstate the disaster this is. Reuters: Hundreds of prisoners escaped from a prison in Afghanistan's south on Monday through a tunnel dug by Taliban insurgents, officials said, a "disaster" for the Afghan government and a setback for foreign forces planning to start a gradual...

SALEM — The jail may be gone, but the criminal activity lingers. A waitress at the new restaurant at the Old Salem Jail is accused of stealing more than $1,000 worth of meals and services last month. Shane Andruskiewicz and Alberta Spezzaferri, managers of Great Escape Restaurant, told police Tuesday that the waitress waited on tables and then entered the payment as "manager comp," meaning the entire check is written off. From Oct. 8 to 30, managers found nine different instances when the waitress entered payments as comps. The comps ranged from $60 to $281. Managers told police they never...

LONDON: Jack Harrison, who survived the Great Escape plot by Allied prisoners in a German prison in World War II, has died at age 97, his family said. As a camp gardener, Harrison helped dispose of the dirt excavated from three escape tunnels. He was 98th on the list of some 200 inmates designated to make the escape on March 24, 1944 from Stalag Luft III prison near Sagan in Germany — now Zagan, Poland. Only 76 got away before guards detected the breakout. The breakout was celebrated in the 1963 film 'The Great Escape.' Only three men managed to...

In the end, it was only time from which he could not escape. Jack Harrison, the last of those involved in the 'Great Escape', has passed away, peacefully and quietly, at the age of 97. It has been 66 years since the dark night when he waited with bated breath, preparing to crawl through ‘Harry’ and under the wire of Stalag Luft III. Many years after the war the former RAF pilot, and his brave and resourceful comrades, would be immortalised by the iconic 1963 film - starring Richard Attenborough and Steve McQueen - which remains the staple fare of...

UMM QASR — Mention the words "detention facility" or "detainee," and images of single-room cells, bars and cots may come to mind. But what if these words brought to mind vibrant, colorful images splashed across a canvas; wood carvings; and fresh fields of corn and tomatoes? For detainees at Camp Bucca's Theater Internment Facility (TIF) here, these words may produce images of hope, and help shine a new light on service members in Iraq. "We are hoping to give detainees a different perspective on Coalition forces," said Staff Sgt. Steven Cotton, 66th Forward Support Company. Cotton oversees the Bucca Enrichment...

April 7, 2009 The history of Canada's Air Force is the story of the men and women who had the guts, determination and vision to serve their country in the aviation arm of the Canadian Forces. Here's a glimpse of that history. Celebrated in film, the "Great Escape" remains a tribute to Allied heroism, resourcefulness and tenacity. As well, it has a huge Canadian connection. It was not an easy feat to escape from a German prisoner of war (POW) camp but RCAF Flight Lieutenant Wally Floody was put in charge of digging tunnels to do just that. The camp...

Something you won’t hear or read about as McQueen enters a chic status among the Beautiful Poseurs that would’ve revolted him, is that he was a true iconoclast: a born-again Christian and conservative Republican who backed the Vietnam War. Keep in mind this was during the 60s and 70s when his generation of Hollywood was as liberal and hyper-politicized as today’s generation, only talented.

Skillfully crafted from tin cans, matchsticks and off cuts, one can only imagine the satisfaction a prisoner of war derived from finishing this stunning model aircraft as he languished in Stalag Luft III. Constructed almost perfectly to scale, his detailed version of a Lancaster Bomber like the one he flew before his capture even bears what appears to be the skull and crossbones logo of RAF 100 Squadron, famous for its night-time raids.Little is known about its maker, other than that he was an airman named E Taylor.     The model was found during a clearance sale at house...

World War II tunnel digger John Fancy whose actions inspired the film the Great Escape, has died. Just nine months after the beginning of hostilities in the WWII, the young and dashing RAF observer was shot down. His Blenheim bomber had just successfully hit its target in the Ardennes when he came under heavy fire from German anti-aircraft positions on 14 May 1940. Within moments the aircraft had ditched.

Eric “Digger” Dowling, who forged passports, made maps and helped to dig the one tunnel that the Germans did not discover before the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III, has died, aged 92. On March 24, 1944, 250 prisoners lined up to await their turn to crawl through the tunnel to freedom. Many of them were equipped with documents that had been forged by Mr Dowling, who learnt to speak five languages fluently during his three years in the prison.

RAF pilot who was awarded the Military Cross for his part in the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III “Jimmy” James was one of 76 officers who escaped from Stalag Luft III on the night of March 24, 1944, and was fortunate not to be among the 50 executed on Hitler’s order on recapture. He was sent instead to Sachsenhausen concentration camp from where he tunnelled his way out, only to be caught again after 14 days on the run. He was the second pilot of a Wellington bomber shot down south of Rotterdam in June 1940. Initially hopeful that...

'A World War II veteran who took part in the prison camp breakout immortalised in the film The Great Escape has died. Bertram "Jimmy" James, 92, of Ludlow, Shropshire, died on Friday at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. Sqn Ldr James was one of 76 men who escaped from a Nazi prison camp in 1944 in Poland, which was remembered in the 1963 film starring Steve McQueen. Military historian Howard Tuck said the ex-RAF Squadron Leader had been "the country's greatest living war hero".'

The cartoon depicting the Great Escape was drawn ten days after the breakout from Stalag Luft III Prison camp art that escaped guardsBy Jack Malvern PoW's scrapbook of the Great Ecape is to be auctioned A CARTOON of the prison break depicted in the film The Great Escape has emerged in a prisoner’s war diary. The cartoon — drawn ten days after the event and accompanied by a poem lamenting the shooting of 50 of the escapees — appears in a scrapbook that belonged to Clive Nutting, a prisoner who was involved in the two most celebrated escapes of...

BRANT Webb and Todd Russell last night paid an emotional tribute to the men who saved their lives in the Beaconsfield mine collapse. Speaking publicly for the first time since being freed from their tiny cage 1km below the surface, Mr Webb and Mr Russell thanked people from all over Australia involved in their "great escape". Mr Webb said: "For all our mates who . . . put their lives on the line for us and worked in dangerous unstable conditions to bring us out -- we owe our lives to them." The pair had the biggest cheer of the...