The Great Escape from Stalag Luft 3 — one of the greatest POW escapes of WWII

25/03/2025
History

On the night of 24-25 March 1944, the German POW camp Stalag Luft 3 saw one of the greatest and best-organised escapes of the Second World War. 80 Allied airmen, including Poles, escaped through an underground tunnel outside the wires of Stalag Luft in Żagań. The story was depicted many times by Western cinema, creating the name of the “Great Escape”.

Diagram of Harry tunnel of Great Escape. Public domain

For nearly a year, 200 prisoners of war prepared for the “great escape”. They had to dig a tunnel and prepare civilian clothes and documents.

On the night of 24 March, as the airmen were exiting the tunnel, the German guards raised the alarm.

80 POWs managed to get out of the tunnel with only 4 last man captured. Some 120 POWs remained prisoners in the camp.

Those who managed to escape dispersed throughout almost all of Germany, travelling on foot or by rail. A search operation resulted in the capture of almost all the fugitives, except three.

Norwegian Second Lieutenant Jens Muller and Sergeant Per Bergsland reached Stettin, from where sailors transported them to Sweden. Dutchman Bram van der Stok reached Utrecht, from where the resistance flew him to the UK.

Great Escape losses on the IBCC Walls of Remembrance

Flight Lieutenant L.G. ‘Johnny’ Bull – IBCC panel 138
Flight Lieutenant Michael Casey – IBCC panel 142
Flight Officer Dennis Cochran – IBCC panel 21
Squadron Leader Ian Cross – IBCC panel 25
Flight Lieutenant Brian Evans – IBCC panel 33
Flight Lieutenant William Grisman – IBCC panel 174
Flight Lieutenant Edgar Humphreys – IBCC panel 186
Flying Officer Gordon Kidder, RCAF – IBCC panel 194
Flying Officer Włodzimierz Kolanowski, Polish Air Force – IBCC panel 60
Squadron Leader Thomas Kirby-Green – IBCC panel 194
Flight Lieutenant Antoni Kiewnarski, Polish Air Force – IBCC panel 59
Flight Lieutenant Patrick Langford, RCAF – IBCC panel 61
Flight Lieutenant Tom Leigh, Australian – IBCC panel 198
Flight Lieutenant James L.R. Long – IBCC panel 200
Flight Lieutenant George McGill, RCAF – IBCC panel 71
Flight Lieutenant Harold Milford – IBCC panel 212
Flight Officer Jerzy Mondschein, Polish Air Force – IBCC panel 213
Flight Officer Kazimierz Pawluk, Polish Air Force – IBCC panel 224
Flight Officer Porokuru Pohe, RNZAF – IBCC panel 227
Flight Officer Robert Stewart – IBCC panel 248
Flight Officer John Stower – IBCC panel 102
Flight Officer Denys Street – IBCC panel 103
Flight Lieutenant Cyril Swain – IBCC panel 250
Flight Officer Paweł Tobolski, Polish Air Force – IBCC panel 107
Flight Lieutenant Arnošt Valenta, Czechoslovak – IBCC panel 257
Flight Lieutenant Gilbert Walenn – IBCC panel 110
Flight Lieutenant James Wernham, RCAF – IBCC panel 262
Flight Lieutenant John F. Williams – IBCC panel 265

A further 24 were executed by the Gestapo, including Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, who was captured just 20 miles from the French border. Twenty British, six Canadian, six Polish, five Australian, three South African, two New Zealand, two Norwegian, and one from Argentina, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, and Lithuania were killed. Twenty-three prisoners were returned to the camp.

Roger Bushell’s grave. Commonwealth Cemetery Poznan / Cmentarz Wojenny Wspólnoty Brytyjskiej in Poznań.

As a result of the action, 15 of 76 POWs were sent back to Stalag Luft 3, eight were detained in police prisons at the site of their arrest and their fate is unknown, and 50 were murdered by the Germans. Among them were six Polish prisoners.

The great POW escape of March 1944 was not the first such action in the history of German Stalag Luft 3. A few months earlier, three airmen had escaped from the camp.

The Great Escape of March 1944 and a similar action, albeit on a much smaller scale, that took place a few months earlier, was depicted in several movies produced after the 2 World War. It was the British The Wooden Hours (1950) and two American productions, The Great Escape (1963) and The Great Escape II (1988).

Memorial stone marking the end of Harry Tunnel. The Polish language inscription reads: “To the Allied airmen, prisoners of STALAG LUFT III, participants in the GREAT ESCAPE. Żagań 2004”. Picture: Twitter @WBH (Wojskowe Biuro Historyczne)

In the making of the first two, the prisoners of Stalag Luft 3 served as consultants to reconstruct the the preparation works for the escape. Several documentaries have also been made on the subject over the years.

Stalag Luft 3, located in Żagań (today’s Poland), was a POW camp for Allied airmen shot down during air raids on German territory. It was established on May 5 1942. In addition to the English and Americans, Czechs, French, Belgians and Poles serving in the British Royal Air Force were among the prisoners of the camp.