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| Ex-POWs Mark 60th Anniversary of "The Great Escape" | |
| 2004-03-17 | |
| For Squadron Leader Bertram "Jimmy" James, waiting was the hard part. One of 76 Allied airmen who broke out of a German prisoner of war camp in March 1944 - an event that inspired the 1963 film "The Great Escape" - James said the minutes waiting his turn to crawl through a narrow tunnel to freedom were full of "tremendous tension mixed with fear." "Mainly, I was very excited," said James, 89, who gathered with other veterans Tuesday at London's Imperial War Museum to mark the 60th anniversary of the escape. "When you emerge into the snow and you're running away from the camp, there's a sense of exhilaration. ... We were on our way, we hoped, to freedom," he added. "That wasn't quite the case." The March 24, 1944 escape from Stalag Luft III, a camp for Allied air force officers, is one of the best-known episodes of World War II. The film starring Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough recounts the daring plan and its tragic denouement - only three of the escapers made it to freedom; 73 were recaptured and 50 were shot, on Hitler's orders, as a warning to would-be escapers. "They were selected by lot, taken out by the local Gestapo in ones and twos, taken along the Autobahn, invited to get out and relieve themselves and then shot in the back of the neck," said James, a bomber pilot shot down over the Dutch coast in June 1940. He was recaptured after escaping from Stalag Luft III and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. "We didn't know the Germans were going to shoot people; they had never done so previously," he said. "But it was war." After the war, 21 Gestapo officers were tried by the British in connection with the executions; 14 were executed. Dozens of books detail the meticulous planning, expert craftsmanship and quiet daring that went into the plan. Over almost a year, prisoners at the camp near Sagan in eastern Germany - now Zagan, Poland - excavated three tunnels 30 feet underground, shored up with bedboards and wired with stolen electrical wire. Other prisoners obtained maps and railway timetables and forged German identity documents for the escapers. Tim Carroll, author of a recently published book, "The Great Escapers," said the breakout "distills all the reasons the Allies were fighting for freedom. The Germans offered them all sorts of inducements to give up, but they never gave in. That's why it's so iconic." James, who made a dozen escape attempts in all, has a simpler explanation for the audacious plan. "I think it was a habit," he said. "We had so much talent and experience together in one compound that there was no other option. We had to do something."
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #14 Good tip. Duly acknowledged. |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2004-3-18 4:13:13 AM |
| #13 I had the pleasure of meeting one of the RAF gents from Stalag III. He is/was an architect in Chicago and the owner of the Red Lion Pub on Lincoln Ave (across from the Biograph Cinema where Dillinger was shot dead by the FBI). He was too injured to go out with the lads but used his skills in engineering to help design the tunnel support systems. He published his sketch book of POW camp life in the late '80's-early '90's. His son Colin runs the pub now. Stop in. Good Shepards Pie and a nice pint of Bass. |
| Posted by: JDB 2004-3-17 8:15:20 PM |
| #12 Hmm, maybe an example of even a stopped clock getting the time right twice a day... |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-3-17 10:27:10 AM |
| #11 Spicy little prog on Beeb News24. Littered with an assortment of unhinged fruitcakes from around the globe. Another example of Aunty's brilliance. |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2004-3-17 10:17:11 AM |
| #10 HARDtalk. Shit meaning "good", right?! Best BBC interview programme ever! Tim Sebastian don't take no shit from anyone... |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-3-17 10:06:20 AM |
| #9 Might involve fisticuffs and swearing. |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2004-3-17 10:04:51 AM |
| #8 Hard talk, wasn't that the one with the little fat balding fella who knowbody knew who he was or where he came from or even where hes gone too.He was Mysterious,but shit |
| Posted by: Jon Shep U.K 2004-3-17 9:47:31 AM |
| #7 He's getting his own interview show on Channel Five later in the year. Should be good, but how on earth are they going to be able to persuade anyone to go on it?! Might turn out to be Five's version of HardTalk. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-3-17 9:41:42 AM |
| #6 Don't know. I still think Cambell's a self-serving slimey shit. Quite agree with 'Have your say |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2004-3-17 9:32:29 AM |
| #5 Re. the BBC Have Your Say Did either of you guys hear Alistair Campbell interviewed by Jeremy Vine on BBC Radio 2 after Hutton's report? That was an absolutely classic hour of radio. Campbell verbally bludgeoned Vine as caller after caller was put through critical of Blair, the Government and the war. Vine could come up with no response to Campbell's tirades against BBC bias and the selective blocking of anti-Beeb points of view. He just whimpered occasionally. I actually changed my opinion of Campbell, big time, after Hutton. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-3-17 9:16:13 AM |
| #4 Sneer marks duly noted. |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2004-3-17 8:44:55 AM |
| #3 always admire these old war ime guys, even the ones in thier uniform with all thier medals who stand outside my local church at weekend scowling at frowning at anyone who walks past,guess alot of them think people arn't gratefull.Wonder when WW3 comes the current generation of brits could be as big heros as these, somehow with todays modern yoof culture i think not,they'd be trying to shoot thier waepons like in the movies (picture guy holding pistol one handed at a horizontel angle jumping around screaming rap slogans as he fires hundreds of round off from his infinate bullet supply). Not saying our professionals are bad though cos thier as good as Israeli or American armed forces which is good enough for me. Decades of lefty defence money cuts havn't been good though for us. wonder if the BBC will find a way to sneer at these heros,perhaps thier anti war website will, or perhaps thier 'doctered' have your say section will find a foreign nobody to do it for them as they normally do.. Note sneer commas. |
| Posted by: Jon Shep U.K 2004-3-17 8:31:33 AM |
| #2 "They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them" Top boys - nice monocle! |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2004-3-17 4:37:01 AM |
| #1 ...Two years ago at the Doolittle raiders' reunion, I had a chance to meet retired General Davy Jones - one of the Raiders, a prisoner and escapee from Luftstalag III and according to legend the inspiration for Steve McQueen's character in The Great Escape. Given what he was like then - in his 90s - I can only imagine what kind of fits he gave the Germans. Treasure each and every one of these men. They need to know that when they move on, we will not give up the fight. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2004-3-17 1:51:51 AM |