The Full Dramatic Story Based on the Survivors' Own Words.
Stalag Luft III, Nazi Germany's most secure POW camp, 1944: 76 Allied RAF officers escape in the biggest break-out of the Second World War. It took 650 prisoners a year to dig the longest and most sophisticated tunnel ever conceived but only three airmen made it home: of the 73 men recaptured, 50 were brutally executed under Hitler's direct orders.
At the end of the war the RAF launched a long and determined investigation into the atrocity, the results of which afford us an extraordinary insight into the last hours of many of the victims and the actions of the killers. In July 1947, at a special war crimes tribunal in Hamburg, 18 Germans stood trial; 13 were eventually hanged, though the investigation continued for an incredible 21 years.
Drawing together the meticulous research carried out for the trial, interviews with the families and friends of the murdered men and with surviving veterans of the cap, Anton Gill provides us with a definitive account of this legendary break-out and its aftermath.
A gripping tale of ingenuity and heroism, as well as justice and the nature of war, which sheds new light on the mythology of British POWs held during the Second World War.
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