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the allies, especially the british, believed that officers were paid, so they had the obligation to escape during wartime and cause trouble for the enemy. this allowed the enemy to spend more energy and manpower. this game was transformed into digging tunnels.

the germans also understood this behavior, so many design features of prisoner-of-war camps made escape extremely difficult, such as: the barracks where prisoners were held were about 60 centimeters (24 inches) above the ground to make it easier for guards to spot the tunnels;

the camp is built on land with a sandy subsoil; the topsoil is dark gray, so it would be easy to spot if someone dumped the bright yellow sand found beneath it on the ground, or even just shook some of it off their clothes.

loose, collapsed sand means any tunnel will have poor structural integrity.

a third defense against tunneling is to place seismometer microphones around the camp that can detect any digging sounds.

the movie "the great escape" tells the story of the escape experience from the air force prisoner of war camp no. 3. most of the plot is relatively consistent with historical facts, so i won't go into details here.

model of prisoner of war camp no. 3 used for filming the film

the prisoner of war camp planned to only escape 200 people, of whom 30 who were proficient in german were given priority, the remaining 70 were not so proficient in german, and 100 were the hecklers. in total, 76 people escaped. at 4 a.m. on march 25, at 1:55 a.m., a guard spotted the 77th man running away.

in the end, most of them were captured. only two norwegian pilots, per bergsland and jens einar müller, found the swedes and escaped by boat. a dutchman - abraham lamertus "bram" van der stok (abraham lamertus "bram" van der stok) finally traveled across france to spain because he was proficient in multiple languages.

bergsland (1919-1992) was a master of orienteering in norway when he was young, and later received pilot training in canada. in 1942, he transferred to the 332nd squadron of the royal air force. on august 19 of the same year, he was shot down by a german fw 190 during the dieppe raid while flying a spitfire and was captured. after the war, he worked as a pilot for a canadian civil aviation company and eventually rose to the position of company ceo. died in 1992

müller (1917-1992) was born in shanghai, china. his father was a norwegian engineer and his mother was a british actress. he spent his childhood and youth in norway. he was studying in zurich when world war ii broke out. arriving in the uk in may 1940, he later joined the 331st (norwegian) squadron of the royal air force. on june 19, 1942, he was captured after his spitfire was shot down by a german fw 190 near the coast of belgium. the picture above was taken in 1941 while serving with no. 331 squadron of the royal air force.

norwegian pilots in the prisoner of war camp, müller on the right and bergsland on the second left. muller worked for norwegian civil aviation after the war and died in 1999.

van der stock (1915-1993) joined the dutch air force in 1937. after the fall of the netherlands, he fled to the uk and joined the 41st squadron of the royal air force. he flew a spitfire and was killed over calais, france on april 12, 1942. he was captured after being shot down. on march 25, 1944, he successfully escaped from the 3rd luftwaffe prisoner of war camp and rejoined the old unit - the 41st squadron, and participated in the battle of normandy, eventually shooting down 6 enemy aircraft and v-1 missiles. 7 pieces. after the war, he immigrated to the united states with his family and worked successively as an obstetrician, nasa space laboratory researcher, and the u.s. coast guard auxiliary. he passed away in 1993.

the day after the mass prison break, hitler initially ordered the shooting of all captured officers. hermann göring, heinrich himmler and field marshal wilhelm keitel, who had final control over the prisoners of war, argued over responsibility for the escape. hitler insisted on shooting "more than half" and eventually ordered himmler to execute more than half of the escapees. himmler put the total at 50 men.

a wheelbarrow for removing sand and a device for pumping air into the escape tunnel, both made by prisoners of war, were stored in the warehouses of camp no. 3.

the tunnel through which the british escaped

germans show british escape route

keitel ordered that the executed escaped pow officers be cremated and their ashes returned to the pow camp to prevent further escapes. himmler was responsible for the actual killing of these men, carried out through his subordinate gestapo. the captured officers were to be handed over to the criminal police, fifty were to be handed over to the gestapo for execution.

when prisoners of war were recaptured, they were first interrogated for any useful information and then taken away in cars, usually two at a time, on the pretext that they were to be returned to the prisoner of war camp. the gestapo would intercept them in the nearby countryside and leave the prisoners to relieve themselves. the prisoner is then shot at close range from behind with a pistol or submachine gun. the body was cremated and returned to the 3rd prisoner of war camp.

shooting prisoners of war wearing civilian clothes is not a big problem in theory, but they should go through a judicial trial, inform the prisoners of war that they will be executed, and then clearly punish them. the gestapo did this job unethically.

at that time, the top leader of the british army in the prisoner of war camp was air force colonel herbert martin massey. the great escape was carried out under his authorization, or he gave the order. he himself had bad legs, so did not participate in the escape.

in 1942, messi talked with the swiss representative in berlin in the 3rd prisoner of war camp. on june 1, 1942, the short "stirling" bomber of no. 7 squadron of the royal air force that he was aboard was shot down over the coast of the netherlands while participating in the second thousand-plane bombing and was captured.

on april 6, the new commander of the 3rd prisoner of war camp, air force lieutenant colonel erich cordes, informed messi that 41 escapees had been shot to death due to arrest. a few days later, messi died due to physical reasons. after being sent back to the uk, he brought back this information. obviously, the british believed that few of the pilots had the courage to arrest them, so there was something fishy in the germans' rhetoric. on june 23, after messi arrived in the uk to report, foreign secretary anthony eden briefed parliament on the situation on june 23, promising that when the war was over, those responsible would be brought to justice.

messi after returning to england in 1944

after the war, lieutenant colonel wilfred bowes, head of the raf police's special investigations branch (sib), began researching the events of the great escape and investigating the germans believed to be responsible for the killing of the escapees. a manhunt was launched.

this brother visited the 3rd air force prisoner of war camp, and then saw 50 urns in a house. each urn had a name and the place where it was burned. then based on these two columns of information, he visited various crematoriums. soon i found out the names of the gestapo officers who sent them to the crematorium (german rigor), and then arrested those unlucky ones.

the investigation team, composed of five officers and 14 non-commissioned officers, continued the investigation for three years and identified 72 persons guilty of murder or conspiracy to commit murder, 69 of whom have been identified. 21 were eventually tried and executed (some on charges unrelated to the camp 3 murders); 17 were tried and imprisoned; 11 committed suicide; 7 are missing, but 4 are presumed dead; 6 killed in the war; 5 arrested but not charged; 1 arrested but not charged because he was a material witness; 3 charged but either acquitted or dropped upon review; 1 still escape from east germany.

among them, on september 3, 1947, a british military court sentenced 14 people involved in the shooting to death (13 people were hanged in hameln prison on february 27, 1948, by the british executioner albert pierrepoint. special execution), there are too many suicides in prison, it is possible that they were killed by suicide.

on april 6, 1945, the 47th tank battalion of the 14th armored division of the us army broke into the 13b officer prisoner of war camp.