The Great Escape

Allied prisoners at a heavily fortified German POW camp organize an elaborate mass escape through three tunnels, code-named Tom, Dick, and Harry. Despite meticulous planning, most of the seventy-six escapees are recaptured or killed, with only a few reaching freedom.

The real Great Escape occurred at Stalag Luft III in March 1944, when seventy-six Allied airmen escaped through a tunnel; fifty of those recaptured were subsequently executed by the Gestapo on Hitler's orders, a war crime later prosecuted at Nuremberg.

The film invents composite characters, notably the American motorcycle escape sequence, which did not occur in reality.

Directed by John Sturges

Cast: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson

Positioned at 24–25 March 1944 within the Mass escape from a German POW camp phase of the war, as part of the Stalag Luft III escape. This is entry 112 of 150 in the chronological archive.

• Stalag Luft III
• tunnel escape
• POW
• true story
• ensemble cast

• 

  The Longest Day

  6 June 1944

• 

  Saints and Soldiers

  December 1944 - January 1945

• 

  Is Paris Burning?

  19–25 August 1944

• 

  A Bridge Too Far

  September 17-25, 1944

• 

  Masters of the Air

  1943–1945

• 

  Ike: Countdown to D-Day

  February–June 1944