75th Anniversary
The daring 1944 break-out by 76 Allied PoWs wove Stalag Luft III into wartime legend, but what is remembered as a great triumph masks greater tragedy. James Hoare follows the Great Escape from ‘sport’ to slaughter.
Artwork by Piotr Forkasiewicz
Prisoners’ washing outside the huts of Stalag Luft III.
(ALL IMAGES RAF MUSEUM COLLECTION UNLESS NOTED)
Located near the town of Sagan (Żagań in Polish) in Lower Silesia, Stalag Luft III was one of the Second World War’s bestknown PoW camps for captured airmen, imprinted in the popular imagination by 1963’s rip-roaring big screen thriller, The Great Escape.
