The Pilot Who Outsmarted Hitler: The Real Great Escape

This is the real Great Escape: how one RAF pilot outsmarted the camp Hitler's Germany called escape-proof. In March 1944, 76 Allied airmen crawled out of a tunnel under Stalag Luft III, a Luftwaffe prison built to stop tunnelling. Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, a fighter pilot the prisoners called "Big X", organised some 600 men to dig three tunnels, Tom, Dick and Harry, beneath guards, seismograph microphones and yellow sand that betrayed every shovelful. Only three of the escapers reached freedom, and Hitler answered with a war crime: the murder of fifty recaptured officers. Chapters 0:00 A prison nobody could escape 1:12 The camp near Sagan 4:12 The night that shattered its reputation 5:30 A camp built to stop tunnelling 7:16 Roger Bushell, "Big X" 9:47 Three tunnels: Tom, Dick and Harry 12:32 Deeper than the microphones 14:05 Air, light and stolen bed boards 15:18 The yellow sand problem and the penguins 16:56 Forged papers, clothes and escape kits 20:52 Tom is discovered 22:58 All eyes on Harry 24:34 The night of the escape 28:10 Discovery in the dark 29:25 The dragnet 29:56 Hitler's retaliation and the Fifty 31:00 The three who reached safety 31:49 After the war In this documentary The Great Escape · Stalag Luft III · Roger Bushell · Tunnel Harry · The Stalag Luft III murders · World War II prisoners of war Sources The National Archives: Roger Bushell and the 'Great Escape' — https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/e... PBS NOVA: NOVA Great Escape - TV Program Description — https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/greates... PBS NOVA: Inside Tunnel 'Harry' — https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/greates... PBS NOVA: The Three That Got Away — https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/greates... RAF Benevolent Fund: About the Great Escape — https://www.rafbf.org/great-escape/ab... GUARD Archaeology: Stalag Luft III, Poland: Digging the Great Escape — https://www.guard-archaeology.co.uk/c... The National Archives: Stalag Luft III, Sagan [Zagan], Poland: murder of 50 RAF officers who escaped — https://discovery.nationalarchives.go... United Nations War Crimes Commission: Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals, Volume XI: Trial of Max Wielen and 17 Others — https://unwcc.org/wp-content/uploads/... Archival images: Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-811-1881-31 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE; Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-343-0694-21 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE; Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-13805 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE; Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S33882 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE; Bundesarchiv, Bild 544451-001 · public domain; Camp model, Żagań POW museum · Tatoute, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0; Drawing by Lt. Robert M. Polich, POW · public domain; Hut foundations, 2006 · vorwerk, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0; IWM CH 1372 · public domain (Crown copyright expired); IWM CH 266 · public domain (Crown copyright expired); IWM HU 107786 · public domain (Crown copyright expired); IWM HU 1605 · public domain (Crown copyright expired); Model of a Stalag Luft III compound (1963 film set) · Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0; The National Archives, AIR 2/7113 · OGL; The National Archives, AIR 40/229 · OGL; The National Archives, AIR 40/285 · OGL; The National Archives, AIR 81/507 · OGL; The National Archives, WO 416/47/197 · OGL. Stock footage courtesy of Pexels contributors. It is illustrative: stock clips and silhouettes do not show the real people or events unless an archive credit says so. Narration is AI-generated. Watch next: Nobody Knows What Happened to This Hijacker (the D.B. Cooper case): He Stole $200,000... Then Jumped Into the ... T-Minus Files tells one real event at a time, in the order it happened. Subscribe for the next case: @tminusfiles #TheGreatEscape #WW2 #History