What really happened during the Great Escape?

We all know the plot to ‘The Great Escape’ but the real-life events were even more dramatic, writes James Rampton

‘The Great Escape’ is a striking example of fact outstripping fiction (Getty/Shutterstock/The Independent)

No British bank holiday is complete without two things: rain and a screening of The Great Escape. It is one of the best loved films of all time. Which child – or indeed adult – has not dreamt of being even one-thousandth as cool as Steve McQueen is in that film? However, an engrossing new documentary titled Escaping Hitler reveals that the true story of what happened in the Nazi POW camp Stalag Luft III during the Second World War was, if anything, even more dramatic than the 1963 movie.

The documentary, which is showing on Sky History as part of the ongoing series Great Escapes with Morgan Freeman, makes several startling new revelations about the incident. It underscores that The Great Escape is a striking example of fact outstripping fiction. The mastermind of the actual Great Escape was a quite remarkable character: 33-year-old RAF squadron leader Roger Bushell (called Bartlett in the movie and played by Richard Attenborough). Bushell crash-landed his Spitfire in France on the day of Dunkirk and was captured by the Germans. But no prison could hold him. He and a Czech colleague escaped while being transported on a train and were hidden by a Czech family.