Factual accuracy of The Great Escape

Steve McQueen with Wally Floody, a former POW who was actually part of the real Great Escape plan and acted as technical advisor on the film.

The Great Escape is a Template:Fy film which featured an all-star cast seeking to break out of a German POW camp during World War Two. Although largely fictional, elements of the film were based on fact with events and characters condensed.

While the filmmakers made every effort to remain faithful to Brickhill's account of the escape, given the scope and the length of time over which the novel unfolds it was inevitable that some adjustments would have to be made to allow the story to be presented on screen. The result is that much of the action has been condensed in time and many of the men appear as composites of the real-life individuals who appear in the book.

One important liberty taken by the film makers was that no actual serving member of the American armed forces was involved in the final escape; the film does concede that it was a mainly British-led operation.

Characters

Allies

1. Capt Virgil Hilts "The Cooler King" (Steve McQueen) : Based on Alvin Vogtle {21 Oct 1918-10 April 1994} a pilot from Alabama who went on to become the CEO of the electric utility Southern Company after the war. However Vogtle did not escape on this occasion. Hilts's dash for the border by motorcycle is entirely fictional. It was made on the insistence of McQueen, a keen motorcyclist, and has become one of the most famous action scenes of 1960s classic cinema. The motorbike used in the film is a 1960s Triumph 650 rather than an authentic but more pedestrian, BMW R 75 or Zündapp KS 750. Hilts is shown being taken back to the POW Camp after his re-capture; in real life he would probably have been shot for appearing in a German uniform — though since he flashed his air force insignia, he may have been spared for still "bearing" his soldier's uniform.
2. Flt Lt Anthony Hendley "The Scrounger" (James Garner) represents several blackmailers and suppliers
3. Sqn Ldr Roger Bartlett "Big X" (Richard Attenborough) Based on Roger Bushell, the mastermind of the escape, a brilliant organiser and a natural leader of men. The scar underneath the character's eye is a tribute to Bushell, a competitive skier who suffered an accident on the slopes that scarred him.
4. Gp Capt Ramsey "The SBO" (James Donald) Probably based on Harry "Wings" Day, though Day was a participant in the actual escape and made many more attempts before finally making it to the Allied lines.
5. Flt Lt Danny Velinski "Tunnel King" (Charles Bronson) Based principally on Wally Floody, a Canadian mining engineer and pilot, who was a technical advisor for the film. He was transferred elsewhere before the escape occurred. The character also represents F/Lt Ernst Valenta, F/O Danny Krol, and F/O Wlodzimierz Adam Kolanowski who designed and maintained the tunnels. They escaped, but were subsequently recaptured and shot dead. Another inspiration for the character was Flight Lieutenant (later Squadron Leader) Eric Dowling who earned the nickname "Digger" for his work on the tunnels. He also worked as a forger and map maker. He was very critical of the film, especially the scenes with McQueen on the motorbike.
6. Flt Lt Colin Blythe "The Forger" (Donald Pleasence) Blythe is a composite of at least two men, Tim Walenn and James Hill; Group Captain Nicolas Tindal was actually in charge of forging documents for the escapers. His incipient blindness would have probably been serious enough to qualify him for repatriation through the International Red Cross under Articles 68 to 74 of the Geneva Convention of 1929, and thus he would have had no need to escape.
7. Fg Off Louis Sedgwick "The Manufacturer" (James Coburn)
8. Lt Cmdr Eric Ashley-Pitt "Dispersal" (David McCallum)
9. Flt Lt Sandy MacDonald "Intelligence" (Gordon Jackson)
10. Flt Lt William Dickes "Tunnel King" (John Leyton)
11. Fg Off Archibald Ives "The Mole" (Angus Lennie)
12. Fl Lt Denys Cavendish "The Surveyor" (Nigel Stock)
13. Goff (Jud Taylor)

Germans

Friedrich Wilhelm von Lindeiner-Wildau

1. Col von Luger "The Kommandant" (Hannes Messemer) The actual Kommandant of Stalag Luft III, Oberst Friedrich Wilhelm von Lindeiner-Wildau was unlike the character portrayed in the film. In the film he was arrested as a result of the escape; in reality his arrest was due to his dealing with black market goods.
2. Sgt. Strachwitz, the Chief NCO of the German Guards was probably based on Sgt Major Herman Glemnitz.
3. Werner "The Ferret" (Robert Graf)

Others

1. One of the organisers, Lithuanian flight captain Romualdas Marcinkus, is unmentioned in the film.
2. No members of the American armed forces actually escaped. While many had worked on the construction of both Tom and Harry, by the time of the escape through Harry the American prisoners had all been moved to a separate compound. However, John Dodge, an American in the British Army, was one of the escapees.
3. Among the prisoners who tried to escape was Paramasiva Prabhakar Kumaramangalam who went on to become the 7th chief of the Indian army.

Narrative

General

POWs who came up with plans to escape needed permission to proceed from the Escape Committee. This was in order to avoid conflicting escape plans from cancelling each other out: an escaping prisoner being caught by the guards could cause the alarm to be raised and ruin another escape attempt — thus the scene where Hilts and Ives need Bartlett's permission before proceeding with their plan.

One important fact omitted from the film was the help the POWs received from outside the camp, some of it from their home countries; they received much material that proved invaluable for this and other escapes. Acting through secret agencies such as MI9, families from Allied nations would send maps, papers, tools as disguised material hidden in gifts, books, food, and other objects. Ex-POWs asked the film-makers to exclude such details lest it jeopardize future POW escapes.

Although other escape attempts took place as the prisoners' worked progressed, they were omitted as the scriptwriters chose to focus primarily on the planned tunnel escapes.

The theft of a German airplane (in the film, a Bücker Bü 181) by Hendley and Blythe is also fictitious, although there was a failed attempt by Lorne Welch and Walter Morison to steal a plane following the delousing party escape a year earlier. Likewise the movie shows the plane going over Bavaria's Neuschwanstein Castle on the way to Switzerland; the 181 range only being about 497 miles — in real life their flight from Stalag Luft III would have gone down at least 50 miles from the Swiss border — instead of going down near the Swiss Alps.

A scene shows a choir singing to cover the noise of work done for the escape, but, in reality, it was a group of prisoners who formed a musical band and called themselves the "Sagan Serenaders". Future television meteorologist Wally Kinnan, then a First Lieutenant in the US Army Air Corps and Pilot Officer Leonard Whiteley of the British Royal Air Force had organized the group. The Serenaders received musical instruments from aid organizations and whatever the German captors could scrounge. Musicians Tiger Ward, Nick Nagorka and pianist John Bunch were also members of this group.

The stealing of personal possessions such as boats and bicycles was not recommended since escapers could face criminal charges if recaptured.

Number of escapees

Only 76 of the projected 200 men escaped while an air raid occurred; only three POWs escaped Germany into neutral territory: the Norwegians Per Bergsland and Jens Müller who escaped to Sweden, and the Dutchman Bram van der Stok who reached Spain. Though Roger Bartlett in the film speaks of freeing 250 men, there is no account of a target other than 200.

The Gestapo killed 50 of the recaptured POWs, in breach of the Geneva Convention. Such actions constituted a war crime. Most of the victims were driven to isolated spots in small groups and shot through the back of the head with pistols, rather than being machine-gunned en masse as depicted in the film. After the allied victory in May 1945, a war crimes investigation led to the arrest, imprisonment and in some cases execution of those responsible for the killings. Even before the end of the hostilities, the British Government was aware that 50 recaptured POWs had been killed: Herbert Massey (senior officer at Stalag Luft III) was repatriated to the UK during the war due to serious ill-health. After arriving back in the UK, he immediately informed his fellow officers what had happened. The actual murders, and the manhunt for the perpetrators after the war, is outlined in the book Exemplary Justice.

The figure of 50 escapees is said to have been a compromise between Hitler and the German High Command. Hitler wanted all the recaptured POWs shot, but the High Command was afraid of what would happen to German POWs held by the Allies, especially if the Red Cross withdrew its support for German POWs.

The tunnels

Three tunnels were dug, shored and lighted as portrayed. The Germans discovered one just before completion (though it was not during 4th of July celebrations). Sand from the tunnels was put in bags hidden in the trousers. The prisoners would wander the camp spreading the dirt. The men doing this job were known as "penguins".

POWs who had participated in the escapes acted as technical advisers for the film. While filming the scenes in the tunnels the ex-POWs kept insisting that they be made lower and narrower in order to better reflect their working conditions.

The film depicts Tom's entrance as being under a stove and Harry's as in a drain sump in a washroom. In reality, Dick's entrance was the drain sump, Harry's was under the stove, and Tom's was in a darkened corner.

Paul Brickhill, who didn't go through the tunnel, claimed that, due to a miscalculation, the tunnel ended short of the tree line. According to Alan Burgess, in The Longest Tunnel (1990, Grove Press), the tunnel did reach the forest, yet it was so sparse it provided insufficient cover. The escape had to proceed or the forged identity and travel papers would become invalid.

End of real "Harry" tunnel showing how close the exit was to the camp fence