The Great Escape

I’m not sure that is true there were several Americans in the camp who were ‘involved’ in the escape and possibly one or two went through the tunnel.

Also William “Bill” Ashe who was American but RAF via Canada. His book “Under The Wire” makes interesting reading.

I.M.H.O. I am not altogether surprised re the making of these films. It’s accepted that a great deal of Poetic Licence is used by the film makers, to make the film more “GRIPPING/EXITING” etc.
If they made a film just for example the Great Escape, would it be as interesting as we have seen the film, or if the film Companies just stuck to the bare facts which in many cases would probably be far less than minimilistic.

Would that not make it a documentary? :confused:

CD – I believe that secret coded message exchange was also widely practised in Colditz, wasn’t it?

Yes, as far as I know, official (and unofficial) letter codes operated across all the POW camps in Germany (or maybe just the officer camps). I know that the prisoners inside Colditz requested and received complete architectural plans for the castle and that after the Great Escape at least one of the recaptured POWs ended up in Colditz.

I.M.H.O. I am not altogether surprised re the making of these films. It’s accepted that a great deal of Poetic Licence is used by the film makers, to make the film more “GRIPPING/EXITING” etc.
If they made a film just for example the Great Escape, would it be as interesting as we have seen the film, or if the film Companies just stuck to the bare facts which in many cases would probably be far less than minimilistic.
As long as I continue to like these WW11 films, then thats good enough for me.That fantastic word HISTORY, yet again springs to mind.Perhaps they are somewhat economical with the truth at times, but in the main, true.
The only things I hate to see, is the way some of our P.O.Ws were treated by our then enemies in films.

Lincoln .7

CD – I believe that secret coded message exchange was also widely practised in Colditz, wasn’t it?

my old mate SQN LDR Jimmy James who actualy took part in the the real Great Escape basicaly said that the film was “clap trap” and “Hollywood hallibahoo”.
some of the smaller events did take place but not as glorious and gung ho as the movie would have you believe.
Jimmy could still not understand how he did not get included by the Germans when they took away the other prisoners for execution. he said the ones that were kept alive had connections with royalty or or importance in rank and standing in British society etc.
“he” he said had nothing but in the end as the allies invaded he was sent to a concentration camp and just managed to scrape through alive to the end of the war.

It is the anniversary of the Great Escape tonight.

I’ve been doing some more reading around the activities of MI9 and particularly to what extent the mass escape was part of a larger plan to divert enemy resources; the Great Escape film version very much attributes this aim of the escape to Squadron Leader Roger Bushell and underplays the extent to which the escapers were assisted by MI9 back in Britain.

While Paul Brickhill’s book is very good at revealing the extent to which the prisoners themselves improvised or obtained escape equipment it (perhaps quite deliberately) only touches on the assistance given by MI9 and never mentions MI9 directly (and it is entirely plausible that Brickhill didn’t know himself the level of assistance MI9 gave).

One thing that isn’t widely known is the proliferation of secret coded messages that were routinely sent between the prisoners, their families and MI9 using the ordinary mail service provided for the POW camps. Coded messages that were instrumental in allowing the prisoners to request specific escape equipment and intercept it when it arrived in the regular parcels from (often bogus) philanthropic organisations. This was the method by which components for the POW radio receivers (and transmitters) were smuggled into the camps.

The coded message techniques had to be taught to personnel that would have been likely to become POW but I’ve always wondered if bogus ‘shot-down’ airmen were ever infiltrated during a regular Bomber Command operation. It would seem the logical way to avoid training the many aircrew that would inevitably not survive being shot-down and the risk of the codes becoming compromised by being too widely distributed.

I’m afraid that much of our common “understanding” of WW2 history comes from that certain genre of book and film of the 1950’s and 60’s…..and much of it is bull**** as we all know! Much of it to be taken with very large pinches of salt.
Tuck, Lacey, Bader’s (and don’t get me started on Bader!!) books are a great deal of hype, or line shooting as they’d call it. I appreciate that suggesting such things is heresy to many and provokes catcalls of “Revisionist!”

A classic case is the story of the Amiens jail raid (it never was called Operation Jericho!) and the Fishman book is largely fiction. Now that was manipulating history!

OK so what was the /amiens Jail raid called or did it not have a name? If it did I’d be interested to know so that I can actually refer to it by its proper name. I hate making incorrect references as it makes me look as though I don’t know what I’m talking about (though that is true a lot of the time) and I would hate to refer to anything by an incorrect name in case I am talking to someone who knows more than me on the subject.

Americans did take part in planning and digging the tunnels, but were all moved to another camp weeks before the night of the escape…

I stand corrected. I suppose it could be argued that the ‘British’ are over-represented too and that the film’s main failing in this respect is that it under-represents those from other countries.

I also agree that to a certain extent history is being manipulated and that Britain’s cultural identity is becoming blurred by the easy transfer of US film and TV and that ‘something should be done about it’. We have the talent but as usual in Britain we lack the political will, the money, or both, and so are doomed to be governed by commercial considerations.

I’m afraid that much of our common “understanding” of WW2 history comes from that certain genre of book and film of the 1950’s and 60’s…..and much of it is bull**** as we all know! Much of it to be taken with very large pinches of salt.
Tuck, Lacey, Bader’s (and don’t get me started on Bader!!) books are a great deal of hype, or line shooting as they’d call it. I appreciate that suggesting such things is heresy to many and provokes catcalls of “Revisionist!”

A classic case is the story of the Amiens jail raid (it never was called Operation Jericho!) and the Fishman book is largely fiction. Now that was manipulating history!

Of course, and only McQueen played an American USAAF pilot, but using American actors is real history being manipulated and distorted for public home consumption.

They’re popular actors playing parts in the film – under DIFFERENT nationalities. I don’t see how that’s manipulating history! :confused:

I’m not sure that is true there were several Americans in the camp who were ‘involved’ in the escape and possibly one or two went through the tunnel.

Here’s a list of the escapees…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Allied_airmen_from_the_Great_Escape

Of course, and only McQueen played an American USAAF pilot, but using American actors is real history being manipulated and distorted for public home consumption. A bit like Errol Flynn (Tasmanian) winning the the battle of Burma single handed, Humphrey Bogart defeating the Nazis in North Africa in a comic little tank, or the US Navy capturing the Enigma machines in ‘U-571’.
Americans did take part in planning and digging the tunnels, but were all moved to another camp weeks before the night of the escape…

…when in fact no Americans took part in the actual escape…

I’m not sure that is true there were several Americans in the camp who were ‘involved’ in the escape and possibly one or two went through the tunnel.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Bronson and Coburn didn’t play Americans – Bronson was a Pole, and Coburn was (a very unconvincing!) Australian.

I can’t remember if Garner played a Canadian or an American, however.

It’s a shame Hollywood made the original movie instead of one of the classic British companies. The movie was preoccupied with McQueen, Garner, Bronson and Coburn, when in fact no Americans took part in the actual escape…

I sincerely hope that’s meant to be $50,000,000?!

But then, I also sincerely hope that’s not true. Unless they’re going for a different take on the subject….

Great escape remake

Rumour has it a british film company with a budget of $50,000 will do a remake!!Only one American actor will be in the new film which will be in B&W for added realism.The one American will play a medic ,I read somwhere that this at least is true.

That’s because they were made in the 1950’s when they still had a lot of the real kit to use, still had actors that were schooled properly and could actually talk like an officer and command the English language and of course most of the actors and extras actually served in some form, so reality crept into every aspect through life experience.
And of course, the use of actual footage, being only 5 years old, could easily be added.

Old WWII films were (and still are) my favorites. Even though movies are more hi-tech now, the oldies, even B&W, are better. 🙂