http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22396481-663,00.html IN the classic film The Great Escape, Allied prisoners led by crawled on their bellies through two hand-dug tunnels in one of the most daring prison breaks of World War II. Dubbed Tom and Harry, the tunnels took months to dig and in March 1944 saw 76 PoWs, including some Australians, crawl to freedom. However archaeologists working about the real life scene of the escape at Stalag Luft III in Zagan in what was then southern Germany, have discovered that more than 100 tunnels were dug during that time. The tunnels, in what is now southwestern Poland, have laid undiscovered for more than 60 years. However archaeologists from the University College of London and the Keele University used ground-penetrating radar to map for the first time the extraordinary earthworks. Using the ground radar, the team located the foundations of hut 122, which contained the entrance shaft to the third known tunnel called Dick. That tunnel was used for stores for the escapees and has remained untouched since 1944 when the Germans found and destroyed the other two. Inside Dick, archaeologists found a Red Cross parcel and a milk-can ventilation pipe. Also found were lamps made from tins and most significantly, an case containing a civilian coat, a toothbrush, a German language book and other items making up a prisoner's escape kit.
I actually just read this story properly as I had read a more comprehensive one in today's paper and thought it'd be a cool thing to post on here. The story above is what I found. Now, the problem I have here is wasn't only one tunnel used to escape?
I thought they had a decoy (Dick) and a secondary if either Tom or Harry were discovered. Tom was discovered so they used Harry. As far as I know this was the only tunnel used to escape on that night. I do remember a story that everyone was tunnelling at some stage until the escape committee put all efforts into Tom, Dick & Harry to conserve resources and the threat of discovery.
It would be interesting to get more details about the tunnels, and their length, depth etc. Some of the tunnels would have been dug before the arrival of Bushell and the consolidation of the escape activities into one big break. A lot of tunnels in a lot od camps were quickly abandoned because they were unsuitable, or the diggers got frustrated and gave up, were discovered, or the diggers were transferred. Others would have been dug by individualists (not all escape plans were put to the escape committe, and sometimes POWs carried on without "official" approval, even after the three main tunnels were started). And some of the tunnels would probably have been more like chambers to store escape equipment and contraband. This is a great site on the escape: http://www.elsham.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/gt_esc/
