Great Escape

Having osseous enormous resources on recapturing Allied prisoners of struggle (POWs), the Germans move the most determined to a new, high-security prisoner of war camp. The controlant, Luftwaffe Colonel von Luger, tells the senior British completeicer, Group Capt Ramsey, There will be no escapes from this camp. Ramsey replies that it is their duty to try to escape. later on several fai direct escape attempts on the prime(prenominal) day, the POWs settle into the prison camp. Gestapo and SS cistrons bring Squadron attractor Roger bartlett pear (RAF) to the camp and deliver him to von Luger. cognize as Big X, Bartlett is the hint organizer of escapes and Gestapo constituent Kuhn orders that he be kept under the most toleraterictive permanent security confinement, which Col. von Luger, disgusted by the Nazis and the SS, only makes a note of, treating the command with complete contempt. As Kuhn leaves, he warns Bartlett that if he escapes again, he will be shot. Bartlett is t hen placed with the rest of the POWs, rather than the restrictive holding that Gestapo agent Kuhn had demanded. Locked up with every escape creative person in Germany, Bartlett immediately syllabuss the sterling(prenominal) escape attempted digs for breaking egress 250 prisoners.The intent is to confuse, confound and harass the opposite to the point that as many army and resources as possible will be wasted on finding POWs quite of being used on the presence line. Teams ar organized to tunnel, make civil clothing, forge documents, procure contraband materials, and res jibe guards from disc overing their work. Flight Lieutenant Hendley, an American in the RAF, is the scrounger who finds what the others need, from a camera to habit and identity cards. Australian profligate ships officer Louis Sedgwick, the manufacturer, makes alsols such as picks for digging and bellow for pumping air into the tunnels.Flight Lieutenant Danny Velinski and William Willie Dickes argon the tunnel kings in charge of do the tunnels. Eric Ashley-Pitt of the Royal Navy devises a rule of hiding bags in the prisoners trousers and spread spot from the tunnels over the camp, under the guards noses. Forgery is handled by Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe, who becomes nearly cheat from intricate work by candlelight. Hendley takes it upon himself to be Blythes guide in the escape. The prisoners work on three tunnels simultaneously, Tom, Dick and Harry. Work on Harry and Dick is stopped so that more work can be performed on Tom. The work noise is cover by the prisoner choir led by Flt Lt Cavendish. USAAF Captain Virgil Hilts, The Cooler King, irritates guards with patronise escape attempts and irreverent behavior. While in the cooler, he befriends a young RAF Flying Officer named Archibald Ives, and the two strike up a plan to escape they argon caught while attempting it and returned to the cooler. The experience seems to take a toll especially on Ives, who is remainder to a n emotional breakd give from his time in captivity.While the British POWs enjoy a 4th of July celebration organized by the three Americans, the guards discover tunnel Tom. The fancy drops to disappointment and pushes Ives over the edge. He is move to the nipping wire that surrounds the camp and, in a final act of desperation, climbs it in view of guards. Hilts runs to stop him merely is too late, and Ives is machine-gunned dead near the top of the fence. The prisoners shift key their efforts to Harry. Hilts, aggrieved by the loss of his friend, agrees to change his plan and reconnoiter out boldness the camp and sp are himself to be recaptured.The information he brings vertebral column is used to create maps showing the close town and railway station. End of the received Harry tunnel (on the other side of the road) showing how it doesnt reach the cover of the trees seize of the tunnel Harry showing plate of distance to far end of tunnel The last part of the tunnel is ideal on the night of the escape, but is 20 feet short of woods which are to show cover. Danny nearly snaps from claustrophobia and delays those behind him, but is helped by Willie. Seventy-six escape.After attempts to reach apathetic Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain, almost all the POWs are recaptured or killed. Hendley and Blythe slide an airplane to fly over the Swiss border, but the engine fails and they crash-land. Soldiers arrive. Blythe, his seeing damaged, stands and is shot. Hendley waves and shouts dont shoot, and is captured as Blythe dies. Cavendish, having hitched a put one across in a truck, is captured at a checkpoint, discovering another POW, Haynes, captured in his German spend disguise. Bartlett is recognized in a crowded railroad station by Gestapo agent Kuhn.Another escapee, Ashley-Pitt, sacrifices himself when he kills Kuhn with Kuhns own gun, and soldiers then shoot and kill him. In the commotion, Bartlett and MacDonald slip away but they are caught while boardi ng a bus after MacDonald blunders by replying in English to a suspicious Gestapo agent who wishes them Good luck. Hilts steals a motorcycle, is pursued by German soldiers, jumps a barbed wire fence but becomes manifold in another and is captured, he escapes instruction execution as a spy by showing them the airforce label on his shirt.Three truckloads of captured POWs go down a country road and split off in three directions. One truck, containing Bartlett, MacDonald, Cavendish, Haynes and others, stops in a field and the POWs are told to get out and stretch their legs. They are shot dead. In all, fifty escapees are murdered. Hendley and nine others are returned to the camp. Von Luger is alleviate of command of the prison camp and is set away by the SS for failing to retard the breakout. Only three make it to safety. Danny and Willie steal a rowboat and proceed downstream to the Baltic coast, where they board a Swedish merchant ship.Sedgwick steals a bicycle, then rides reco ndite in a freight train boxcar to France, where he is guided by the exemption to Spain. Hilts is brought back alone to the camp and interpreted to the cooler. Lieutenant Goff, one of the Americans, gets Hiltss baseball and manus and throws it to him when Hilts and his guards pass by. The guard locks him in his cubicle and walks away, but momentarily pauses when he hears the known sound of Hilts bouncing his baseball against a cell wall. The film ends with this scene, under the caption,