Jump to content
Main menu
Main menu
move to sidebar
hide
Navigation
Main page
Recent changes
Random page
Help about MediaWiki
Special pages
Niidae Wiki
Search
Search
Appearance
Create account
Log in
Personal tools
Create account
Log in
Pages for logged out editors
learn more
Contributions
Talk
Editing
The Great Escape (film)
(section)
Page
Discussion
English
Read
Edit
View history
Tools
Tools
move to sidebar
hide
Actions
Read
Edit
View history
General
What links here
Related changes
Page information
Appearance
move to sidebar
hide
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==Historical accuracy== [[File:Model Stalag Luft III.jpg|thumb|Model of the set used to film ''The Great Escape''. It depicts a smaller version of a single compound in ''[[Stalag Luft III]]''. The model is now at the museum near where the prison camp was located.]] [[File:Sagan harry-2.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.35|End of the real "Harry" tunnel (on the other side of the road) showing how it does not reach the cover of the trees]] The film accurately represented many details of the escape, including the layout of the camp, the different escape plans employed, and the fact that only three escapees successfully made it to freedom. The characters are fictitious, but are based on real men, in most cases being [[composite character|composites]] of several. However, a number of changes were made to increase the film's drama and appeal to an American audience, with some scenes being heavily or completely fictionalised. The screenwriters also significantly increased the involvement of American POWs in the escape. A few American officers in the camp initially helped dig the tunnels and worked on the early plans, but they were moved away seven months before the escape, which ended their involvement.<ref name="Wolter2001">{{cite book |last=Wolter |first=Tim |title=POW baseball in World War II |publisher=McFarland |year=2001 |pages=24–25 |url=https://archive.org/details/powbaseballinwor00wolt/page/24 |url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-7864-1186-3}}</ref><ref name="Brickhill">[[Paul Brickhill|Brickhill, Paul]], ''The Great Escape''</ref> The real escape was by largely British and other Allied personnel, with the exception of American [[Johnnie Dodge#Stalag Luft III (North Compound)|Johnnie Dodge]], who was a British officer.<ref name="JWarren" /> The film omits the crucial role that Canadians played in building the tunnels and in the escape itself. Of the 1,800 or so POWs, 600 were involved in preparations: 150 of those were Canadian. [[Wally Floody]], an RCAF pilot and former miner who was the real-life "tunnel king", was engaged as a technical advisor for the film.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.canadaatwar.ca/content-91/world-war-ii/canadians-and-the-great-escape |title=Canadians and the Great Escape |work=Canada at War |date=July 11, 2009 |access-date=March 15, 2015 |archive-date=July 10, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160710173934/http://canadaatwar.ca/content-91/world-war-ii/canadians-and-the-great-escape/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Ramsey tells Von Luger that it is the sworn duty of every officer to attempt escape. In reality, there was no requirement in the King's Regulations, or in any form of international convention.<ref name="Walters 2013" /> The film shows the tunnel codenamed "Tom" with its entrance under a stove and "Harry" in a drain sump in a washroom. In reality, the entrance to "Dick" was the drain sump, "Harry" was under the stove, and "Tom" was in a darkened corner next to a stove chimney.{{sfn|Vance|2000|pp=116–118}} Former POWs asked the filmmakers to exclude details about the help they received from their home countries, such as maps, papers, and tools hidden in gift packages, lest it jeopardise future POW escapes. The filmmakers complied.<ref>''The Great Escape: Heroes Underground'' documentary, available on ''The Great Escape'' DVD Special Edition.</ref> The film omits any mention that many Germans willingly helped in the escape itself. The film suggests that the forgers were able to make near-exact replicas of just about any pass that was used in Nazi Germany. In reality, the forgers received a great deal of assistance from Germans who lived many hundreds of miles away on the other side of the country. Several German guards, who were openly anti-Nazi, also willingly gave the prisoners items and assistance of any kind to aid their escape.<ref name="Walters 2013">{{cite book |last=Walters |first=Guy |title=The Real Great Escape |publisher=Mainstream Publishing |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-593-07190-8}}</ref> The need for such accuracy produced much eyestrain, but unlike in the film, there were no cases of blindness. Some, such as Frank Knight, gave up forging because of the strain, but he certainly did not suffer the same ocular fate as the character of Colin Blythe in the film.<ref name="Walters 2013" /> In fact, no one in the film says that Colin Blythe's blindness is the result of eyestrain. He identifies his problem as "progressive [[Near-sightedness|myopia]]", suggesting that he has not only heard of the condition but has also been diagnosed. The film depicts the escape taking place in ideal weather conditions, whereas at the time much was done in freezing temperatures, and snow lay thick on the ground.<ref name="Walters 2013" /> In reality there were no escapes by aircraft or motorcycle: McQueen requested the motorcycle sequence, which shows off his skills as a keen motorcyclist. He did the stunt riding himself (except for the final jump, done by [[Bud Ekins]]).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.motorcycle.com/products/steve-mcqueen-40-summers-ago-12731.html |title=Steve McQueen 40 Summers Ago... |first=Pete |last=Brissette |work=Motorcycle.com |date=July 15, 2005 |access-date=March 15, 2015 |archive-date=October 16, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141016181856/http://www.motorcycle.com/products/steve-mcqueen-40-summers-ago-12731.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In the film, Hilts incapacitates a German soldier for his motorcycle and uniform, Ashley-Pitt kills Kuhn, a Gestapo officer, when he recognizes Bartlett at a Gestapo checkpoint at a railway station and is shot dead in return, Hendley knocks out a German guard at the airfield, and Sedgwick witnesses the killing of German officers at a French cafe by the French Resistance. No German personnel were killed or injured by the real escapees. Blythe is shot and mortally wounded by a German after their plane crashes just short of the border; this incident never happened. The film depicts the three prisoners who escape to freedom as British, Polish, and Australian; in reality, they were Norwegian ([[Jens Müller (pilot)|Jens Müller]] and [[Per Bergsland]]) and Dutch ([[Bram van der Stok]]).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nrk.no/kultur/hollywood-droppet-nordmenn-1.11568685 |title=Hollywood droppet nordmenn |trans-title=Hollywood dropped Norwegians |first1=Magne |last1=Hansen |first2=Marianne Rustad |last2=Carlsen |work=[[NRK]] |date=February 26, 2014 |access-date=March 15, 2015 |language=no |archive-date=October 15, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141015145130/http://www.nrk.no/kultur/hollywood-droppet-nordmenn-1.11568685 |url-status=live }}</ref> At the end of the film, three truckloads of recaptured POWs drive in three directions. One truck contains 20 prisoners who are invited to stretch their legs in a field, whereupon they are all machine gunned in a single massacre, with the implication that the prisoners in the other two trucks were killed in the same manner. In reality, the majority of the POWs were shot individually or in pairs, killed by pistol shots taken by Gestapo officers; however, at least ten of them were killed in a manner like that portrayed in the film: Dutchy Swain, [[Chaz Hall]], Brian Evans, Wally Valenta, George McGill, Pat Langford, Edgar Humphreys, Adam Kolanowski, Bob Stewart and [[Henry Birkland|Henry "Hank" Birkland]].<ref>Andrews (1976), p.49</ref><ref>Vance (2000), p.265</ref><ref>Read (2012), p.244</ref><ref>Andrews (1976), p.187-188</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.pegasusarchive.org/pow/cSL_3_Fifty.htm |work=Pegasus Archive |title=Stalag Luft III: The Fifty |access-date=28 August 2015}}</ref><ref>Vance (2000), p.289</ref><ref name="Walters 2013" /> In 2009, seven POWs returned to Stalag Luft III for the 65th anniversary of the escape<ref name="Paterson2009">{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/veterans-of-the-great-escape-visit-old-stalag-1653313.html |title=Veterans of the Great Escape visit old Stalag |first=Tony |last=Paterson |work=[[The Independent]] |date=March 25, 2009 |location=London |issn=0951-9467 |oclc=185201487 |access-date=March 15, 2015 |archive-date=February 28, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120228231535/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/veterans-of-the-great-escape-visit-old-stalag-1653313.html |url-status=live }}</ref> and watched the film. According to the veterans, many details of the first half depicting life in the camp were authentic, e.g. the death of Ives, who tries to scale the fence, and the actual digging of the tunnels. The film has kept the memory of the 50 executed airmen alive for decades and has made their story known worldwide, if in a distorted form.<ref name="JWarren" /> British author [[Guy Walters]] notes that a pivotal scene in the film where MacDonald blunders by replying in English to a suspicious Gestapo officer saying, "Good luck", is now so strongly imprinted that historians have accepted it as a real event, and that it was Bushell's partner Bernard Scheidhauer who made the error. However, Walters points out that a historical account says that one of the two men said "yes" in English in response to a Kripo man's questions without any mention of "good luck" and notes that as Scheidhauer was French, and Bushell's first language was English, it seems likely that if a slip did take place, it was made by Bushell himself, and says the "good luck" scene should be regarded as fiction.<ref name="Walters 2013" />
Summary:
Please note that all contributions to Niidae Wiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see
Encyclopedia:Copyrights
for details).
Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)
Search
Search
Editing
The Great Escape (film)
(section)
Add topic