For those related to the men of the Great Escape and those working to ensure we always remember, I offer a countdown to the 70th anniversary: “30 Days to the Great Escape.”
By Feb. 22, 1944, Tunnel “Harry,” the third and most sophisticated excavation from inside Stalag Luft III, had advanced more than 200 feet from its trapdoor entrance beneath a stove in Hut 104 of the North Compound… north under the wire towards the pine forest outside the wire.
Since arriving at the German POW camp, 2,000 downed Commonwealth air officers within the North Compound had re-established X Organization (the escape committee) and launched full-scale escape operations, including the excavation of three tunnels 30 feet down and more 300 feet out.
By late February, Wally Floody, the tunnel king, had even constructed one halfway house (a widening of the tunnel) to allow digging crews more working space. Since being shot down in October 1941, fighter pilot Floody, now 25, had dug more than 50 tunnels during his three years of imprisonment. The Canadian tunnel king summed up his work:
“First, you’ve got to find a place to sink a shaft,” he said. “Next, you’ve got to build a tunnel very deep so the Germans can’t hear any digging. You’ve got to dispose of the sand. And most important, you’ve got to be able to do all this under the very noses of the Germans.”