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The Great Escape - 70th Anniversary

andrewsw16andrewsw16 Member Posts: 10,728 ✭✭✭
edited March 2014 in General Discussion
My all time favorite WWII movie. Many do not know the movie is based on a real event.
70 years ago. What a group of guys!

http://www.independent.co.uk/video/?videoid+3384168167001
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Comments

  • skicatskicat Member Posts: 14,431 ✭
    edited November -1
    I would have had a very rough time of it if I had to dig those tunnels.
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  • andrewsw16andrewsw16 Member Posts: 10,728 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Ditto. A mild case of claustrophobia. I especially appreciated that scene in the movie when Charles Bronson gets buried alive in the tunnel. No spankyou. [;)]

    Youtube has a documentary including a tour of the camp location by two of the participants.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bgiqKbnuyM
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  • pulsarncpulsarnc Member Posts: 6,559 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Reportedly the character played by Steve McQueen was based on a vet from my home town Goldsboro,nc .who in later years ran a car dealership.
    cry Havoc and let slip  the dogs of war..... 
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  • allen griggsallen griggs Member Posts: 35,692 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    In real life, most of the escaped guys got captured, and most of them got executed. Before the big break, they talked about sending escapees running all over Germany and disrupting the Kraut war effort. I don't think so.

    Really, life in the German POW camp was pretty good. The guys who got captured by the Japs really had it bad and many/most of them died in captivity.
    If I had been a POW in a Kraut camp I would have taken a pass on digging those tunnels, and just sat out the damn war. I would have enjoyed practicing my German with the guards, I bet I would have gotten fluent by April of 1945.
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  • andrewsw16andrewsw16 Member Posts: 10,728 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    The two Brits telling their tale said that only about 78 got out. THREE made it all the way. The other 75 were caught. 50 of THEM were murdered by the Gestapo.
    Not what I would call a successful military operation. Still, many of them felt a duty to try.
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  • armilitearmilite Member Posts: 35,490 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Great movie.
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  • serfserf Member Posts: 9,217 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by armilite
    Great movie.


    Yeah and the men who pulled it off too! Couldn't happen today with the technology available,you couldn't tunnel out with it in place.

    That should ring bells here about our so called democracy we have here in America! A Republic is not a democracy it's a oligarchic dynasty!

    serf
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  • nards444nards444 Member Posts: 3,994 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by andrewsw16
    The two Brits telling their tale said that only about 78 got out. THREE made it all the way. The other 75 were caught. 50 of THEM were murdered by the Gestapo.
    Not what I would call a successful military operation. Still, many of them felt a duty to try.



    wouldnt necessarily call it murder. As I believe there is less protection afforded to prisoners who try to escape. Not that makes it right.
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  • andrewsw16andrewsw16 Member Posts: 10,728 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    The rules of war concerning the treatment of prisoners gets pretty complicated, especially if the escapees are no longer in uniform or commit crimes during or after their escape. I remember sitting through several hours of classes during my time on active duty. After the war, the Brits, still labelling it as murder, hunted down, tried, and hanged the Gestapo agents who took part in the killings.
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