Post by Bill ShatzerInteresting.
"Untouched for almost seven decades, the tunnel used in the Great Escape
has finally been unearthed.
"The 111-yard passage nicknamed 'Harry' by Allied prisoners was sealed
by the Germans after the audacious break-out from the PoW camp Stalag
Luft III in western Poland."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2064068/Tunnel-time-Revealed-67-years-
passage-used-Great-Escape.html
that's really strange as Nova did an episode almost 9 years ago
TV Program Description
Original PBS Broadcast Date: November 16, 2004
Great Escape homepage
The real Great Escape didn't feature Steve McQueen racing through the
Third Reich on a motorcycle like in the 1963 movie, but the big breakout
was still thrilling in every way. This program sheds new light on the
audacious escape of 76 Allied airmen from a Nazi POW camp during World
War II.
Sixty years after the event, NOVA follows a team of archeologists as
they search the site of Stalag Luft III for new evidence of the
clandestine operation, which involved 600 prisoners digging three highly
sophisticated tunnels, code-named Tom, Dick, and Harry. Each tunnel was
made with railways, electric lights, and underground air pumps<all under
the noses of German guards.
The detainees were planning to spring 200 men via Harry on the moonless
night of March 24, 1944. Unfortunately, a guard spotted the 77th man as
he exited the tunnel beyond the perimeter fence, but 76 managed to get
away, fanning out in all directions and forcing the German army to
commit tens of thousands of troops to an intensive manhunt.
In the ensuing search through the camp to shut down all tunnels, the
guards never found Dick. But archeologists did, and NOVA films them
uncovering the cleverly concealed entrance, hidden at the bottom of a
washroom sump behind a concrete trapdoor that is still in place. "Yes, I
remember going down there about 60 years ago," reminisces Jimmy James, a
former RAF pilot who is one of several Great Escape veterans to visit
the excavation.
Incredibly, the tunnels were 30 feet deep<the height of a three-story
house<a measure taken to evade German listening devices planted in the
ground to detect tunneling activity. Another challenge was the nearly
pure sand through which tunnelers had to dig; the airmen used wooden
supports to keep the passages from collapsing. Wood was in short supply
at the camp and had to be scrounged from bed slats and by cannibalizing
the barracks. "Those poor barracks: I wondered why they didn't fall
down, because all the bracing in the attics was practically taken out,"
recalls Charles Huppert, a U.S. airman from Indiana.
Getting rid of sand also presented a problem, which was solved by
"penguins"<prisoners equipped with special trouser bags filled with sand
that could be discreetly scattered as the men waddled around the camp.
Tunnelers were equally creative in utilizing empty milk cans to
construct tools and ductwork for the ventilation system. (For more on
the tunnel, see A Prisoner's Sketchbook and Inside Tunnel "Harry".)
To prepare for life on the lam, teams made insignias for escape clothes
and forged elaborate identity papers, evidence of which turns up in the
excavation of tunnel Dick. Future escapees were also organized into
small groups, each headed by a fluent speaker of German.
Although Stalag Luft III was located in eastern Germany, in what is now
Poland, hundreds of miles from friendly territory, three men managed to
cross most of Europe and make it to freedom (see The Three That Got
Away). As for the 73 who were recaptured, 23 were returned to German
camps, and tragically, 50 were summarily shot in violation of the Geneva
Convention as Hitler's revenge against those who dared to break out of
his "escape proof" prison.