Stephen Dando-Collins's Blog
March 21, 2019
75th anniversary of The Great Escape
The night of March 24-25 brings the 75th anniversary of the 1944 tunnel breakout from Stalag Luft 3 in Silesia, now part of Poland. Last year, after reading THE HERO MAKER, my biography of Paul Brickhill, author of THE GREAT ESCAPE, the bestselling 1950 book that told the world all about the break and gave it its name, a Polish publisher contacted me to say that Brickhill's book has never been published in Poland. I put him in touch with Brickhill's literary agents in London. Hopefully, I have played a role in getting the true story finally told in Poland - the 1963 movie, made from Brickhill's factual book, varied from the facts in a number of key ways.
January 8, 2017
How I Stumbled on a Secret
When I embarked on the research for my latest book, The Big Break, published on January 10 by St. Martin's Press and which is being generously described as 'gripping' by the New York Daily News, 'masterful' by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, and 'One of the great untold tales of WWII' by the Literary Guild, I had no idea what I would find.
Over the years, research for my 39 books has been like a treasure hunt. Sometimes, I hit brick walls or find myself following trails that peter out. Occasionally, I strike gold. In the case of The Big Break, I found myself in a gold mine - first with the gross story of dozens of men tunneling to freedom via a latrine, then discovering that three Americans with celebrity connections were linked to the greatest escape of WWII - Craig Campbell, General Eisenhower's personal aide, Johnny Waters, General Patton's son-in-law, and Jack Hemingway, eldest son of author Ernest Hemingway.
I was researching The Hero Maker, my biography of Paul Brickhill, author of The Great Escape, when I came across reference to an earlier escape, from Schubin (today's Szubin) in Poland, which had served as an apprenticeship in tunneling for a number of the Great Escapers.
As I dug deeper, and with the invaluable help of Szubin-based Polish researcher Mariusz Winiecki and the sons, daughters and grandchildren of American escapees back in the States, I gradually pieced together the story of the escape from Nazi hands of 250 US Army officers from the Schubin camp, east toward the advancing Red Army - the greatest Allied escape of the war - and the roles of the three celebrity POWs.
The story of the mass American escape had remained largely untold, because, when the escapees returned home, US Military Intelligence had declared their escapes Top Secret and forbade them from talking about their often fraught experiences at the hands of the Russians - primarily so as not to offend our then Soviet allies at a delicate time late in the war.
As I discovered, Campbell, Waters and Hemingway had differing experiences during the episode, with only one successfully escaping.
I have been asked by several reporters why I think the Americans were so bent on escaping. Why not wait out the war in the comparative safety of their POW camp? As I have pointed out, none of the prisoners knew when the war's end would come. One American POW at Schubin predicted the war would last until 1983. And, even as it became clear the Nazis were losing, a rumor spread through the camps that Hitler had ordered the execution of all POWs rather than let them fall into the hands of the Allies. Plus, a number of the Americans, some of whom were as young as 19, were determined to get back into the war, and back into the fight.
Under those circumstances, escape seemed a viable option to energetic American prisoners. But, unlike British POWs, whose escape routes sent them north and west, through Germany, the Americans at Schubin wisely realized that their best chance at freedom lay in heading east, toward the Russians; a theory that 250 of them were to prove correct.
And now, the secret is out!
Over the years, research for my 39 books has been like a treasure hunt. Sometimes, I hit brick walls or find myself following trails that peter out. Occasionally, I strike gold. In the case of The Big Break, I found myself in a gold mine - first with the gross story of dozens of men tunneling to freedom via a latrine, then discovering that three Americans with celebrity connections were linked to the greatest escape of WWII - Craig Campbell, General Eisenhower's personal aide, Johnny Waters, General Patton's son-in-law, and Jack Hemingway, eldest son of author Ernest Hemingway.
I was researching The Hero Maker, my biography of Paul Brickhill, author of The Great Escape, when I came across reference to an earlier escape, from Schubin (today's Szubin) in Poland, which had served as an apprenticeship in tunneling for a number of the Great Escapers.
As I dug deeper, and with the invaluable help of Szubin-based Polish researcher Mariusz Winiecki and the sons, daughters and grandchildren of American escapees back in the States, I gradually pieced together the story of the escape from Nazi hands of 250 US Army officers from the Schubin camp, east toward the advancing Red Army - the greatest Allied escape of the war - and the roles of the three celebrity POWs.
The story of the mass American escape had remained largely untold, because, when the escapees returned home, US Military Intelligence had declared their escapes Top Secret and forbade them from talking about their often fraught experiences at the hands of the Russians - primarily so as not to offend our then Soviet allies at a delicate time late in the war.
As I discovered, Campbell, Waters and Hemingway had differing experiences during the episode, with only one successfully escaping.
I have been asked by several reporters why I think the Americans were so bent on escaping. Why not wait out the war in the comparative safety of their POW camp? As I have pointed out, none of the prisoners knew when the war's end would come. One American POW at Schubin predicted the war would last until 1983. And, even as it became clear the Nazis were losing, a rumor spread through the camps that Hitler had ordered the execution of all POWs rather than let them fall into the hands of the Allies. Plus, a number of the Americans, some of whom were as young as 19, were determined to get back into the war, and back into the fight.
Under those circumstances, escape seemed a viable option to energetic American prisoners. But, unlike British POWs, whose escape routes sent them north and west, through Germany, the Americans at Schubin wisely realized that their best chance at freedom lay in heading east, toward the Russians; a theory that 250 of them were to prove correct.
And now, the secret is out!
