It's what happens after "The Great Escape" . . .
The past year has been spent working on the manuscript to my upcoming book, HUMAN GAME. If you’re a fan of the movie THE GREAT ESCAPE, you know how the film ends. For those of you not familiar with this Steve McQueen classic, here’s a brief synopsis: In Stalag Luft III, a prison camp for Allied airmen deep in the heart of Germany, a group of inmates decide to orchestrate the breakout of 250 prisoners.
Each escapee is equipped with fake travel documents, German money, rations, identity cards, civilian clothing, compasses, etc.
The men built three tunnels, codenamed “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry.” To avoid the camp’s underground microphones, vertical shafts to each tunnel were dug 30 feet down before horizontal digging commenced. Construction of the tunnels continued around the clock and required the requisitioning of nearly 1,219 knifes, 582 forks, 408 spoons, 246 water cans, 1,699 blankets, 192 bed covers, 161 pillow cases, 1,212 pillows, 655 straw mattresses, thirty-four chairs, the frames of 90 bunk beds, 3,424 towels, ten single tables, fifty-two twenty-man tables, more than 1,200 bed bolsters, nearly 1,400 beaded battens, seventy-six benches, 1,000 feet of electrical wiring and 600 feet of rope. Four thousand bed boards were used to shore-up the tunnels. Lights wired into the camp’s electrical supply provided illumination underground; air pumps made of discarded kitbags, empty powdered-milk tins, wood-framing, wire mesh and tar paper supplied fresh air to those doing the digging.
Let’s jump ahead in our narrative a bit . . . The escape took place on the night of March 24/25, 1944. In the event, only seventy-six airmen got away before a guard discovered the exit to Harry—the tunnel ultimately used in the escape. Three of those seventy-six made it safely back to England; the others were recaptured. Fifty were handed over the Gestapo, taken to desolate killing fields throughout Germany, and gunned down.
The movie ends with the execution of the fifty. HUMAN GAME picks up immediately thereafter and details the Royal Air Force’s hunt for the Gestapo gunmen. It took three years of researching and writing to complete, and is based primarily on the official records kept by the RAF’s Special Investigating Branch, which handled the investigation. The Caliber imprint of Penguin will release the book in October. I’ll post more details as they become available.
Each escapee is equipped with fake travel documents, German money, rations, identity cards, civilian clothing, compasses, etc.
The men built three tunnels, codenamed “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry.” To avoid the camp’s underground microphones, vertical shafts to each tunnel were dug 30 feet down before horizontal digging commenced. Construction of the tunnels continued around the clock and required the requisitioning of nearly 1,219 knifes, 582 forks, 408 spoons, 246 water cans, 1,699 blankets, 192 bed covers, 161 pillow cases, 1,212 pillows, 655 straw mattresses, thirty-four chairs, the frames of 90 bunk beds, 3,424 towels, ten single tables, fifty-two twenty-man tables, more than 1,200 bed bolsters, nearly 1,400 beaded battens, seventy-six benches, 1,000 feet of electrical wiring and 600 feet of rope. Four thousand bed boards were used to shore-up the tunnels. Lights wired into the camp’s electrical supply provided illumination underground; air pumps made of discarded kitbags, empty powdered-milk tins, wood-framing, wire mesh and tar paper supplied fresh air to those doing the digging.
Let’s jump ahead in our narrative a bit . . . The escape took place on the night of March 24/25, 1944. In the event, only seventy-six airmen got away before a guard discovered the exit to Harry—the tunnel ultimately used in the escape. Three of those seventy-six made it safely back to England; the others were recaptured. Fifty were handed over the Gestapo, taken to desolate killing fields throughout Germany, and gunned down.
The movie ends with the execution of the fifty. HUMAN GAME picks up immediately thereafter and details the Royal Air Force’s hunt for the Gestapo gunmen. It took three years of researching and writing to complete, and is based primarily on the official records kept by the RAF’s Special Investigating Branch, which handled the investigation. The Caliber imprint of Penguin will release the book in October. I’ll post more details as they become available.
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