In late 1942, having expended enormous resources on recapturing escaped Allied POWs, the Nazi German armed forces move the most determined to Stalag Luft III, a new, high-security prisoner-of-war camp supervised by Luftwaffe Colonel von Luger. The prisoners’ escape committee, the “X” Organization, led by RAF Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett, “Big X”, a former prisoner of the Gestapo, and with the approval of senior British officer Group Captain Ramsey, ‘The SBO’, mount an audacious plan to tunnel out of the camp and break out 250 men, not just to escape, but so that as many troops and resources as possible will be wasted on finding POWs.The Great Escape 1963 Movie Download.
The men organize into teams, simultaneously working on three tunnels – named “Tom”, “Dick”, and “Harry”. American Flight Lieutenant Bob Hendley is “the scrounger” and blackmailer, who finds anything from a camera to identity cards. Australian Flying Officer Sedgwick, “the manufacturer”, makes tools like picks and bellows for pumping air into the tunnels. Flight Lieutenants Danny Velinski and William “Willie” Dickes are “the tunnel kings” in charge of digging. Flight Lieutenant Andy MacDonald, Bartlett’s second-in-command, gathers and provides intelligence. Lieutenant Commander Eric Ashley-Pitt of the Royal Navy devises a method of dispersing soil from the tunnels under the guards’ noses. Flight Lieutenant Griffith is “the tailor”, creating civilian outfits from scavenged cloth. Dai Nimmo and Haynes are in charge of causing diversions in order to commence parts of the operation unnoticed. Sorren is in charge of security. Forgery is handled by Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe, “the forger”. The work noise is covered by the prisoner choir led by Flight Lieutenant Dennis Cavendish, “the surveyor”.
In June 1943, Bartlett asks USAAF Captain Virgil Hilts, ‘The Cooler King’, who is attempting an escape of his own with Scottish RAF Flying Officer Archibald “Archie” Ives,