The Great Escape: 76 POWs Tunnel Out, Only 3 Make It

They'd dug three tunnels 30 feet deep using cutlery and bed slats, hauling out 200 tons of sand in bags hidden inside their trousers. Tom, Dick, and Harry — that's what the 600 prisoners called them. Roger Bushell, a South African RAF pilot, masterminded the operation, knowing the Gestapo had already warned him: one more escape attempt meant execution. When tunnel Harry finally broke through on March 24, 1944, only 76 of the planned 200 men made it out before a guard spotted them. The Gestapo recaptured 73. Hitler ordered all shot, but his officers talked him down to 50. Bushell was among them, murdered on a roadside. The massacre violated every convention of war, and those execution orders became evidence at Nuremberg — the prisoners' defiance didn't win them freedom, but it helped convict their killers.