The Great Canadian Escape: author recounts untold story of WWII drama

It was March 1944.

War had ravaged Europe for almost five years. In a few months, thousands of Canadian and other Allied troops would make landfall at Normandy in the D-Day invasion. In a little more than a year, the Allies would accept Germany’s surrender.

But the Commonwealth officers in the German prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III – Canadians among them - were planning an operation of their own.

Under cover of darkness the night of March 24, 80 airmen crawled through a 400-foot tunnel they’d dug by hand, secreting the dirt out for more than a year hidden in pant legs and pockets.

The daring breakout was immortalized in the 1963 movie “The Great Escape,” starring Steve McQueen and James Garner.

The fictional, Americanized film was a huge success but there were only two Americans involved in the real escape. About a third of the 2,000 men involved were Canadian; others were British, Australians, New Zealanders and other Commonwealth airmen.

“It’s terrific entertainment but it’s a total fabrication,” author Ted Barris, tells Yahoo Canada News about the movie he first saw at age 14 and many times since.

Barris documents the stunning true story in his book, “The Great Escape: A Canadian Story.” He will be reading this Thursday and signing copies of his book at the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada, hosted by the Canadian Aviation Historical Society’s Manitoba Chapter.

A military historian and author of 17 books, Barris was “assigned” the story on a to-do list from his close friend, speaking partner and veteran, Charlie Fox.

Years later, he would discover that one of the escapees was the father of a school friend. After Tony Pengelly’s death, his son Chris gave Barris an old suitcase full of his father’s effects.

It was an untold story that captured Barris.

Stalag Luft III was built 160 kilometres southeast of Berlin, in what is now Poland. It was supposed to be an “inescapable” prisoner of war camp to house captured Allied air force pilots and crew that continually tried to flee other German camps.

Soon after their arrival in 1942, an “escape committee” was formed.

Tunnels were dug and shored up with wooden boards from the beds. A bellows was devised to pump air through the long passageway. Documents were forged for travel on the outside.

Of the 80 men who made their way through “Harry” tunnel – one of three planned routes – four were captured at the exit and 76 got away, including nine Canadians.

In the following days, 73 escapees were chased down. Hitler ordered 50 of them shot. Six of those men were Canadian – Hank Birkland (Spearhill, Man.), Gordon Kidder (St. Catharine’s, Ont.), Patrick Langford (Edmonton), George Edward McGill (Toronto), James Chrystall Wernham (Winnipeg), George Wiley (Windsor, Ont.).

William Cameron (Stony Plain, Alta.), Keith Ogilvie (Ottawa), Alfred Burke “Tommy” Thompson (Penetanguishene, Ont.) were returned to the camp.

The escape was a “made-in-Canada” plan, Barris says. Many of the key players – the tunnel designer, excavators, forgers, scroungers, security and intelligence personnel, custodian of the secret radio, and scores of security “stooges” and sand-dispersal “penguins” – were Canadian, including many of the roles portrayed as American in the movie.

Barry Davidson of Calgary was the “scrounger” portrayed by James Garner and Wally Floody of Chatham, Ont., was the chief tunnel designer, portrayed by Charles Bronson.

Pengelly of Truro, N.S., was the chief forger and Kingsley Brown, a Nova Scotia journalist, was the intelligence chief. John Colwell, a chicken farmer from British Columbia, was the “tin man” who made the bellows.

“All these key roles are Canadians,” Barris says.

Barris says the movie brought attention to a story that may have gone untold but it also usurped the reality.

“It’s a story that Canadians came home with and, in their modesty, didn’t bother to tell,” he says. “And to be fair, most of these guys were told, in the wisdom of the day, ‘leave it all behind, move on with your life.’”

Only three men - two Norwegian pilots and one Dutch – made it safely to freedom.

Barris was co-winner of the 2014 Libris Award for best non-fiction book of the year for “The Great Escape: A Canadian Story,” alongside astronaut Chris Hadfield.

Barris is now working on a book of stories about war medical personnel, from the American Civil War to the war in Afghanistan. He can be contacted via his website.