What are the greatest escapes in military history?
In our ranking the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III in 1944 is the greatest escape in military history: 76 airmen crawled out through the tunnel Harry, and only three got home. Napoleon's escape from Elba and the Sobibor uprising follow, level on points, ahead of Vrba and Wetzler's escape from Auschwitz and Charles II's flight after Worcester.
This list covers wartime escapes in which people got themselves out: prisoners breaking out of prisons, camps and fortresses, the Nazi death camps among them, and fugitives slipping through a manhunt after a defeat, from Charles II in 1651 to Dieter Dengler in Laos in 1966. Rescues by others and evacuations of armies, such as Dunkirk, are left out. The fifteen escapes are ranked by score for recognition, daring and difficulty, consequence, memory and the certainty of the sources, not by date. Films are never a source, and where the screen invented something we say so; see how we chose and ranked them.1
1 The Great Escape, 1944
- When
- Night of 24 to 25 March 1944
- Where
- Stalag Luft III, Sagan (now Żagań, Poland)
- Escapers
- 76 Allied airmen, of about 200 who were meant to go
- Outcome
- 73 recaptured and 50 of them murdered by the Gestapo; 3 reached safety
- Legacy
- Memorial and museum at Żagań; British war crimes trial at Hamburg, 1947
Stalag Luft III at Sagan, today Żagań in Poland, held captured Allied airmen and was built on sandy ground to make tunneling impossible. In the spring of 1943 an escape committee, "X", under Squadron Leader Roger Bushell set out to get some 200 men out in one night. More than twice that number worked for it, digging three tunnels called Tom, Dick and Harry, forging passes and tailoring civilian clothes. The guards found Tom, Dick became a store, and everything went into Harry, which began under a stove in Hut 104.2
After waiting a week for a moonless night, 76 men crawled through the 102 meters of Harry on the night of 24 to 25 March 1944. The tunnel came up short of the woods, and the 77th man was spotted. A nationwide manhunt caught all but three. On Hitler's orders the Gestapo murdered 50 of them, six Poles among them; only two Norwegians, Per Bergsland and Jens Müller, and the Dutchman Bram van der Stok reached safety. A British military court in Hamburg tried the killers in 1947. Myth vs fact: the motorcycle chase of the 1963 film never happened; according to Turner Classic Movies it was added at Steve McQueen's suggestion.3
Why it ranks here: The real escape is on every list we checked, a year of digging under a camp built to stop it earns daring 5, and the records of both sides document it, so recognition, daring, memory and certainty all score 5 and put it first on 46 points. Only consequence holds it back, at 3: with 73 of 76 caught and 50 murdered, the escape itself failed.
2 Napoleon's escape from Elba, 1815
- When
- 26 February to 20 March 1815
- Where
- Portoferraio, Elba, to Golfe-Juan and Paris
- Escapers
- Napoleon and about 1,100 soldiers
- Outcome
- Back in the Tuileries on 20 March; the Hundred Days
- Legacy
- The Route Napoléon; the road to Waterloo
In 1814 the fallen emperor was made sovereign of Elba, with a British commissioner, Colonel Sir Neil Campbell, living there to keep an eye on him. Campbell was a lax watcher: drawn to a mistress in Florence, he was often away, and he had been off the island for the ten days before the escape although he was urged to come back. On the morning of 26 February 1815 Napoleon told his household he was leaving, without saying where, and closed the island's ports to keep spies from carrying the news to Livorno. At 7 pm he boarded the brig Inconstant and sailed two hours later with six other ships.4
On 1 March he landed at Golfe-Juan with about 1,100 soldiers and marched north through the Alps on what is now the Route Napoléon. At Laffrey on 7 March the 5th Line Regiment barred his way. By the Fondation Napoléon's account he walked forward and said: "If there is one amongst you who wishes to kill your Emperor, here I am", and the soldiers went over to him. On 20 March he entered the Tuileries, which Louis XVIII had just abandoned. The Hundred Days that followed ended in defeat at Waterloo and exile on St Helena.5
Why it ranks here: Few escapes changed as much: it brought back the war that ended at Waterloo, so consequence 5, with recognition 5 and memory 4. It is not first because it was barely a breakout: Napoleon ruled the island rather than sitting behind walls, and sailing away while the commissioner was absent scores only 3 for daring. Level on 44 points with the Sobibor uprising, it stands higher on recognition.
3 Sobibor uprising, 1943
- When
- 14 October 1943
- Where
- Sobibor death camp, German-occupied Poland
- Escapers
- About 300 of some 600 Jewish prisoners
- Outcome
- About 50 survived the war; the Germans shut the camp and razed it
- Legacy
- The Museum and Memorial in Sobibór, on the site of the camp
Sobibor was not a prison but a killing center. The Germans murdered at least 167,000 people there by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's count, about 180,000 by the site museum's, almost all of them Jews. The prisoners kept alive for labor sensed in 1943 that the camp was winding down and that they would die with it. A resistance group formed by Leon Feldhendler, a Polish Jew, was joined in September by Soviet Jewish prisoners of war around Lieutenant Alexander Pechersky to plan an armed revolt.6
On the afternoon of 14 October 1943 the conspirators lured SS men one by one into the workshops and killed them quietly. At roll call Pechersky told the others, and the prisoners ran for the fences under fire, many through the minefield. The museum counts nine SS men and two guards killed; the USHMM gives 11 German staff and a few Trawniki-trained guards. About 300 of the roughly 600 prisoners got out. Some 100 were caught in the manhunt that followed, and about 50 lived to see the end of the war. Those left behind were murdered, and the camp was razed and planted with trees. Myth vs fact: the revolt is often told as a mass escape to freedom; in fact, by our arithmetic, only about one in six of those who broke out survived.7
Why it ranks here: A revolt of the condemned inside a death camp scores 5 for daring and 5 for memory, and it ended the camp, so consequence 4. Recognition is 4, and the sources differ on the numbers, so certainty 4; level on 44 points with Napoleon's return from Elba, it stands lower on recognition.
4 Vrba and Wetzler's escape from Auschwitz, 1944
- When
- From 7 April 1944; out after three days in hiding
- Where
- Auschwitz II-Birkenau to Žilina, Slovakia
- Escapers
- Rudolf Vrba (Walter Rosenberg) and Alfréd Wetzler, Slovak Jews
- Outcome
- Both reached Slovakia; their report reached the West
- Legacy
- The Vrba-Wetzler report; a memorial march of about 130 km each year
More than 900 prisoners tried to escape from Auschwitz, and 196 are known to have succeeded, most of them from work details outside the camp; getting out of Birkenau itself was far harder. Rudolf Vrba, born Walter Rosenberg, had spent almost two years in the camp, and he learned that the SS was preparing for the Jews of Hungary. On 7 April 1944 he and Alfréd Wetzler crawled into a hiding place in a woodpile in the part of Birkenau called "Mexico", with tobacco soaked in gasoline spread around it to put the dogs off.8
They lay still for three days, until the search had been given up, then walked south across occupied Poland, helped by Polish and Slovak civilians. More than ten days later, in Žilina, they gave their account to the Slovak Jewish Council. The report, 32 pages with maps and descriptions of the gas chambers and crematoria, reached the World Jewish Congress, the Red Cross, Allied governments and the Vatican. It did not stop the deportations from Hungary: from 15 May to 9 July 1944 about 437,000 Jews were sent away, most of them to Birkenau. Its share in Horthy's halt of 7 July is debated: the USHMM credits the war, foreign threats and his inner circle, while Slovak radio cites historians who say it saved some 200,000 lives. Each year walkers follow the roughly 130 km route to Skalité.9
Why it ranks here: Two men beat the guard lines of Birkenau and carried the truth out, so daring 5, recognition 4, memory 4 and certainty 5. Consequence is 4, not 5, because how far the report moved Horthy is still argued: 43 points.
5 Charles II and the Royal Oak, 1651
- When
- 3 September to 16 October 1651
- Where
- Worcester to Boscobel, Shropshire, and Shoreham, Sussex
- Escapers
- Charles II, aged 21, with a few companions and many helpers
- Outcome
- Landed at Fécamp in Normandy; restored as king in 1660
- Legacy
- Oak Apple Day, 29 May; the Royal Oak at Boscobel
On 3 September 1651 Parliament's forces destroyed the army of Charles II at Worcester, and the king whose father had been executed in 1649 became the most wanted man in England, with a price of £1,000 on his head, according to the Gold Hill Museum. He rode north with several hundred followers, then broke away with a few. At White Ladies on 4 September the five Penderel brothers, who looked after the Catholic Giffard family's estate, helped him dress as a countryman; a try at reaching Wales failed at the guarded Severn crossings.10
At dawn on 6 September he reached Boscobel House, and that day he and Major William Careless hid in a pollarded oak while Parliamentarian soldiers were in the area. Disguised next as the servant of a Royalist gentlewoman, Jane Lane, he worked his way south to the coast. He kept his companion Lord Wilmot at a distance because Wilmot refused to change his looks, as Charles himself told Samuel Pepys in 1680. After six weeks on the run the captain of a collier at Shoreham agreed to take two supposed merchants to France, and on 16 October Charles landed at Fécamp in Normandy. He returned as king on 29 May 1660, the day that became Oak Apple Day, and the families who had hidden him were given pensions still paid to Penderel descendants.11
Why it ranks here: His survival kept the Stuart line alive for the Restoration, so consequence 4, and Oak Apple Day gives memory 5. Daring is 4 because loyal helpers carried him at every stage, and certainty 4 because the story rests on royalist narratives, his own to Pepys among them: 42 points.
6 Churchill's escape from Pretoria, 1899
- When
- Night of 12 December 1899
- Where
- State Model School, Pretoria, to Portuguese East Africa
- Escapers
- Winston Churchill, war correspondent, alone
- Outcome
- Free; reached Durban a celebrity, with £25 offered for him "dead or alive"
- Legacy
- Launched his career; elected to Parliament in 1900
On 15 November 1899 Winston Churchill, a Morning Post correspondent, rode out on an armored train in Natal under his friend Captain Aylmer Haldane. Boers derailed it; Churchill helped clear the line so the engine could carry the wounded away, then was taken prisoner. The officers were held at the State Model School in Pretoria, where he spent his 25th birthday. Haldane and Sergeant Major Adam Brockie, a former miner who spoke Dutch, were planning to escape, and Churchill insisted on coming.12
On the evening of 12 December, when two sentries turned their backs, Churchill climbed the fence by the latrine. The other two could not follow, and he set off alone with £75 and four pieces of chocolate. He jumped a goods train and later knocked at the house of John Howard, manager of a colliery, who hid him down the mine and then sent him east hidden among bales of wool. The Boers offered £25 for him, "dead or alive"; he reached Portuguese East Africa, and in Durban the crowds cheered him. Myth vs fact: the escape everyone knows is Churchill's own; Haldane called it "fiction so far as his escape enters into it", insisting Churchill had agreed to go with him, while the historian John Hussey finds the plan collapsed through confusion that Haldane himself caused. The fame helped him into Parliament in 1900.13
Why it ranks here: A world-famous name keeps recognition at 5, and the escape made him a celebrity and an MP, so consequence 3. Daring is 4 because luck and Howard carried him, and certainty 4 because his own vivid accounts are the main source and Haldane disputed them for life: 41 points.
7 Flight of Bonnie Prince Charlie, 1746
- When
- 16 April to 20 September 1746
- Where
- Culloden, the Western Isles, Skye and Loch nan Uamh
- Escapers
- Charles Edward Stuart, passed from one band of helpers to the next
- Outcome
- Sailed for France on 20 September 1746, never to return
- Legacy
- Flora MacDonald; the Skye Boat Song; the Prince's Cairn
The last Jacobite army was destroyed at Culloden on 16 April 1746. Charles Edward Stuart got away from the field, but the Stuart cause was ruined for good. For about five months the government hunted him through the Highlands and the Western Isles. By the count of the historians Alasdair Maclean and John S. Gibson, £30,000 was offered for his capture and five attempts to get him away failed before French ships came.14
In the Outer Hebrides he was put in the care of Flora MacDonald, whose stepfather, the commander of the local militia, gave her permission to travel. On 27 June 1746 she sailed from Benbecula in a small boat, with the prince disguised as her Irish spinning maid, "Betty Burke", and landed him on Skye. From Skye he went on to Raasay and later back to the mainland. When the story came out Flora was arrested, held at Dunstaffnage Castle and then briefly in the Tower of London. On 20 September 1746 Charles boarded a French ship in Loch nan Uamh, close to where he had first landed on the mainland in July 1745, and left Scotland for good; a cairn marks the spot. Myth vs fact: the Skye Boat Song, which made the crossing a legend, is no Jacobite ballad of 1746; it was published in 1884, almost 140 years later.15
Why it ranks here: Flora MacDonald and the song keep it alive, so memory 5, and five months on the run with a fortune on his head score 4 for daring, not 5, because loyal helpers carried him, as they did Charles II. Consequence is only 2, since the cause was lost at Culloden: 38 points.
8 Airey Neave's escape from Colditz, 1942
- When
- 5 January 1942
- Where
- Oflag IV-C, Colditz Castle, Saxony, to Switzerland
- Escapers
- Lieutenant Airey Neave and the Dutch officer Lieutenant Anthony Luteyn
- Outcome
- Both reached Switzerland; Neave was back in England in April 1942
- Legacy
- First British officer home from Colditz; later of MI9
Colditz Castle, on a hill above the River Mulde south of Leipzig, held some 800 Allied officers whom the Germans considered troublesome or likely to escape, and they believed it escape-proof. Airey Neave, a British lieutenant wounded and captured at Calais in 1940, arrived there on 15 May 1941, after breaking out of Stalag XX-A at Thorn in Poland and being caught again. His first try at Colditz, in a makeshift German uniform that fooled nobody, failed. He stayed convinced, as he wrote in his MI9 report, "that the best method of escaping was by posing as a German".16
On the night of 5 January 1942 he and Anthony Luteyn, a German-speaking Dutch officer, broke through the floor of the camp theater into the guardroom below, in German uniforms made in the camp and with forged papers, and walked past the guards and out. A second British and Dutch pair left the same way and was recaptured at Ulm. Neave and Luteyn reached Switzerland half-starved; Neave went on through France, Spain and Gibraltar and was home in April 1942, the first British officer to escape from Colditz. He then joined MI9, the department that helped Allied servicemen evade capture and escape, and drew it a plan of the castle.17
Why it ranks here: Walking out of the camp built for persistent escapers on bluff alone scores 4 for daring, the escape is on three of the five lists we checked, so recognition 4, and his own MI9 reports in the National Archives make certainty 5. Consequence is only 2, through his later work for MI9; level on 37 points with the next escape, it stays ahead on recognition.
9 Piechowski's escape from Auschwitz, 1942
- When
- Saturday 20 June 1942
- Where
- Auschwitz I main camp, Oświęcim, German-occupied Poland
- Escapers
- 4 Polish prisoners: Kazimierz Piechowski, Stanisław Jaster, Józef Lempart and Eugeniusz Bendera
- Outcome
- All four drove out in SS uniforms and an SS car and got away; the Germans killed Lempart's mother and Jaster's parents in reprisal
- Legacy
- Jaster carried out a report from Witold Pilecki; documentary The Runaway (2007)
Kazimierz Piechowski, prisoner 918, left Auschwitz two years to the day after he arrived. The plan was Eugeniusz Bendera's, an SS garage mechanic who learned in May 1942 that he was listed for death; Piechowski, who worked in the SS stores and spoke German, agreed after three days of persuasion. The camp killed ten prisoners for every escaper, so the four invented a cart detail that did not exist, leaving no real work party to punish.18
On Saturday afternoon Piechowski reported his "Rollwagenkommando" at the gate under the words Arbeit macht frei, and the SS man waved the cart through unchecked. In the storeroom they put on SS uniforms and took weapons, Piechowski as an officer, while Bendera brought round a Steyr 220, the garage's best car. At the last barrier Piechowski leaned out and waved, and the guard lifted it. Myth vs fact: the car is often called the commandant's own, but the Auschwitz Museum says only that it was stolen from the SS motor pool, and an account from the International Youth Meeting Center in Oświęcim names it as SS Captain Paul Kreuzmann's. All four reached the General Government, and the Germans killed Lempart's mother and Jaster's parents. Jaster carried out a report from Witold Pilecki, but in 1943 the underground, wrongly suspecting him of treachery, shot him. Piechowski told the story in the documentary The Runaway (2007).19
Why it ranks here: Full marks for daring and memory 4 give it 37, level with Airey Neave, but recognition 3 sets it below him: it is famous in Poland and on none of the foreign lists we checked. Certainty is 4 because accounts disagree on whose car it was.
10 Pilecki's escape from Auschwitz, 1943
- When
- Night of 26 to 27 April 1943, over Easter
- Where
- The camp bakery at Oświęcim-Niwa, outside the main camp of Auschwitz
- Escapers
- 3 Polish prisoners: Witold Pilecki (no. 4859), Jan Redzej and Edward Ciesielski
- Outcome
- All three reached Bochnia and the Home Army; Pilecki was wounded on the way
- Legacy
- Pilecki's 1943 report on the camp; a commemorative horse ride along the escape route
In September 1940 Witold Pilecki let himself be caught in a Warsaw round-up to get into Auschwitz, where, as prisoner 4859 under a false name, he built a secret network that sent reports to the underground. By spring 1943 the Germans were closing in on the network and planned to ship long-serving Polish prisoners to the Reich, so he decided to go.20
He chose Easter, when many SS men were on leave, and got himself, Jan Redzej and Edward Ciesielski onto the night shift of the bakery at Niwa, outside the wire, where the bakers were locked in under two SS guards. On the night of 26 to 27 April Redzej worked the door loose with a key he had obtained; by Auschwitz Museum historian Adam Cyra's account, one guard was writing a letter and the other eating when the three pushed it open and ran. They crossed the Soła and the Vistula and walked east toward Bochnia. On 1 May, by Cyra's account, Germans fired on them in the Niepołomice forest and Pilecki was shot in the arm, but all three got away. In Nowy Wiśnicz he wrote a report on the camp and proposed an attack to free the prisoners, which the Home Army rejected as unrealistic. He had spent, he wrote, 947 days and as many nights in that hell.21
Why it ranks here: The escape itself is on none of the lists we checked, so recognition is 3, and daring is 4 because the bakery outside the wire was a softer exit than the main camp. It ties the Treblinka uprising on 36 with equal recognition and consequence, and goes first as the older escape.
11 Treblinka uprising, 1943
- When
- Afternoon of Monday 2 August 1943
- Where
- Treblinka II death camp, German-occupied Poland
- Escapers
- About 200 by the Treblinka Museum's count, more than 300 by the USHMM's, of 840 prisoners in the camp
- Outcome
- At most 100 escapers survived the war; the camp was dismantled by November 1943
- Legacy
- The Treblinka Museum and memorial; commemorated there every 2 August
Treblinka II was a killing center. By the USHMM's estimate its staff murdered some 925,000 Jews there between July 1942 and the autumn of 1943; the IPN gives about 900,000. The Jews kept alive to work knew that each lone escape usually cost ten others their lives, and that they would die when the camp closed. In early 1943 they formed an organizing committee, joined by survivors of the Warsaw ghetto uprising; by July the burning of the exhumed bodies was nearly done, transports had become rare, and they expected liquidation any day.22
On Monday 2 August 1943, a day without transports, the conspirators took weapons, ammunition and grenades from the guardhouse with a copied key. When an SS man found gold on one of them, the revolt had to start early and in chaos: buildings and a petrol tank went up in flames, but the gas chambers survived, the telephone line held, and the main breakout came through the gate under heavy fire. The Treblinka Museum reckons that of 840 prisoners about 200 got out and escaped the chase, and that at most 100 lived to see the end of the war; the USHMM gives more than 300 escapers, two-thirds of them later hunted down and killed. Prisoners who remained were made to dismantle the camp and were then shot.23
Why it ranks here: Daring scores 5 and memory 4, but certainty is only 3 because the museum's and the USHMM's counts differ, and consequence 3 because the camp was already winding down. It ties Pilecki's escape on 36, level on recognition and consequence, and follows it as the later escape.
12 Libby Prison escape, 1864
- When
- Night of 9 to 10 February 1864
- Where
- Libby Prison, a converted warehouse in Richmond, Virginia
- Escapers
- 109 Union officers
- Outcome
- 59 reached Union lines, 48 were recaptured and 2 drowned, by American Heritage's figures
- Legacy
- The largest escape of the Civil War; the site is marked by a plaque on Richmond's flood wall
Libby Prison, a Richmond warehouse turned into a pen for captured Union officers, held about 1,200 of them at a time, and by early 1864 the collapse of prisoner exchanges meant they could expect to stay until the war ended. Colonel Thomas E. Rose of the 77th Pennsylvania, taken at Chickamauga, began plotting the day he arrived. With Captain Andrew Hamilton he broke through the back of a fireplace into the rat-infested cellar the prisoners called Rat Hell, but their first tunnels flooded or caved in.24
Rose started the last tunnel on 23 January 1864; in all, by HistoryNet's count, rotating teams dug for 57 days on four tunnels. They worked with a chisel and a jackknife, hauled the earth out in a spittoon on a clothesline, spread it over the cellar floor and fanned air to the digger with a board. Rose and Hamilton dug the last stretch alone, finishing a tunnel of about fifty feet that came up in a shed across the street. On the night of 9 February Rose slipped out, and 108 others followed him into Richmond's streets. Of the 109, 59 reached the Union lines, 48 were recaptured and 2 drowned, according to American Heritage; Rose himself was caught within sight of Union troops and sent back to Libby.25
Why it ranks here: The largest escape of the Civil War scores full marks for daring and certainty, but it changed nothing in the war, consequence 2, and is little remembered outside the United States, memory 3. It shares 34 points with Pat Reid's escape and the Wooden Horse, all three at recognition 3, and goes first on its greater consequence.
13 Pat Reid's escape from Colditz, 1942
- When
- Evening of 14 October 1942
- Where
- Colditz Castle (Oflag IV-C), Saxony, Germany
- Escapers
- 4 officers: Captain Pat Reid, Major Ronald Littledale, Lieutenant Commander William Stephens and the Canadian airman Hank Wardle
- Outcome
- All four reached Switzerland, on 18 and 19 October
- Legacy
- Reid's book The Colditz Story; the television series Colditz (1972 to 1974)
Colditz Castle, on a hill above a river in Saxony, was where the Germans sent Allied officers who had escaped from other camps or were judged a risk; The National Archives counts more than 30 successful escapes from it, ten of them by British and Commonwealth officers. Pat Reid, a captain taken in the Battle of France, had already crawled through a sewer pipe with a dozen others, only to be betrayed by the guard he had bribed, then became the British escape officer.26
After evening roll call on 14 October 1942 he went himself, with Major Ronald Littledale, Lieutenant Commander William Stephens and the Canadian airman Hank Wardle, while Douglas Bader, keeping lookout, conducted a band whose silence meant the coast was clear. From the prisoners' kitchen they got across to the German side and into a storage cellar under the commandant's headquarters. The only way on was a narrow air shaft, so they stripped naked to wriggle through it, passing their clothes ahead, and came out into the moat. Traveling in pairs, Reid and Wardle reached the Swiss border on the night of 18 October, and Littledale and Stephens the next evening. His book The Colditz Story, the film of the same name and the television series of 1972 to 1974 made the castle a byword for escape.27
Why it ranks here: Daring and certainty are full marks and memory 4 comes from the books and the screen, but consequence is 1: four men got away and nothing else changed. It ties Libby Prison and the Wooden Horse on 34, goes below Libby on consequence and above the Wooden Horse as the older escape.
14 The Wooden Horse, 1943
- When
- 29 October 1943, after 114 days of digging
- Where
- Stalag Luft III, near Sagan in Lower Silesia, now Żagań in Poland
- Escapers
- 3 British officers: Lieutenant Michael Codner and Flight Lieutenants Eric Williams and Oliver Philpot
- Outcome
- All three reached Britain
- Legacy
- Williams's book The Wooden Horse (1949) and the 1950 film
Stalag Luft III, the Luftwaffe's camp for captured Allied airmen near Sagan, had been built on sandy ground precisely to make tunneling impossible; by Forces News's account the huts stood raised off the ground and microphones were buried nine feet deep. Michael Codner, Eric Williams and Oliver Philpot found a way round it. They built a vaulting horse out of plywood from Red Cross boxes and carried it every day to the same spot near the wire with a digger hidden inside. While other prisoners vaulted over it, the noise covering the work, the man underneath dug toward the fence with metal bowls for shovels.28
On 29 October 1943, after 114 days of digging, the horse went out with all three men hidden inside. After dark they broke the surface beyond the wire; Philpot later recalled looking up at a German guard who, luckily, was facing into the camp, before he streaked across the road into the pine trees. Williams and Codner made for the port of Stettin, now Szczecin, and stowed away on a Danish ship; Philpot, with forged papers and posing as a Norwegian margarine maker, went to Danzig and boarded a ship for neutral Sweden. All three made the home run to Britain, by Forces News's account the first successful escape from the camp. Williams's book The Wooden Horse followed in 1949 and the film in 1950.29
Why it ranks here: Daring and certainty score 5 and memory 4 for the book and film, but three men going home changed nothing else, consequence 1. It has the same 34 points, recognition and consequence as Pat Reid's escape from Colditz, and stands below it as the later escape.
15 Dieter Dengler's escape in Laos, 1966
- When
- 29 or 30 June 1966; picked up on 20 July
- Where
- A Pathet Lao prison camp in Laos
- Escapers
- 7 prisoners by HistoryNet's count, among them Dengler, the US airman Duane Martin and Eugene DeBruin
- Outcome
- Dengler rescued after about three weeks in the jungle; Martin killed by a villager
- Legacy
- Navy Cross; Werner Herzog's Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) and Rescue Dawn (2007)
Dieter Dengler grew up in Germany during the war, came to the United States in 1957 and became a Navy pilot. On 1 February 1966, flying an A-1 Skyraider from the carrier USS Ranger against the supply routes in Laos, he was shot down and captured by the Pathet Lao. He spent months in a jungle camp with the US airman Duane Martin, the civilian Eugene DeBruin and others, beaten and starved.30
At the end of June the seven overpowered their guards and broke out, having heard, the POW Network says, that they were to be killed; the Navy Cross citation dates the escape to 30 June, other accounts to the 29th. Dengler and Martin went on together until a villager with a machete killed Martin. Alone, Dengler laid out a signal; on 20 July a passing Skyraider pilot spotted it and a helicopter lifted him out. Myth vs fact: Dengler is often called the only American to escape from North Vietnamese captivity, but HistoryNet counts 33 who did, all from camps south of the demilitarized zone or in Laos. Werner Herzog's documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) and feature film Rescue Dawn (2007) keep it known; HistoryNet calls the film somewhat fictionalized and embellished, and friends and relatives of Eugene DeBruin condemned its picture of the prison break in a 2007 statement on the POW Network.31
Why it ranks here: A breakout under fire and three weeks in the jungle earn full marks for daring, and Herzog's films memory 4; but certainty is 4 because accounts differ on dates and details, and consequence is 1, so its 33 points leave it just below the three escapes on 34.
How we chose and ranked these escapes
We counted an escape when people in wartime got themselves out: prisoners breaking out of a prison, a camp or a fortress, the Nazi death camps among them, and fugitives slipping through a manhunt after a defeat, as Charles II did in 1651. The core of the ranking is daring and difficulty. Rescues by others do not count, which is why Mussolini's liberation at Gran Sasso is left out; nor do evacuations of whole armies, so Dunkirk is told in our article on the Dunkirk evacuation and in our guide to the greatest battles of World War II, and fighting retreats such as Xenophon's Ten Thousand are battles on the march, not escapes. Films are not sources: we rate the real escape, not The Great Escape or Escape from Sobibor, and we name the details the screen invented.32
We considered 25 candidates and scored each one from 1 to 5 on five criteria. Recognition counts three times, because this page answers the question of which escapes are the most famous; daring and difficulty, consequence and memory count twice, and certainty counts once. Many escape stories rest on the escapers' own memoirs or on counts made in chaos, so we marked certainty down wherever the course or the numbers are disputed:
- Recognition (×3). 5 if the real escape is known far beyond military history and appears on most published lists of escapes, 1 if only specialists know it; a film raises the fame of a story, but we rate the event, not the film.
- Daring and difficulty (×2). How hard and how bold the escape was: 5 if the escapers beat a guarded prison or camp, or a long manhunt, at real risk of death, by long preparation or great endurance; 4 if the danger was real but one thing eased it (loyal helpers, a soft exit, plain luck); 3 if it was more a departure than a breakout (an exile sailing from a loosely watched island) or many broke out to die rather than to get away; 2 if it was mostly opportunity (guards gone, a bombed camp); 1 if it was no escape in the strict sense (a rescue by others, an evacuation).
- Consequence (×2). 5 if the escape changed the course of a war or the fate of a state, 1 if it mattered only to the escapers themselves.
- Memory (×2). 5 if it is still a living memory (a holiday, a song, a famous book, a memorial at the site), 1 if it is forgotten.
- Certainty (×1). 5 if the course and the numbers are confirmed by records or independent witnesses, 1 if they rest on one account or are disputed; a film or a novel is never a source.
The list is ranked by total score, not by date. Ties go to the better known escape, then to the one with the greater consequence, then to the older one. The scores are our editorial judgment, made on the evidence in the sources below, and the table shows every one of them, so you can see exactly why Napoleon's return from Elba, which changed European history, sits only second: he was the ruler of the island, not a prisoner behind walls, and sailing past a thin naval watch scores 3 for daring, while the men of the Great Escape spent a year digging under a camp built to stop them.
| Rank | Name | Recognition ×3 | Daring and difficulty ×2 | Consequence ×2 | Memory ×2 | Certainty ×1 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Great Escape | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 46 |
| 2 | Napoleon's escape from Elba | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 44 |
| 3 | Sobibor uprising | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 44 |
| 4 | Vrba and Wetzler's escape from Auschwitz | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 43 |
| 5 | Charles II and the Royal Oak | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 42 |
| 6 | Churchill's escape from Pretoria | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 41 |
| 7 | Flight of Bonnie Prince Charlie | 4 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 38 |
| 8 | Airey Neave's escape from Colditz | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 37 |
| 9 | Piechowski's escape from Auschwitz | 3 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 37 |
| 10 | Pilecki's escape from Auschwitz | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 36 |
| 11 | Treblinka uprising | 3 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 36 |
| 12 | Libby Prison escape | 3 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 34 |
| 13 | Pat Reid's escape from Colditz | 3 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 34 |
| 14 | The Wooden Horse | 3 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 34 |
| 15 | Dieter Dengler's escape in Laos | 3 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 33 |
Close calls
Five escapes came close and did not make the fifteen:
Franz von Werra, 1941. The Luftwaffe pilot of The One That Got Away broke out twice in England and was caught twice; shipped to Canada, he jumped from a prisoner train in January 1941, crossed the frozen St Lawrence into the neutral United States and reached Germany on 18 April. HistoryNet calls him the only German prisoner of the British Empire to get back to his unit. His story rests largely on his own account, and few outside military history know it.33
Henri Giraud, 1942. On 17 April 1942 the 63-year-old French general climbed down the wall of Königstein fortress on a home-made rope and crossed Germany to Switzerland; in November 1942 the Allies brought him out by way of Gibraltar, and he took command of the French forces in North Africa. A bold escape with real consequence, but outside France the name is little known.34
Cowra, 1944. On 5 August 1944 Japanese prisoners at Cowra, in New South Wales, rushed the wire with knives and clubs and several hundred got out. By the Australian War Memorial's count 234 Japanese died, three Australian soldiers were killed in the breakout, and 334 prisoners were retaken within nine days. Many charged to die rather than to get away, which lowers its score for daring.35
Holzminden, 1918. On the night of 24 to 25 July 1918, 29 British and Australian officers crawled out through a tunnel dug for nine months under a German camp thought escape-proof and 10 reached home; the Germans recaptured the other 19. It changed nothing in the war and is little remembered today.36
The Mühlviertel hare hunt, 1945. On the night of 1 to 2 February 1945 more than 500 prisoners of Block 20, the death block of Mauthausen, attacked the watchtowers and threw wet blankets over the electric fence; 419 got out. The SS, police, soldiers and many local people hunted them down, and the Mauthausen Memorial thinks eleven survived, saved by forced laborers and a few farming families. Outside Austria it is barely known.37 › End of the war in Austria, 1945
Why do these escapes still matter?
Because the escapers knew the price, and many paid it. Films have turned several of these stories into adventures, but the men of the Great Escape were murdered for leaving a camp, and Piechowski and his friends had to invent a work party so that innocent prisoners would not be shot in their place; still their families paid. At Sobibor and Treblinka escape was not a sport but the only answer to murder, and most of those who broke out did not live to see the end of the war. What these stories share is a refusal to accept that the wire, the walls or the guards had the last word.
To read more about the man who walked into Auschwitz of his own free will, see our page on Witold Pilecki, or turn to the Warsaw Uprising, where he fought the following year.
