On the night of 24 to 25 March 1944, 76 Allied airmen escaped from Stalag Luft III, the German prisoner-of-war camp at Sagan, today Żagań in Poland, through a tunnel called Harry. Only three reached safety; of the 73 recaptured, 50 were murdered on Hitler's order. On 24 March 1863 Polish insurgents fought Russian troops near Krasnobród.
Tom, Dick and Harry
Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe camp for captured Allied airmen near Sagan in Silesia, today Żagań in western Poland. The mass escape from its North Compound was planned by an escape committee led by Squadron Leader Roger Bushell of the RAF. Hundreds of prisoners took part in the preparations, forging papers, making clothes and maps and digging.1
Three tunnels were begun, code-named Tom, Dick and Harry. Tom was found by the guards and Dick was given up, so the escape went through Harry, a tunnel more than 100 meters long.2
Seventy-six men out
The breakout came on the night of 24 to 25 March 1944. One by one, 76 men crawled through Harry and got clear of the camp. Then the guards spotted men coming out of the tunnel, and the escape was stopped.3
Of the 76, 73 were recaptured. Only three reached safety: two Norwegians and a Dutchman.4
The Fifty
Fifty of the recaptured men were shot by the Gestapo on Hitler's order. Six of them were Polish airmen. In the House of Commons on 23 June 1944, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden reported the German admission that 50 officers had been shot, and promised that those responsible would be tracked down.5
The story became the 1963 film The Great Escape. More escapes, from Colditz to Auschwitz, are told in our article on the greatest escapes in military history.6
Battle of Krasnobród
24 March 1863 · 163 years ago
Also on 24 March: Krasnobród, 1863
The January Uprising against Russian rule in the Kingdom of Poland broke out in January 1863. On 24 March a Russian detachment under Major Ogolin met the insurgent unit of Marcin Borelowski, known as “Lelewel”, in the forests near Krasnobród. Two days earlier the unit had burned the Russian magazines at Hrubieszów. Lelewel's riflemen opened fire from the wood beside the road and threw the Cossacks at the head of the column into confusion, but the Russian infantry behind them returned the fire.7
Seeing the odds against him, Lelewel ordered a retreat. The fight lasted barely two hours, and the insurgents suffered heavy losses. Each side then claimed success: the official Warsaw paper Dziennik Powszechny reported Lelewel's band “completely broken”, while the insurgents' bulletin said the attack had been repulsed and the unit had moved on.8
Also on 24 March: Operation Varsity, 1945
On 24 March 1945, as Field Marshal Montgomery's armies crossed the Rhine, the British 6th and U.S. 17th Airborne Divisions came down on the east bank near Wesel in Operation Varsity, the airborne part of the crossing. Their task was to take the high ground beyond the river and help the troops crossing it.9
Also on this day
Battle of Los Yébenes
24 March 1809 · 217 years ago
Near Los Yébenes in Spain, the Polish Lancers of the Vistula Legion under Colonel Jan Konopka were surprised by far larger Spanish cavalry forces during the Peninsular War. Ordered to fall back, the lancers cut their way through Spanish troops blocking a narrow mountain road.
