The prisoners of war from the Great Escape were ‘betrayed by English informants”. That was according to one of the escapees who was eventually recaptured.
The mass escape from Stalag Luft III was the inspiration to the 1963 film. It eventually led to the capture and execution of 50 Allied soldiers at the direct ordered of an angered Adolf Hitler.
A new document found by a surviving prisoner of war suggests that his fellow soldiers were betrayed by English informants.
These claims were made by RAF pilot Flt Lt Desmond Plunkett, who managed to escape with 75 other prisoners, but was later caught and held captive for the rest of the war.
Plunkett’s story inspired Donald Pleasence’s character of Colin Blythe in the Great Escape film, who realises he is slowly losing his sight.
After being freed in 1945, Plunkett filled out a questionnaire about his time as a prisoner, which has recently been discovered in the National Archives.
This questionnaire hints at two individuals whose actions may have led to the execution of the escaped prisoners of war. These shocking claims come just before the 80th anniversary of the breakout from Stalag Luft III on the night of March 24, 1944.
However, there is no proof that these claims were ever investigated, as no informants have ever been linked to the mass escape.
The breakout, which took place on a snowy evening, was discovered when a German guard spotted one of the airmen. The daring operation had been months in the making.
Plunkett had crafted maps for those plotting to break free from the prison camp, hence serving as one of the muses for Pleasence’s character.
A mere eight days into his service with No 218 squadron, Plunkett suffered a crushing defeat when his Stirling heavy bomber got shot down above the Netherlands in June 1942.
Later, while captive at Stalag Luft III near present-day Poland’s Sagan, escape leader Roger Bushell, portrayed by Richard Attenborough in the film, recruited him to lead a team in charge of map creation.
Choosing to be the ill-fated 13th man to crawl out of the “Harry” tunnel, an assignment no one else craved, Plunkett took his chance to freedom and darted straight towards a train where he unexpectedly ran into Bushell and other fleeing officers.
Tragically, while Plunkett was on the run, 50 of his fellow runaways, including Bushell, were caught. Incensed, Hitler ordered them all to be executed by the Gestapo.
Managing to elude arrest, Plunkett and a Czech airman reached Czechoslovakia where they hid in a barn following a few days of relative comfort in a hotel. Their journey ended at the Austrian border where they were apprehended.
Plunkett spent a gruelling seven months at the Gestapo headquarters in Prague, enduring torture, frequent batterings, and even a staged execution.
The claims made about two alleged English traitors emerged in a questionnaire required by the War Office Directorate of Military Intelligence. He accused two individuals of “collaborating activities” but did not explain how they betrayed their fellow countrymen.
Of the 76 airmen who escaped, 73 were caught again, most within days. In 2021, the National Archives found documents suggesting the Nazis wanted the breakout to happen so they could hunt down and punish the escapees.
But Plunkett’s statement is the first evidence that English collaborators may have worked with the Nazis to help them recapture the airmen, leading to the deaths of many. The document had been lost until it was rediscovered by the National Archives.
Dr William Butler, the National Archives’ military expert, said: “When Plunkett was returned to a PoW camp he was hospitalised because of the mental toll his experience in Gestapo prisons took on him.
“There’s a suggestion that he blamed himself for the executions of the 50 by accidentally saying something in interrogation.”
After the war, Plunkett stayed in the RAF for two more years. He was sent to India with 10 Squadron, where he declined the opportunity to become Lord Mountbatten’s personal pilot.
Plunkett died in 2002 at the age of 86, after co-authoring a book about his experiences titled The Man Who Would not Die.
