March 24th: Today in 1944 seventy-six prisoners of war escaped from Stalag Luft III using a secret tunnel. Only three made it to freedom and fifty were massacred after being recaptured. Several years ago Nova ran a special on the escape in which Archeologists Peter Doyle and Larry Babits returned to the camps located and excavated the tunnels finding many artificats from the escape. The movies made it look somehow easy, but if you look at the tunnels that were dug and the risks those men faced you have to admire their courage in the face of the Nazis.

Edited to fix date from 1977 to 1944. Dang Numeric Keypads…

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