I can remember when at school a discussion occured about the Steve McQueen movie...If I recall a mate Tony Egner (ex Maritzburg College rugby and cricket captain...also played Natal) had an uncle who was involved in this incredible escape (hope I'm correct Tony if you're reading this...maybe you can tell us the story)
But Moz is quite right...total distortion...the rubbish that comes out of movies...Hollywood is a cesspit of lies...it's amazing the power this has on the gullible man in the street.
It was a tale of such extraordinary courage, drama and tragedy that it was immortalised in the film The Great Escape.
Now the ageing pages of a Second World War diary have revealed an even more remarkable first-hand account of the circumstances of the famous prisoner of war break-out.
For as 77 determined Allied officers made their bid for freedom from beneath the wire fences of Stalag Luft III, another British serviceman still within the camp was documenting their exploits in a meticulously-kept diary.
Revealed: Coded plans for The Great Escape were found in Flight Lieutenant Ted Nestor's detailed diary
Captured: Flt Lt Nestor was sent to the prison when he was shot down over Germany aged just 23
Flight Lieutenant Ted Nestor wrote about the escape in coded form - calling it 'The Spring Handicap' with '100 under starters orders'.
Later he added a diagram showing the hut from which the escape was launched, with red dotted lines showing the route of a tunnel leading under the camp fences and to the outside, trees marked in green - entitled 'the tunnel through which the escape was made'.
Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe-run PoW prison for 10,000 captured servicemen in Silesia, now Poland.
Flt Lt Nestor was just 23 when he was shot down over Germany on a bombing raid in August 1943 and sent to the camp.
Over the next year-and-a-half the young navigator kept a detailed record of daily life there, including his comrades’ dramatic escape plan – one of the most famous acts of heroism of the war.
The escape, later made famous in a blockbuster film starring Steve McQueen, was on March 24, 1944.
Flt Lt Nestor, who was born in Waterloo near Liverpool, writes about the ‘Great Escape’ in code, as if it were a horse race, describing how just prior to the escape the men were ‘under starter’s orders’.
In a later entry, which he titles ‘The Escape’, he records in detail the size of the tunnel, where the exit was and how they learned that many of the escapees had been killed.
Of the 77 who made it through the tunnel, 50 were shot.
The diary contains meticulous plans for the escape
He wrote: 'On May 25th, the cremated remains of 29 of the deceased officers were returned to camp.'
As well as the escape, the diary also chronicles daily life in the camp, from how they distilled their own alcohol from fruit sent by the Red Cross to weather charts recording daily temperatures.
A coloured cartoon on one page shows two prisoners working on their contraband 'Kriegie Brew' - a potent alcohol distilled from raisins.
Flt Lt Nestor drew a cartoon of PoW's drinking 'Kriegie brew' - a lethal alcohol made from fruit sent to them by the Red Cross
It is filled with cartoons, jokes, drawings, paintings, photographs, poems and written observations about daily life - including the bartering system called Foodacco.
Another cartoon shows the soldiers in training, being given advice on how easy escape would be, whilst another shows the reality with barbed wire, guard dogs and armed guards.
With a very British sense of humour the serviceman even wrote of his own capture by German troops, titling his entry 'For You The War is Over!'.
This cartoon shows the PoWs managed to maintain a sense of humour despite their situation
Flt Lt Nestor's daughter Sharon Cottam said: 'I just wish I could tell Dad how incredibly proud I am of him.'
Flt Lt Nestor's story is the subject of a two-part regional BBC documentary, featuring his daughter Sharon Cottam, who retraced her father's footsteps to Poland and discovered his own service during the war.
The serviceman, a shy headmaster and father of four after the war, died 19 years ago and his diary remained locked away in a drawer until recently when a family friend realised its significance.
Mrs Cottam, from Stockport said: 'My dad never talked about anything to do with the war when I was younger.
'But I remember as a child picking up dad's diary and being fascinated by all these little drawings of planes and little stick figures and at that time, I didn't realise the significance of what my dad had done in the war.
'If any of us had a school project on the war he would say "go and look at the diaries".'
She said they had even watched The Great Escape together.
'He used to say "that's ridiculous" or "that didn't happen", I don't think I thought much if it at the time, but I knew as I got older that he had been a PoW.
'I don't think he physically took part in digging the tunnel, but I think he definitely was part of the group involved in planning the escape.'
The diary contains detailed plans of the 77 soldiers' escape from the PoW camp
Her father rejected the suggestion that he publish his diaries, saying 'non-one's going to be interested'.
But after his death, his family treasured them, little realising just how many people would be very interested a few years later.
This cartoon shows how the men were willing to try anything to escape, including hiding in the cart taking out the camp waste
