The Logical Question About Escaping From POW Camps:
what are the best ways to escape in wartime? What are the best strategies to follow?
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)
There are no good ways to escape, and normally the best strategy is not to try. Very few succeed, and the penalties can be severe, not just for the recaptured escapee but for those left behind.
During WWII most of the attempts that succeeded seem to have been made near the end of the war, when the German command was breaking down and short of manpower, and Allied troops were not far off. Before D-Day such efforts had little chance of success, as the tiny number of successful escapes shows.
For prisoners of the Japanese, who otherwise might have been worked to death, the risks of escape would have been worthwhile. But I agree with you about The Great Escape. Seeing it again as an adult, the "return on investment" doesn't seem very good considering how few prisoners made it to freedom.
By 1944 a growing number of guards must have considered that things might not end well for Germany, and that making friends on the other side might be good way to hedge the risks.
Interesting point about Japanese vs. German POWs' relative incentives to escape. The huge difference, of course, is that the Japanese camps were mostly located either on islands or in remote jungle areas on the Asian mainland. This made escape -- in the sense of actually getting away, as opposed to simply getting out -- highly unlikely.
On the mainland this meant escaping into jungles or other inhospitable climes where survival odds were low. On islands of course the amount of territory to escape into was either very small (leaving escapees basically nowhere to go), or on larger islands also entailed trying to survive, let alone get away, in jungles. Of course there were Japanese POW camps in remote mountainous or desert conditions in China and Mongolia, but here again the terrain made survival difficult.
Add to these factors the distances involved. Asia is enormous, and on an island, escaping by boat means navigating part of the Pacific, or perhaps the Indian, oceans, as well as their tributary seas. And once escaped, where do you go? In Asia, where the European-Asian colonial backgrounds complicated matters, there were few safe areas to make for, and none of these easy to reach or conveniently located.
By contrast, in Europe the distances and climate are much more conducive to escape. Not only is the geography smaller, but safe havens like Britain, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland were dotted about the continent, and prisoners had friendly populations throughout the occupied countries. And perhaps most important, western prisoners could blend in with the local populations in Europe, something they could not do in Asia and the Pacific.
I don't know the statistics but I would guess that the number, or at least percentage, of escapes from Japanese POW camps was less than those from German camps. Considering the even greater barbarity of the Japanese camps, the concomitant temptation to escape from them, and the relatively smaller chances of succeeding, the situation must have been extremely demoralizing to prisoners in those camps than to POWs in German camps, where the chances of getting away were better and they were dealing with people whom culturally they probably understood somewhat better.
Yes, good point about the remoteness of the Japanese POW camps. Certainly those prisoners had few good options. As the Wikipedia article on "The Great Raid" of January 30, 1945 points out, the Japanese had started burning POWs alive when it looked like the Allies would soon be approaching.
While Stalag Luft III escapees are to be admired for their determination, they were already a significant drain on German resources. Personally, I would be content to sit out the rest of the war there.
That business about the Japanese burning prisoners alive attests to another difference between the Axis powers.
The Japanese were infamous for torturing, beating and killing (in often barbarous ways) their POWs. Even their day-to-day treatment of them was sub-human and horrific. By contrast, the Germans were comparatively restrained in their treatment of at least western (if not Russian) POWs. Nazi POW camps were hardly benign places but while for the most part the prisoners were kept in tough, difficult confinement, the kinds of brutalities the Japanese routinely inflicted on their POWs was more or less absent from, or at least relatively rare in, German camps. The Germans didn't even make an effort to remove Jewish prisoners from POW camps and send them to concentration camps, which they could easily have done.
Of course the Germans would beat prisoners for infractions or information, and could make life even harder for them if necessary, but the kind of tortures and killings the Japanese practiced as a matter of course were limited in German camps. (I've heard that even the Germans found the Japanese treatment of western prisoners off-putting.) Even Soviet prisoners probably fared better under the Germans than Americans or Brits did under the Japanese, though obviously we're talking about a very low threshold of "humane" treatment.
But the massacre depicted in The Great Escape was highly unusual for the Germans. Even the film indicates it was in its way a unique (if indefensible) action in response to a singular occurrence. The Germans didn't ordinarily behave so ruthlessly, while the Japanese did.
Of course, the Germans more than made up for their restraint regarding prisoners of war by the genocide they committed in the concentration camps against Jews and other "subhumans". The Japanese had their own such camps, though their victims were drawn from a wider pool of "racial inferiors".
Within the film context, the Germans explicitly warned the Big X that he specifically would be executed if he escaped again.
shareby hobnob53 » Mon Oct 13 2014 08:48:05
IMDb member since April 2006
During WWII most of the attempts that succeeded seem to have been made near the end of the war, when the German command was breaking down and short of manpower, and Allied troops were not far off. Before D-Day such efforts had little chance of success, as the tiny number of successful escapes shows.
I haven't read the book in a long time but it and a few others like it (The Wooden Horse) always gave me the impression that escapes became harder as the war wore onward. The Germans became more adept at spotting the signs of impending escape as well as identifying the most talented escapers and sending them off to a place like Colditz.
Or maybe I should say that there were more successful prison break outs earlier in the war but that most of those didn't result in many make-it-back-to-friendly-lines. And the successful escape-and-returns were due to prisoners being more savvy and well thought out. share
The Germans became more adept at spotting the signs of impending escape as well as identifying the most talented escapers and sending them off to a place like Colditz.
And there we see the impeccable, but flawed, logic of the Teutonic mind at work. Concentrating all the best escapers and the most determined men into a single place where they could all work together for their escape attempts.
Doh!
Trust me. I know what I'm doing. share
My understanding was the Germans thought (right or wrong) that a place like Colditz would be unescapable, so that putting the "ring leaders" of escape activities away from the other prisoners would make those other prisoners more manageable (for lack of a better word). That if the "escape artists" or ring leaders were dispersed among other camps they could encourage other prisoners to think escape was possible and act on that.
I guess the Germans had not quite come to the belief that Roger Bushell and a few others like him needed to be put into Colditz. That seemed to be the first and worst mistake the Germans made. It remains a question mark as to whether the other prisoners at Stalag Luft III would have done the same things to the same degree without Bushell and Co. being there.
I think it is safe to say that Bushell was a driving force behind it all. Indeed, he had to be in the shadows because I remember in Brickhill's book that if the Germans had the slightest indication he was involved in escape activity they would trundle him off to some place like Colditz. I also remember reading that Bushell was ruthless enough to threaten other prisoners to keep them on the straight and narrow so as not to compromise the X organization.
I'm not saying it is good to get shot down in war and held captive (virtually impossible to escape for most men) but ... damn!!! ... I missed out on some interesting history!
tplast, to your two posts:
My understanding has always been that there were more successful escapes (what I wrote in the quote you cited in your first post above) later in the war -- meaning, that more POWs actually got away than they did earlier. There may have been more escapes early on, but that doesn't mean they succeeded -- it just means more men got out before being recaptured.
No doubt, as you say, the Germans learned from experience to spot possible escapes better as time went on, which would have helped them prevent some. But escapes still continued. By 1944 and '45, as the German army was collapsing and the Allies drew nearer, successful escapes became easier because (a) the Germans no longer had the manpower to conduct massive searches for a few prisoners and (b) with the Allies now in France, northern Italy and eventually Germany itself, escapees had a lot less distance to travel before reaching safety -- they no longer had to get across the sea to England or through all of occupied France into Spain.
On the subject of Bushell's personality, clearly he was ruthless and single-minded in his determination to escape -- to the point of endangering hundreds of lives. That's why many of us have said on this board that a man with an unthinking, reflexive insistence on a single course of action while dismissing the realities and potential hazards, who insists that escape mainly for the supposed purpose of making trouble for the Germans was in itself worth such a cost, was a disastrous choice to lead such an attempt. The British were always notoriously profligate with the lives of their men, especially in WWI but on occasion also in WWII, clinging to the idiotic notion that massive self-sacrifice was somehow justified by the loss of 50 men, as Ramsey says near the end of this film. That's just empty, criminally moronic rhetoric. Unfortunately the film espouses this irresponsible nonsense and tries to drag the audience into it, by making Hendley's question to the SBO, "Do you think it was worth the cost?" seem cowardly, hardly worthy of a reply.
Good post, hob.
My understanding has always been that there were more successful escapes (what I wrote in the quote you cited in your first post above) later in the war -- meaning, that more POWs actually got away than they did earlier. There may have been more escapes early on, but that doesn't mean they succeeded -- it just means more men got out before being recaptured.
Yeah, I started to rethink my first idea and added that there were more "break outs", attempts I guess is the best word, early on but more successes later.
I suppose as time wore on, the prisoners thought out their course(s), refined them more and that resulted in escape attempts that went farther and farther until some made it back.
I just had the thought that as time wore on the escapes became more dangerous as the Germans (and Hitler because, as Brookhill's book stated, Hitler stated that 50 had to be executed upon capture) grew more and more ill tempered about them.
Good points about the western Allies being in France/Belgium/etc and that making it easier to succeed at escape. Thanks, I didn't think of that one.
I understand what you mention about Bushell. When one contemplates it he seems rather self centered, like the escape was more about him. Selfish, quite honestly.
I didn't mention it before but I think I remember reading that the few who made it back to Allied control thought they were treated dismissively by the British authorities they had contact with; the attitude was akin to "yeah? so what? Back to duty". Brickhill wrote the book as soon after the war because he and some others thought it might get relegated to the dustbin of history and they didn't want the public forget about all they had accomplished. I personally am glad they wrote the book because it was one of the first military books (from the Military Book Club) I ever read. I read it right after seeing the movie for the first time. I enjoyed the book even more than the movie although I liked both immensely. A most interesting subject of history. Not just military history but more like the human interest part of it. The things those men were able to effect/accomplish were downright incredible considering the paucity of materials available. share
Not just military history but more like the human interest part of it. The things those men were able to effect/accomplish were downright incredible considering the paucity of materials available.
You hit the nail on the most important head in this business, tplast. What's most impressive, about he great escape but really about almost any escape, were, first, the raw courage required, and second, the astonishing ingenuity of the POWs in creating clothes, papers, and all the rest -- not even so much the creation as obtaining the materials with which to fabricate the stuff. Their ability and ingenious resourcefulness never ceases to amaze me, exactly because of the paucity of materials they had to work with, as you so aptly say.
But the most successful escapes -- and, the flip side, the failed escapes that entailed the least serious consequences -- were those that involved just a handful of men. Stripped of the skill and daring involved, the great escape was a foolish, self-destructive endeavor. It could not -- and the film's propaganda to the contrary, did not -- materially affect the German war machine. It tied down some police and SS units for a few days, but most of the prisoners were recaptured within those few days. No factories were sabotaged, no troop trains derailed, no fighting men pulled off the front lines, no concentration camps liberated, no soldiers killed, no tanks or planes wrecked, nothing was blown up or destroyed or rendered useless to the Germans. It was, in the scheme of things, a minor and very short-lived inconvenience, more of a blow to the Germans' egos than a serious, or even a minor, setback to the war effort. The movie is quite dishonest in this. In fact, if you think about what you've seen and aren't taken in by the SBO's words at the end, you can readily see how large a failure -- worse, how great a waste, almost criminally so -- was this escape. Fifty men lost their lives -- for nothing. For all of Roger's ringing rhetoric about the shame in knuckling under, nothing justifies a pointless exercise in vanity that had no chance of mass success, had little if any effect on the German war effort (and none of it important), and resulted in a massacre. The three men out of 76 who did get away could have broken out themselves and done just as well...and if caught, would just have been sent back and stuck in the cooler for a month.
Yes, I've heard that some successful escapees were greeted with what you so rightly call a "So what?" attitude. This is puzzling and shameful. Especially early in the war, when escape was even more difficult, it should have made such men heroes.
Have you seen the 1958 film The One That Got Away, about the only German POW, a flyer, to ever escape from a British camp? Not once, but three times. It's a fascinating story -- but each time he went right back into combat, and eventually was killed when his plane was shot down over the Channel in 1941. His multiple escapes were impressive, but in the end what did they avail him? Escapes needed to be planned with sense and realism, with a limited objective and maximizing one's chances of success -- or, if not that, survival. Getting shot while trying to escape achieves nothing and helps nobody. share
Good points, again.
I've heard of The One That Got Away but haven't gotten around to watching it. I think I started once but then for some reason didn't finish. I have indeed heard something about the Germans escape attempts and sound as if they were interesting as well. I remember reading something about some Germans planning a mass escape in the USA, out in the western states, like Arizona or maybe Nevada. Hitler heard about it somehow or the other and promised a U-boat would meet them in the western hemisphere and pick them up. But don't hold me to those details. Might be somewhat different than what I remember now.
One thing I got out of Brickhill's book was that the Germans seemed to be prepared for a mass break out, or any size break out. They had a system whereby as soon as the camp reported a break out, the train system personnel would subtly change the stamp for train tickets. Then, for the next several days, Gestapo in every town with a train stop would come aboard and remove anyone with the old stamp mark(s), thinking the escapees would get on a train as quickly as possible and get out of the immediate area of the Stalag Luft camps.
The Wooden Horse by some men from the same camp was one of those instances you've mentioned that a few men had a better chance of escaping. Large groups just brought more attention upon themselves. Plus, the snow on the ground during the Great Escape forced escapees to stay on the roads making them easy pickings for the Germans. I thought The Wooden Horse was every bit as interesting and definitely suspenseful as The Great Escape.
I've heard a little about The Wooden Horse and it does sound as good if not better than The Great Escape. Something else I need to track down.
Funny you mention that German escape from the American POW camp in the west, since I know the story very well and have been to the site of the camp (which is today near the Phoenix Zoo!). Briefly what happened was that a group of German prisoners decided to escape by building a raft to carry over to the nearby Gila River, sail it across the western Arizona desert to the Colorado River, then down into Mexico and out into the Gulf of California. Phoenix was at this time a very small city with none of the extensive suburbs that exist today, and the camp was on the outskirts in the desert, so they figured they could get away undetected. I never heard about the German Command knowing anything about it (this seems impossible), so what they planned to do once out of the United States is a little hazy, but they hoped to make it to some neutral country or embassy in Central America and somehow get home.
Anyway, they managed to get a map of Arizona from a local gas station and began building their raft. In mid-December 1944 eight men broke out in the dead of night and carried their craft across the desert a couple of miles to the Gila. Unfortunately, their plan came to a screeching halt at this point because they discovered that the nice blue squiggle on the map indicating a river didn't tell them that the Gila was in fact dry most of the year; so these eight guys were left stranded with a raft in a dry river bed in the middle of the desert and nowhere to go with it. At this point they abandoned the raft and scattered, every man for himself. They all took off into the wilderness, and let's just say that a bunch of Germans were not prepared for the conditions of the Sonora Desert. After several days of thirst and starvation, blistered by the sun during the day and freezing at night, beset by strange creatures like rattlesnakes, gila monsters, coyotes, tarantulas and the like, they very quickly began giving themselves up one by one. The last man captured was the leader of the gang, who was seen at 2 AM in the Phoenix railroad station one night in mid-January, a month after the escape. The police were alerted, and though he'd left by the time they got there, they found him a few minutes later in the lobby of a downtown hotel -- glad enough to be caught. I understand that decades later the group had a reunion at the spot. Nostalgia!
Thanks for that info!! Interesting.
shareTplast - If you are interested in military WWII history, I always recommend the show Airmen from Buchenwald. There are also many books written by the amazing Allied airmen that were held there. It is an unbelievable true story of men taken to the horrifying Buchenwald Concentration Camp. My husband was an agnostic, but said If he survived what Roy Allen did, he might not stay that way. He never said that about anything else. I won't spoil what happens to them, just in case you want to look them up.
shareThanks! I'll look that up on amazon and get a copy. Sounds good. I've read somewhere or another that a few of the Great Tunnel Escape prisoners had been put into Sachenhausen KL although for how long I don't recall. I bet that and Buchenwald were indeed harrowing experiences. A prisoner didn't know if the German guards or the diseases would do them in first. It would take a particularly, and singularly, strong mind to endure a Konzentration Lager as opposed to the (relatively mild) Luftwaffe Stalag camps.
shareTplast - You're welcome. Sadly, when some of those guys returned home they were called liars, and told no Allied prisoners were in concentration camps. One man said he didn't talk about his experiences for decades. As if a prisoner wouldn't know the difference between a POW camp and a concentration camp. After such a sacrifice, it boggles the mind that these guys were unable to even discuss what happened.
shareYes, the POW was not regarded highly in WWII and certainly not Korea. But for Vietnam the POWs were some of the few heroes (as perceived by the public) for that conflict. Strange how it can totally reverse itself.
Many WWII POWs held in German camps disappeared in 1945 when the Soviets over ran them. The Germans tried to move POWs west with them when retreated from the Soviet juggernaut but then had to ditch them in order to escape themselves. A few Allied POWs escaped Soviet control and told stories of locked railway cars being taken further east, mostly likely top Siberian gulags. I think I've read the US lost about 25,000 and the British a similar amount. The French and Belgians combined a similar amount also.
Some WWII German POWs of the Soviets managed to get released (due to Konrad Adenauer's efforts) in the early 1960s and told of encountering English speakers, some with American accents, when in the gulags. I think a few Japanese prisoners of the Soviets made it out of gulags back home and told of the same.
It makes the Luftwaffe Stalag camps seem rather manageable and endurable when compared to other fates.
Tplast - I never thought about POWs in Vietnam, but that is really true. My husband was a disabled Vietnam vet, and the whole experience traumatized him.
It must be even worse to not know what happened to a loved one. I had no idea there were so many missing Allies. After making it through WWII intact, it seems inconceivable they wound up in another horrible place, unable to even notify family and friends.
Yep, compared to other fates the Stalag camps are the lesser of several evils. I have read that in addition to the camaraderie, even if a POW didn't actually escape, just planning and discussing it with fellow prisoners helped keep them sane.
Hello Gia. Yes, the Korean War was even worse in regard to POWs (no slight intended toward your husband, of course) and WWII even worse. There is even some from WWI captured by the (then nascent) Soviet Union and never released. If you are interested, a book called Moscow Bound by John M. G. Brown about the entire POW experience. http://www.amazon.com/Moscow-bound-Policy-politics-dilemma/dp/B0006F11UC?ie=UTF8&keywords=moscow%20bound&qid=1461706646&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1
It is a massive volume but very compelling. The author was a Vietnam grunt himself although the book only spends a certain amount of time on Vietnam POWs. It is also an expensive book, but I'm glad I bought mine when one time the price dropped down from its usual level.
Something else you might find interesting and free is this obscure program I found on youtube ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD8_do85Xto
It briefly covers what the aforementioned book has. The WWII part is the shocking part.
Tplast - Thanks so much for the info. I rarely watched war movies before marrying my husband, but then I became obsessed. He couldn't make me a big Western fan though, just a few favorites of that genre. Gosh, whenever I think of the Korean War, the first thing that comes to mind is The Manchurian Candidate. Ugh!
shareThe British were always notoriously profligate with the lives of their men, especially in WWI but on occasion also in WWII, clinging to the idiotic notion that massive self-sacrifice was somehow justified by the loss of 50 men, as Ramsey says near the end of this film.
Disagree entirely. Even the losses in WW1 were unavoidable in fighting a war of that nature- high losses were inevitable given artillery, machine guns, etc and the type of tactics which had to be used. The only way not to have high losses as to not fight the war at all. As for the second world war the British tried to keep losses to a minimum if possible- Monty in particular. I can think of few times where men's lives was risked for trivial reasons.
As for Ramsay in the movie he doesn't justify the losses at all, he just says it depends on your point of view. They certainly didn't expect the Germans to execute the escapees they hadn't done so up until that point. It seems you're blaming the British for what was a Nazi war crime to me.
Trust me. I know what I'm doing. share
Even the losses in WW1 were unavoidable in fighting a war of that nature- high losses were inevitable given artillery, machine guns, etc and the type of tactics which had to be used.
That is an absurd statement. It's true the losses were unavoidable -- as long as you accept your ridiculous predicate that the tactics employed "had to be" used.
That's the issue: the massed attacks dictated by the commanders in WWI did NOT "have to be used". Imaginative and innovative commanders could have developed more intelligent and resourceful tactics to cope with modern warfare. WWI was a prime example of military men fighting the last war. The commands of the British, French, Russian, German and Austrian armies were old men steeped in the tactics of decades past, before the introduction of machine guns and other modern instruments of mass killing. They sent their troops over the top without any regard whatsoever for casualties, accepting tens, even hundreds of thousands of deaths as par for the course. And what did this mass slaughter result in? A nearly four-year stalemate. To say these tactics were somehow necessary or unavoidable is an idiotic lie. The Americans didn't use them when they entered the war, having seen their uselessness over the previous four years. These outmoded and deadly tactics were the products of foolish, arrogant and careless men who had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. This is why after the war so much scorn was heaped upon former "heroes" like Haig. There were even calls for the commanders of the armed forces to be tried for criminal incompetence in their conduct of the war. The British public recognized the truth themselves, unhappily far too late.
It's true that the British didn't use these tactics in WWII, in part because the nature of the conflict was very different from WWI, and in part because the ranks of British manpower had been so ravaged by WWI that they didn't have enough men to fight such a war anyway. (Montgomery was very careful about incurring losses in no small part because he simply didn't have the men to sacrifice, and he no doubt was aware of the opprobrium that befell his WWI predecessors and wanted to make sure no such blame attached to him.) But there still existed in much of the British public the mindset of the nobility of self-sacrifice, of the "blessings of failure" as one clergyman put it in the public mourning after the death of the incompetent Antarctic explorer Robert Scott in 1912. There had long been an attitude in the British psyche that needless hardship, self-sacrifice and gloriously failing were somehow noble and had meaning. This morally corrupt attitude prevailed in all arenas of the nation's life from at least the 18th through the 20th centuries, but it came out most glaringly in war and dangerous endeavors like exploration, where the loss of life by British expeditions was often high and mostly avoidable. You have only to read the mass of English literature glorifying foolish and pointless slaughter, from the Napoleonic Wars to the Crimea to the early battles of the First World War, to see this mordant heraldry of death in its full flower.
As to Ramsey, he most certainly does justify the losses. When Hendley asks him whether all those deaths were worth the cost, Ramsey's "It depends upon your point of view" isn't given in a morally-neutral way. It's a clear reproach, an admonition to Hendley for having even dared utter the idea that 50 deaths for nothing were somehow not "worth it". Hendley's shamed withdrawal from the conversation is evidence of how the film stacks the deck in favor of the asinine idea that these deaths served some purpose. And while the British may not have expected the Germans to massacre 50 men, they certainly knew that such a large escape would have larger-than-usual consequences. Roger himself had been warned about this, although it was directed at him personally. But Ramsey himself asks Roger, at the beginning when he first posits the idea of the mass escape, "Have you considered what it might cost?" So your claim that this wasn't something the British could anticipate is belied by Ramsey's own line earlier in the movie. It's not a matter of "blaming" the British for the Nazis' war crime, but the idea that such a thing wasn't foreseeable in some form is simply not so -- even by the film's own script. share
That's the issue: the massed attacks dictated by the commanders in WWI did NOT "have to be used"
Yes, they did. The commanders -Haig etc- weren't the butchers modern revisionism has made them out to be. And new tactics were developed- the introduction of the tank being a somewhat significant one to try to break the stalemate of trench warfare.
And BTW, Squeethie knows more about WW1 than you ever will, he has a lot of knowledge of that period. Having said that I do find his comment that the French made a significant contribution to WW2 rather odd myself.
By the time the Americans entered the first war tactics had changed, the only reason they didn't use the old ones. Not that the US arrived in significant enough numbers to change what was already a war the Germans were losing anyway, they just hastened its end. You're somehow assuming that the commanders of all the European armies were simply stupid old men. That's a rather arrogant statement.
Monty had fought on the Western Front himself and been wounded, he had first hand experience of the carnage in WW1 and that was why he was determined to only fight battles when they could hopefully be won. His supposed cautiousness was for sound reasons. He was fundamentally a decent religious man.
Britain did have a manpower problem as the war wore on but this didn't become a problem until late 1944/1945. Until Normandy the British had more men in the field than the Americans, only after D-day did the American forces become greater in number so I think you'll find the UK very much did its part in fighting the Nazis, moreso than the US IMO. There weren't many Americans at the Battle Of Britain or El Alamein were there? Consider that the British fought on nearly every front in WW2- including the Eastern Front and even in the Pacific.
The British could be said to have won WW2 because they won the Battle Of Britain- after that failure Nazi Germany was ultimately doomed in the long run.
the mindset of the nobility of self-sacrifice
Which shows you know feck all about the British. Self sacrifice is feted by most nations too- "Remember the Alamo!" so its nonsense to suggest the British are alone in recognising courage, even when it ends in failure. The bravery was still there, regardless of the outcome and it's that bravery which is recognised for what it was.
Yes, the sentiment may also be religious- ie "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." but it also a sentiment shared by the non-religious like me.
This morally corrupt attitude
You've got a peculiar attitude of what's morally corrupt if you think risking/losing for your life for a friend is morally corrupt- I'm sure glad you're not my friend!
Presumably saving your own skin is much more important to you.
I disagree with your assessment of what Ramsay means- that is entirely your own interpretation, he doesn't actually push it one way or another IMO. It's clear it's left to the audience to decide.
Trust me. I know what I'm doing. share
Imaginative and innovative commanders could have developed more intelligent and resourceful tactics
Resourceful, imaginative, innovative and clairvoyant. The fact is that even after they finally figured out tactics that would work given the state of C3 systems at the time, there was not a realistic alternative to high casualty tactics and a strategy of attrition.
The Americans didn't use them when they entered the war, having seen their uselessness over the previous four years.
In fact, the Americans attacked just as the British had done at the Somme with similar results, dismissing the advice by the far more experienced British and French.
This is why after the war so much scorn was heaped upon former "heroes" like Haig.
If by "after the war" you mean about fifty years later, then yes. Historians now have a much different appreciation for Haig than those of the Swinging Sixties. The overwhelming, though admittedly not universal, opinion of those who fought the war was that Haig, in particular, did as good a job as one could expect. Note that under Haig, the BEF was the best equipped, best trained, and best supplied force during the war. It was under Haig that one got such innovations as section-oriented tactics, tanks, and creeping artillery barrages.
It's true that the British didn't use these tactics in WWII,
For the most part no. though the fight inland after D-Day7 tends to ;look a whole lot like the Somme with tanks. A lot of headbutting at well prepared positions resulting in much heavier casualties and expenditures of artillery ammo than had been anticipated. That lasted until the Americans could get enough force over the Channel to turn the flank - purely a matter of positioning, mind you. Had the Americans and Bradley been on the right rather than the British/Canadians/Poles under Montgomery, things would have been much the same.
So your claim that this wasn't something the British could anticipate
They anticipated that Roger (and perhaps a couple pf others) might end up as a Gestapo prisoner rather than a Luftwaffe one. They did not anticipate that Hitler would order so many murdered. Such a crime had so far not been in the German military's playbook and there was no particular reason to think that it would be, especially as the West held so many Germans against whom they could retaliate.
As to Ramsey, he most certainly does justify the losses.
And why not? Fifty casualties was trivial in the context of that war. It represents just seven aircraft lost, a number that would be considered very low in most raids. For that price, they have compelled the German to continue to commit thousands of troops to the home front in the event of further breakouts. share
Hotrodder- I had a different interpretation when the SBO told Garner that it depends on your point of view. Ramsay was not in complete agreement with the escape, initially asking Roger if he had considered the cost. To me, the SBO was leery of the escape from day one, but would never betray Roger by admitting that to Henley or anyone, so gave a non-committal reply.
I don't totally agree that The Great Escape was a reckless, losing proposition. When you are talking about young men, some imprisoned since 1940, I cannot imagine how strong the desire would be to escape. The actual planning, and getting one over on the enemy, would give you hope and something to strive for during those long, lonely hours. No one thought they would kill them the way they did. All that being said, I would have never had the guts to escape.
Surely the SBO's comment was Stating Bleeding Obvious.
shareNo they weren't, in the Great War the British army was one of the safest to be in, despite it fighting the main army of the main enemy from mid-1916 to the end of the war. In the Big Two, that job was done by the French and then the Red Army, hence the far smaller losses (most of which occurred after D Day).
Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.
Where do you get your history from, Squeeth2? Your post is nonsense.
in the Great War the British army was one of the safest to be in
The British Army suffered approximately 750,000 dead in WWI. This was the third highest number among the Allies, exceeded only by France and Russia, on whose soil much of the fighting actually took place. Casualties were so high that in 1917 Lloyd George exclaimed, "We have lost this war." Add in losses of Empire and Commonwealth troops, all either British-led or British-trained, and deaths topped 900.000. Tell the Imperial War Museum directors that the British Army was "one of the safest" in the war. You'll be laughed out onto the street.
despite it fighting the main army of the main enemy from mid-1916 to the end of the war.
Right -- the British and everybody else, including ultimately the Americans. The British were not fighting alone, and their casualties were enormous because their tactics were outmoded and took no notice of the lives of the troops (which was also a hallmark of the French and other European armies).
In the Big Two, that job was done by the French and then the Red Army, hence the far smaller losses (most of which occurred after D Day).
What? In the first place, the French surrendered in June 1940 and were entirely out of the war until its end, save for a handful of Free French units which were small in the scheme of things. French casualties were higher briefly in May-June of 1940 because the French had 100 divisions on their own territory, vs. 3 (later, briefly, up to 10) from Britain. More men equals more casualties, but the French suffered few losses in WWII because they weren't fighting during most of WWII; where you get the idea that they suffered more losses than the British I have no idea, but it's preposterous. The Russians sustained massive losses in the four years of fighting mainly in the USSR, then on into Germany. Terrible, but what has that to do with the British? (Nothing, is the answer.)
In any case, despite your weird contention that there seemed to be no British losses in WWII at all (or at least, none worth mentioning), in fact the Brits lost close to half a million troops in WWII. It was lower than in WWI mainly because they had fewer men available than in the First War, they didn't employ the murderous tactics used in WWI, this was a war of movement vs. the stalemate of trench warfare in WWI, and in any case most of the fighting was done by Russians and Americans in WWII. Britain simply had relatively few men to contribute.
As for the rest, see my reply above. share
The British Army suffered approximately 750,000 dead in WWI.
Total casualties were high, but the casualty rate was less than any of the other major powers except Russia, oddly enough, and the US who came in late.
Right -- the British and everybody else, including ultimately the Americans.No they were not alone, but they were fighting the largest and best part of the German army from 1917 on. This is clearly what Squeeth means here.
their casualties were enormous because their tactics were outmoded and took no notice of the lives of the troops
In fact, their tactics were generally quite up to date. Their problems in 1915 were mainly that their production had not caught up to the requirements of the war and in 1916 because their pre-war army who were trained to use fairly sophisticated tactics similar to modern troops had been atritted away. By 1917, the new army had been tempered by battle and had time to receive much better training. Besides this, a serious issue was that as soon as troops crossed the start line (i.e. "went over the top"), they lost the ability to communicate. It took until 1917 for the Royal Artillery to develop techniques to that were bleeding edge for the times and technology and for British industry to provide the right tools for the job. By 1918, the British Army was the best trained, equipped, and supplied force in the world and probably the finest army that Britain has ever fielded.
In the first place, the French surrendered in June 1940 and were entirely out of the war until its endI suppose it depends on what cut-off point one uses for the French. If one uses 22 June 1941, then yes, French then Soviet casualties were more than the British and they inflicted more on the Germans. The UK, of course, continued fighting after France was beaten and inflicted and received non-trivial casualties against the European Axis powers in the Med, and elsewhere in the air, and at sea even before D-Day.
they didn't employ the murderous tactics used in WWI,IN fact, the tactics in Normandy and at El Alamein would have been quite familiar to Earl Haig. and his generals Some pf the armour operations in Normandy were very much like the Somme, but with tanks making straight-ahead frontal assaults instead of marching infantry and D-day itself was not a great deal different from many of the 1917 battles with the advantage of radio communications and a somewhat damper start line. share
Good luck.
"Someone has been tampering with Hank's memories."