Here's a report about a surprising security discovery in Iraq.
U.S. troops believe they have thwarted a massive escape from one of the coalition's main prison camps in Iraq, Pentagon officials have said.A 600-foot-long (183-meter) escape tunnel with an exit point outside the prison camp walls was discovered Thursday at Camp Bucca in southeastern Iraq.
The tunnel is believed to have been dug with improvised tools. Military authorities discovered it after a tip initiated a campwide search. The tunnel is about 10 feet below ground and 2 to 3 feet wide.
Gunner at Target Centermass tips us to the story and is thinking fondly of Hogan's Heroes. True enough and fun, but this incident also recalls The Great Escape, which was both a classic movie and a true story of great ingenuity and gritty determination. NOVA on PBS presented a fascinating program re-visiting the actual location of the real German POW camp.
Sixty years after the event, NOVA follows a team of archeologists as they search the site of Stalag Luft III for new evidence of the clandestine operation, which involved 600 prisoners digging three highly sophisticated tunnels, code-named Tom, Dick, and Harry. Each tunnel was made with railways, electric lights, and underground air pumps—all under the noses of German guards.Incredibly, the tunnels were 30 feet deep—the height of a three-story house—a measure taken to evade German listening devices planted in the ground to detect tunneling activity. Another challenge was the nearly pure sand through which tunnelers had to dig; the airmen used wooden supports to keep the passages from collapsing. Wood was in short supply at the camp and had to be scrounged from bed slats and by cannibalizing the barracks. "Those poor barracks: I wondered why they didn't fall down, because all the bracing in the attics was practically taken out," recalls Charles Huppert, a U.S. airman from Indiana.
Although Stalag Luft III was located in eastern Germany, in what is now Poland, hundreds of miles from friendly territory, three men managed to cross most of Europe and make it to freedom.... As for the 73 who were recaptured, 23 were returned to German camps, and tragically, 50 were summarily shot in violation of the Geneva Convention as Hitler's revenge against those who dared to break out of his "escape proof" prison.
WGBH built a fine website to accompany the program and the DVD is well worth your time.
Posted by Alan at March 26, 2005 03:56 PM