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Stalag Luft III - The Great Escape
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Product Description
Escapers Edition Size of 76...$415.00
Overall matted size: 21 ¾” x 15 ½”
Highly restricted to 76 copies worldwide – remembering the 76 men who escaped!
On the night of 24 / 25 March 1944 a daring escape took place from Stalag Luft III, a prisoner of war camp some 100 miles south- east of Berlin holding captured Allied aircrew. The audacious break-out, masterminded by Squadron Leader Roger Bushell RAF, was the largest of its kind during World War II and involved the construction of not one but three tunnels, nicknamed Tom, Dick and Harry. In the end only Harry was used, built beneath Hut 104 under the noses of their German guards.
Designed and overseen by RCAF pilot Wally Flood, the construction of the 350 yard long tunnel through the sandy soil on which the camp was built was precarious but, nevertheless, included a tiny railway on which to carry men and equipment along its entire length, operated by a system of rope pulleys.
The original plan was to get at least 200 prisoners out but on the night of the escape only 76 men, dressed in makeshift civilian clothes fashioned by prisoners who had once been tailors, managed to get away before the alarm was raised – unfortunately the prisoners found that Harry had been dug short and came up a little short of the tree line beyond the camp’s perimeter fence, slowing the extraction of men considerably.
Of the 76 prisoners who escaped, 73 were soon recaptured but 50 of them were promptly executed on Hitler's orders. Only three got away successfully and eventually made it back to England.
With the help of experts from the Stalag Luft III museum, artist Richard Taylor has drawn a stunning and authentic re-creation of the camp as it stood in March 1944 including the location of the three tunnels, escape huts and the camp’s other major sites.
Reproduced on stunning archival paper as a Giclée edition and limited to just 76 copies worldwide, each is dedicated to one of the 76 prisoners who made it out of the camp that night. Every copy is individually printed with a specific number and issued mounted to include a small sample of sand recovered from the tunnel site together with an imprint taken from one of the original counterfeit Wehrmacht Eagle stamps engraved by a prisoner and used in the forging of travel documents.
EACH GICLÉE PROOF IS:
* Totally unique
* Individually printed and numbered out of 76
* Dedicated to an individual escapee and printed with their name, rank and small biography
* Printed with a numbered identification key relating to the main image
* Signed by artist Richard Taylor
* Mounted to full conservation standards to include:
. A sample of sand recovered from the ORIGINAL site of ‘Tunnel Harry’
. An imprint from one of the ORIGINAL stamps created by the forgers in the escape team