Liverpool Sound and Vision * * * * *

The 1963 film The Great Escape which starred Steve McQueen, James Garner, Donald Pleasance, Charles Bronson and Richard Attenborough is one of the iconic motion pictures, alongside Escape From Sobibor, that represent forever the spirit shown by Second World War prisoners of war or those incarcerated in death camps in their attempt to escape their surroundings. However the film, no matter how thrilling, never really captured the man behind the mass escape from Stalag Luft III, the resilient and self-assured Roger Bushell.

The Real Great Escape on B.B.C. 4 sought to show that the man behind the Richard Attenborough’s portrayal of a man driven to antagonise the German’s by organising the escape of 200 men from the camp in Germany was far more complex and interesting in real life than any Hollywood film could ever imagine.

The documentary was a fascinating look at the Royal Air Force flier who had grown up in South Africa, a champion skier, driven personality and a man with a devilish easy charm, and who became the biggest thorn in the Nazi war-machine in the latter days of the war. With interviews with some of the then surviving members of the mass escape, Roger Bushell’s family and an intriguing interview with a young Czech girl who helped hide him, the true story and life of the man became clear and was much more amazing than the writers of the film could have imagined.  With narration by his niece Lucy Wilson, the viewer was treated to the image of a man who took on the German army in his own way and with an estimated five million German’s deployed to look for the 76 escapees.

Throughout it all, the affection and esteem in which Roger Bushell was spoke of came across, not only by his niece in which would be expected but by the men who helped in his plan as Big X to release as many men he could into the German countryside. One of the great heroes of World War Two lauded properly and not changed by the chance to tell a story in a cinema.

First broadcast in 2012, B.B.C. 4 opened up once more this unpretentious and frank look at a man who fought against tyranny by refusing to believe he could not get back home. The film is a staple of the plethora of works that look back at the horror of the time when Europe tore itself apart but sometimes truth is much more interesting than any film studio can ever release.

Ian D. Hall