ITV - Greatest Escapes: The Full Story

Films and dramas such as The Great Escape and Colditz have long held us in their thrall over the years with their iconic real-life stories of brave prisoners-ofwar plotting and executing their escapes. In this one off doco David Jason takes a trip back in time to relive some of the amazing true stories that inspired these gripping dramas. Travelling to Germany and Poland, David visits Colditz Castle and the site of the breakout later depicted in the classic film The Great Escape. He also meets the last-known British survivor of that legendary mass breakout. David visits some of the veterans who plotted the escape routes, the members of the resistance who helped smuggle people across borders and some of the lucky few who actually managed an escape. He also attempts to recreate the Warburg Wire Job – one of the most ingenious escapes of the war. He tells the stories of those who tunnelled to freedom, those who wore disguises, those who climbed perimeter fences, the band of men who built a glider to try to fly to freedom and the soldier who tried to paint a German uniform to escape in. David traces the routes they took and travels to Holland to tell one of the greatest – yet least known – escape stories of the Second World War.