Escape from Stalag Luft III by Jens Muller

I have read a few books on The Great Escape, an escape from the German prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III on the night of March 24-25, 1944. This first-hand account, by Jens Muller, is my most recent, and so far my favorite. I have recently read The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill, which followed closely the movie starring Richard Attenborough, James Garner, and many others. This short memoir by Muller added to the story, rather than just repeating what was in the movie.

Of the 76 Allied prisoners that escaped through a tunnel named Harry, all but 3 were recaptured to be shot or reincarcerated. Jens Muller and a fellow Norwegian were two of the successful ones. Muller’s memoir starts when he joined the RAF. He goes on to describe the mission he was on when he was shot down into the sea, and his attempts to get back to England before being captured by the Germans. After his capture, he was held in many different places with different conditions before finally being moved to the newly built Stalag Luft III.

At the prison camp prior to Stalag Luft III, Muller reports that there were many escape attempts, but the efforts were not well organized, and tunnel digging was hampered by the fact that the barracks were separated from the ground by pillars, and so there was no way to access the tunnels without taking the chance of being seen by guards looking under the buildings.

The memoir only contains the first-hand experiences of Muller, and so he only knew about his part in building equipment, including bellows, for the tunnels. On the other hand, I liked hearing about his escape: the waiting, the fears, and the unknowns. He wrote about his and the other Norwegians escape on a Swedish ship that hid them.

Most interesting was the time between going down in the plane and his capture. When Muller was shot down, he survived for 60 hours in the water trying to work his way up the coats to the Netherlands where he might have found some Allies to help him get back to England.  After landing in water, he found his airplane seat nearby. The seat contained an amazing dinghy! It had collapsible paddles, a mast, a bucket for bailing, and other equipment. If I’m ever in England, I’m going to look for RAF museums in hopes of seeing a model or at least a diagram of this fabulous conveyance. I looked online, but it seems the equipment in RAF planes varied over time, and I wasn’t sure if what I saw was similar to Muller’s.

Here is a list of books on Stalag Luft III and the escape. I have only read a couple of these, and so I provide this list with no recommendations or ratings.

• Escape from Stalag Luft III: The True Story of My Successful Great Escape: The Memoir of Bob Vanderstok by Bram Vanderstok
• The Great Escape from Stalag Luft III: The Full Story of How 76 Allied Officers Carried Out World War II's Most Remarkable Mass Escape by Tim Carroll
• The True Story of the Great Escape: Stalag Luft III, March 1944 by Jonathan F Vance 
• The Great Escaper: The Life and Death of Roger Bushell by Simon Pearson (Big X)
• Real Great Escape by Guy Walters
• The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill
• Stalag Luft III (Images of War) by Charles Messenger
• Stalag Luft III: An Official History of the POW Camp of the Great Escape by John Grehan
• Stalag Luft III: The Secret Story Hardcover by Arthur A. Durand
• From Commandant to Captive: The Memoirs of Stalag Luft III Commandant Col. Friedrich Wilhelm von Lindeiner genannt von Wildau with Postwar Interviews, Letters, and Testimony by Marilyn Walton