page_title: Les Long
section_title: 'Great Escape'
hierarchical_section_title: Les Long / 'Great Escape'
caption_attribution_description: Català: Recordatori pels oficials afusellats. Deutsch: Mahnmal für die erschossenen Offiziere. English: Memorial to "The Fifty" down the road toward Żagań. Memorial to "The Fifty" Allied airmen executed after the "Great Escape". Español: Memorial «a Los 50». Lietuvių: Sušaudytų karo lakūnų belaisvių kapas Poznanėje. Nederlands: Herdenkingsmonument voor "De vijftig", langs de weg richting Zagan[19]. Polski: Pomnik upamiętniającą rozstrzelanych lotników. Na trzeciej tablicy w lewej kolumnie widnieje nazwisko Włodzimierza Kolanowskiego.
context_page_description: James Leslie Robert Long, known as Cookie, was a British Vickers Wellington bomber pilot who was taken prisoner during the Second World War. He took part in the 'Great Escape' from Stalag Luft III in March 1944, but was one of the men re-captured and subsequently murdered by the Gestapo.
context_section_description: In preparations for the Great Escape operation Long was one of the leading tunnellers. During the escape he made two emergency repairs to the tunnel due to roof falls and after breaking out quite late accompanied by Tony Bethell who was an appointed "marshal", one of the dozen men appointed to wait in the forest after escaping to collect a pre-selected group of ten men who would then be led westwards as initial stage guides Long joined a group known as the "hard arsers" because they planned to walk alone the entire trip homewards rather than catching trains. 
  He was one of the 76 men who escaped the prison camp on the night of 24–25 March 1944 in the escape now famous as "the Great Escape" but on the evening of 29 March 1944 Long and Tony Bethell arrived at Görlitz prison from Sagan police station where they had been held after recapture. Long's party had become lost in the dense forest and ended up beside the Russian compound of Stalag Luft III only to be set on the right direction by Tony Bethell who then teamed up with Long. They made excellent progress after that walking alongside the main railway line to Frankfurt (Oder) but found the trains travelling too fast to jump aboard. On 27 March 1944 they were arrested by German Home Guard and arrived at the collecting point for recaptured officers in Görlitz prison on 29 March 1944. Regularly groups of officers were taken away by the Gestapo in a variety of vehicles until just Long and Max Ellis remained at Görlitz They were regularly moved from cell to cell until finally being separated on 11 April 1944.  Ellis saw Long on 12 April 1944 and on 13 April 1944 he asked to borrow Long's comb, but was told by a guard that "he left yesterday". No trace of Long was ever found.
  Long was one of the 50 escapers executed and murdered by the Gestapo. He was cremated at Breslau. Originally his remains were buried at Sagan, he is now buried in part of the Poznan Old Garrison Cemetery. 
  Long was named beside Stanislaw Krol and Pawel Tobolski on the supplementary list of prisoners "shot while attempting to escape" which was handed to prisoners at Stalag Luft III on 18 May 1944, though his name was not in the list of the murdered prisoners which was published in the press in the UK and Commonwealth countries when news broke on or about 20 May 1944. (Post-war investigations saw a number of those guilty of the murders tracked down, arrested and tried for their crimes.)
  Shortly afterwards, a communication arrived from England to advise Long that he had successfully completed the requirements for a degree of Bachelor of Arts in Economics.
caption: Memorial to "The Fifty" down the road toward Żagań (Long is on the right)
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