page_title: Roger Bushell
section_title: The Great Escape
hierarchical_section_title: Roger Bushell / Prisoner of war / The 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: Squadron Leader Roger Joyce Bushell was a South African-born British military aviator. He is best known as the mastermind of the "Great Escape" from Stalag Luft III in 1944, but was one of the men recaptured and subsequently murdered by the Gestapo.
context_section_description: In the spring of 1943, Bushell masterminded a plot for a major escape from the camp. Being held in the north compound where British airmen were housed, Bushell as commander of the escape committee channelled the escape effort into probing for weaknesses and looking for opportunities. Falling back on his legal background to represent his scheme, Bushell called a meeting of the escape committee in the camp and not only shocked those present with its scope, but injected into every man a passionate and driven determination to put every energy into the escape. He declared,
  Everyone here in this room is living on borrowed time. By rights, we should all be dead! The only reason that God allowed us this extra ration of life is so we can make life hell for the Hun... In North Compound we are concentrating our efforts on completing and escaping through one master tunnel. No private-enterprise tunnels allowed. Three bloody deep, bloody long tunnels will be dug – Tom, Dick and Harry. One will succeed!
  The simultaneous digging of these tunnels would become an advantage if any one of them were discovered by the Germans because the guards would scarcely imagine that another two could be well under way. The most radical aspect of the plan was not merely the scale of the construction, but also the sheer number of men that Bushell intended to pass through these tunnels. Previous attempts had involved the escape of anything up to a dozen or twenty men, but Bushell was proposing to get over 200 out, all of whom would be wearing civilian clothes and possessing a complete range of forged papers and escape equipment. It was an unprecedented undertaking and would require unparalleled organisation. As the mastermind of the Great Escape, Bushell inherited the codename of "Big X". The tunnel "Tom" began in a darkened corner of a hall in one of the buildings. "Harry"'s entrance was hidden under a stove. The entrance to "Dick" had a concealed entrance in a drainage sump. More than 600 prisoners were involved in their construction.
  Tom was discovered in August 1943 when nearing completion. Bushell also organised another mass breakout, which occurred on 12 June 1943. This became known as the Delousing Break, when 26 officers escaped by leaving the camp under escort with two fake guards (POWs disguised as guards) supposedly to go to the showers for delousing in the neighbouring compound. All but two were later recaptured and returned to the camp, with the remaining two officers being sent to Oflag IV-C at Colditz for attempting to steal an aircraft.
  After the discovery of Tom, construction on Harry was halted. but it resumed in January 1944. On the evening of 24 March, after months of preparation, 200 officers prepared to escape. But things did not go as planned, with only 76 officers managing to get clear of the camp.
  Roger and his partner Bernard Scheidhauer, among the first few to leave the tunnel, successfully boarded a train at Sagan railway station. They were caught the next day at Saarbrücken railway station, waiting for a train to Alsace, which had been annexed from France by Germany in 1871, but had since been returned to France after the First World War.
  Bushell and Scheidhauer were murdered three days later by members of the Gestapo, including Emil Schulz, helped by others. This was a breach of the Geneva Convention and thus constituted a war crime. The perpetrators were later tried and executed by the Allies. Fifty of the 76 escapees were killed in the Stalag Luft III murders on the personal orders of Adolf Hitler.
  Roger Bushell is buried at the Poznan Old Garrison Cemetery (Coll. grave 9. A.) in Poznań, Poland.
  Bushell was posthumously mentioned in despatches on 8 June 1944 for his services as a POW. This award was recorded in the London Gazette dated 13 June 1946.
caption: Memorial to "The Fifty" near Żagań, Bushell R.J. on left column
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