heads up, Digging the great escape tunnel, channel 4 9pm Monday

[NutLoose]

They still exist!, who says we don't build things that last :)

Digging the Great Escape - Channel 4 (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/digging-the-great-escape)

info about it

Great Escape tunnel unearthed - IOL SciTech | IOL.co.za (http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/science/discovery/great-escape-tunnel-unearthed-1.1184046)

[Mach Two]

Good heads up, Nut Loose. Thank you.

M2

[12 twists per inch]

Good to see the aircrew wearing flying suits no matter what! :rolleyes: bet they got in flight rations too ;) . Excellent programme!

[Flying_Anorak]

Was that the best use of grow bags and cape leather gloves..??

Not bitter but they looked like new ones of each for the TV programme no doubt, but when I'm digging I don't wear my new suit!

[NutLoose]

Thought that myself, talk about overdressed for the occasion lol, the RAF must be awash with money to use new grow bags instead of cheaper coveralls... you could see why one was the "intelligence officer" because while the rest were scrambling around in the dirt, he was sitting at a desk in the warm playing with his "John Bull" printing set. ;)

Excellent programme and fascinating to boot. They must of drank some milk, odd the Germans never seem to have queried why few or no metal tins in the rubbish, considering the amount they got through.

[barnstormer1968]

An excellent bit of TV IMHO, but the second I saw the brand new grow bags I knew it would just have to be mentioned here:E

As for:
Re. The growbags...guys it was all about captured AIRCREW digging their way out of an AIRCREW prison camp......

This bunch arrived at the camp in light blue, after volunteering to be in the camp........And then didn't leave in civvies:=

[diginagain]

Nomex, pockets and PVC kneeboards must come in handy if your escape-route suddenly collapses on you.

[Wensleydale]

It would never have happened in modern times... The prisoners' Health and Safety rep would never have let them start, and even if they did they would need the signature of the Camp Commandant on the risk assessment forms.

Seriously though, the programme really brought out the courage and tenacity of the escapers - thank you to all of them.:ok:

[BEagle]

For heaven's sake, will some of you please grow up. A good programme about a heroic time in our recent history, yet all some people can comment about is whether flying coveralls were appropriate...... Get a life, will you!

Anyway, I thought the programme was generally good, but rather disjointed as it hopped around between archaeological digging, aircrew re-enactment and memories of the ex-internees in something of a random scatter. Better editing would have been very beneficial, to my mind.

According to Digging the Great Escape - Channel 4 (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/digging-the-great-escape) , it's now available on 4-on-demand, if you have access and a sufficiently fast Internet connection.

[Spit the Dog]

And Frenchie still wearing his C-17 T-Shirt !!

[occhips]

And Ryan H has a face for Radio too :uhoh:

[wiggy]

On an associated subject, BBC Radio 4 has just run a two part program about the escape lines crossing the Pyrenees during World War Two. Well worth a listen:

BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - The Freedom Trail (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017ltk5)

[Buster11]

A brief engagement of pedant mode regarding the Stalag Luft III programme. It was stated, twice I think, that all the inhabitants were shot down aircrew. Not actually so. The camp was for all commissioned RAF personnel. My father spent three years there after being captured at Heraklion during the invasion of Crete, where he was a codes and ciphers officer. (Flew in there on a Sunderland and out in a Ju. 52.) He was a commercial artist before the War and spent much of his time in Luft III as a forger, producing documents and passes, using potato prints and lino-cuts as well as rubber shoe soles to simulate rubber stamps. He mentioned a technique he developed for producing a fake glaze on altered photographs that involved copious applications of saliva, dried after each one, maybe rather like the reverse of birds’ nest soup.

Slight thread creep here. Flak and Ferrets by Walter Morison (published by Sentinel, ISBN 1 874767 09 2) covers an escape he and Lorne Welch made by walking out through the main gate of the camp, which ended when they were caught trying to start a Gotha 145 biplane to fly to Sweden. A fascinating read and available from the usual outlet.

[Pontius Navigator]

Not seen it yet but there is probably still an eclectic mix of professions amongst the aircrew.

The staff coffee bar at Finningley (mining area a bit like a prison camp :)) you could go in and ask for advice from all and sundry.

There were financial advisors, chartered surveyors, picture frames, self-builders, boat owners, landscape gardeners, etc etc. The trades or professions that many had been in before joining the RAF was huge.

PS

One could have made a radio from the milk tins and potatoes.

[airborne_artist]

It's available as a torrent for those outside Blightly.

The Lt Col i/c the new shaft project surprised me. To his great surprise the sand at 8m/30ft deep kept collapsing, so they finally decided that it was too risky to attempt to tunnel into the wartime tunnel both because of the risks to the modern-day tunnelers and also because they'd destroy the old tunnels in the process of trying to break into them.

I'd have thought all that was fairly obvious before he started, but perhaps not?

[Wensleydale]

The Lt Col i/c the new shaft project surprised me. To his great surprise the sand at 8m/30ft deep kept collapsing, so they finally decided that it was too risky to attempt to tunnel into the wartime tunnel both because of the risks to the modern-day tunnelers and also because they'd destroy the old tunnels in the process of trying to break into them.

I'd have thought all that was fairly obvious before he started, but perhaps not?

As a Lt Col you'd also have thought that he was used to shafting people....

[airborne_artist]

FWIW I've perhaps dug more holes in Germany than any Lt Col - and a ground recce dig was one thing we always did if we couldn't be sure of the soil conditions at 4m down.

The joys of a stay-behind role :E

[foldingwings]

I'm with BEagle, I hoped for much more from this programme but it was very bitty, poorly edited and badly produced, in my view. I suspect because they were trying to get too much out of it (3 strands running throughout) and there is probably more on the cutting room floor than managed to make the 1 hr 35 mins cut.

As for the Lt Col Royal Engineers!

The Lt Col i/c the new shaft project surprised me. To his great surprise the sand at 8m/30ft deep kept collapsing, so they finally decided that it was too risky to attempt to tunnel into the wartime tunnel both because of the risks to the modern-day tunnelers and also because they'd destroy the old tunnels in the process of trying to break into them.

What did he say to the local and somewhat submissive archaeologist?

I'll take that as a yes!

Ah yes, I remember the staff college 'line' at Camberley - nobody in the Army ever disagrees with a senior officer! (thank God I'm air force!)

Well he got that wrong and suitably shafted (not)!

Didn't surprise me, airborne_artist, man seemed a prick from the outset!

Foldie:rolleyes:

[airborne_artist]

Always entertained me that we sweated our bolleaux off tabbing the hills of the Brecons only to take up picks and shovels to dig holes :}

[Dengue_Dude]

BEagle old chap,

If we woz growed ups . . . we wouldn't spend all our time here . . .

Have a nice Christmas and pop a couple of yellow bombers, it all looks better then.

:)