I'm not certain of the exact figures but I think 35,000 ESCAPERS is very wrong.
I remember being told during an "Escape and Evasion" course that the number of successful ESCAPES from POW camps ................ was about 25 !
However, thousands of allied airmen EVADED capture and returned to the UK, courtesy of the various Continental resistance groups
The moral of the story being that to stand any chance of getting back home, you had to avoid getting caught - once you were banged up, that was it !
The exact figures are (were ?) on display at Hendon and they confirmed those sort of statistics.