London: Members of Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) on Sunday marked 75 years since the so-called “Great Escape” at two remembrance ceremonies in Poland, where the legendary event took place. Details of the moving ceremony were released in London on Monday by the British Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Xinhua news agency reported. The Great Escape saw 76 prisoners of war from the RAF and its allies break out of Stalag Luft III on the night of March 24, 1944 through a tunnel they dug underground. More than 600 prisoners had taken part in the tunnel-building operation which lasted over 15 months and was led by RAF officer Squadron Leader Roger Bushell.
Incarcerated in the heavily guarded camp, the prisoners were determined to prove to their German captors that they could escape. At the ceremony on Sunday, one of the participants was Corporal Paddy Flint, a RAF police officer and a relative of Bushell. Flint, who held a photo of Bushell as he marched in the guard of honor, said, “I am related to one of the escapers, Squadron Leader Roger Bushell. It means a lot to me to be here today as it’s the first time I’ve ever seen his grave. Seeing the names of all the escapers on the gravestones, especially Roger’s, was very emotional and really hit home.”
Standing alongside Polish armed forces personnel, RAF personnel formed the guard of honor first at Poznan Cemetery, where 48 of the Great Escapers are buried, and later at the site of Stalag Luft III, the German-run prisoner of war camp where the escape took place during World War II.
