Since ancient times, freedom has been everyone's yearning, and the Hungarian poet Petofi said, "Life is precious, and love is more expensive." If it is for the sake of freedom, both can be thrown away"; and in the movie "The Shawshank Redemption", the interpretation of freedom is "a bird that can never be closed, because every wing of it is stained with the glory of freedom".
In order to pursue freedom, even at the cost of their lives, people will not hesitate to endure great suffering, because no matter what, they cannot stop the human heart from pursuing freedom. There is one man in history, known as the "Prison Break King" because of this pursuit of freedom, who has escaped 13 times in his life, and he is Bertram James, the Allied pilot during World War II.
James, originally a major officer in the RAF, was shot by the Luftwaffe in 1940 in order to cover the great strategic shift of the Dunkirk evacuation, and he had to become a German prisoner of war and was imprisoned in the "Luft 1" prisoner of war camp. It was here that James began his legendary escape, digging the first tunnel of his life with his comrades-
After the tunnel was dug, James took the initiative to take the responsibility of looking at the wind, and after covering the departure of his comrades, he was the last to retreat, only to be discovered by the Germans, and finally the other comrades who left first successfully reached safety, and James was once again captured and transferred to the "Luft 3" prisoner of war camp dedicated to the detention of Allied pilots.
The pilots have mastered extremely valuable flying skills, and it is not easy for the Germans to train a pilot, so they want to get the allied pilots as much as possible, and they have not treated James and others badly in life, not only in terms of diet, milk powder, beef, but also a library, and even to go to the garden on time to feel the sun and flowers, the German army hopes to "impress" James and others in this way.
However, since the first day of his capture, James's desire to regain his freedom has never retreated, and although he failed to dig tunnels to escape from prison for the first time, he also accumulated a lot of experience. After being transferred to The Luft 3, he began digging tunnels again, and this time he was not fighting alone, because at the allotted time, everyone was in the garden to let the wind blow, which gave them the opportunity to communicate.
In the exchange, James was surprised but not surprised to find that it was not only himself digging tunnels, but also many people digging tunnels, so he proposed that he concentrate his strength, do not dig each other, but focus on three tunnels, which is more efficient and safer, and he also named these three tunnels, called Tom, Dick, harry.
More than 600 POWs spent a year digging tunnels, hiding the excavated soil on their bodies, bringing them into the garden, and eventually bringing out more than 130 tons of soil, although the "Tom" who was about to dig was found and blown up by the Germans, but "Harry" was not found. When the limelight passed, the prisoners of war dug up "Harry" completely and implemented the "escape plan" late one night.
However, when the first prisoner of war to go out carefully poked his head out to check the surrounding environment, he was almost frightened, and he found that the tunnel was 3 meters shorter than planned, and there was still a distance of 3 meters from the forest outside the prisoner of war camp, which meant that after they drilled out of the tunnel, there was nothing to block the german line of sight, as long as the Germans could see them as soon as they turned back.
But at this time it was impossible to retreat, so they fled according to the flow time of the sentries, 76 people successfully ran into the forest, but the 77th was found by the Germans, the Germans quickly launched a pursuit, including James, 73 people were arrested again, and sent directly to the concentration camp, but the other three who successfully ran out brought endless hope to the prisoners of war in the camp, and this incident was later filmed as "The Great Escape".