On a day when the Holocaust is remembered and having just watched 'The Wooden Horse' on BBC2 , I continued to find more info on Wikipedia.
The film The Great Escape was also based on an escape from Stalag Luft lll. I was surprised to see the following from the inventory taken by the Germans after the escape.
What amazing, courageous men they were.

After the escape

Following the escape, the Germans took an inventory of the camp and found out just how extensive the operation had been. Four thousand bed boards had gone missing, as well as the complete disappearance of 90 double bunk beds, 635 mattresses, 192 bed covers, 161 pillow cases, 52 20-man tables, 10 single tables, 34 chairs, 76 benches, 1,212 bed bolsters, 1,370 beading battens, 1219 knives, 478 spoons, 582 forks, 69 lamps, 246 water cans, 30 shovels, 1,000 feet (300 m) of electric wire, 600 feet (180 m) of rope, and 3424 towels. 1,700 blankets had been used, along with more than 1,400 Klim cans.[33] The electric cable had been stolen after being left unattended by German workers; as they had not reported the theft, they were executed by the Gestapo.[38] From then on each bed was supplied with only nine bed boards which were counted regularly by the guards.


Nationalities of the 50 executed prisoners
United Kingdom 20 British
Canada 6 Canadian
Poland 6 Polish
Australia 5 Australian
South Africa 3 South African
New Zealand 2 New Zealanders
Norway 2 Norwegian
Argentina 1 Argentinian[37]
Belgium 1 Belgian
Czechoslovakia 1 Czechoslovak
France 1 Frenchman
Greece 1 Greek
Lithuania 1 Lithuanian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalag_Luft_III

Yes the movie The Great Escape was loosely based on the events at Stalag Luft lll, 50 of the escapees were murdered by the Gestapo, taken in ones and twos on the pretext of being returned to the camp they were murdered by the road side,one incident from the movie actually occurred one of the escapees being caught out when answering thank you in English as a response to good luck, the whole story is well worth reading about, I think the book was by Paul Brickhill if I remember rightly

Paul Brickhill was a great writer of British wartime heroics. His book The Dam Busters covers far more than just the raid on the dams. In fact it goes post Guy Gibson and tells of the daring raids that 617 Squadron carried out under the command of Leonard Cheshire VC. Excellent read.

Wooden Horse is on iPlayer at the moment if anyone missed it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0078n5m/the-wooden-horse

Angels One Five is there too:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03903wy/angels-one-five

And the Long The Short and the Tall, all good old stiff upper lip war movies, oh nearly forgot San Demetrio London is on there as well, plenty of matinee movies, enjoy