12 World War II Moments (That Hardly Anybody Ever Talks About)

What immediately comes to mind on the subject of prisoner-of-war camps? Most likely Colditz (which never saw any successful escapes) or ‘the Great Escape’, made famous by the 1963 film of the same name. This saw 76 men flee (none of them American in contrast to the film, which was otherwise quite realistic) from Stalag Luft III in modern-day Poland. 73 of them were subsequently recaptured and 50 executed.

Two Allied escape attempts involved a larger number of men, but the memories of both have been largely lost to time. The first, ‘La Grande Évasion’, isn’t even considered significant enough to get a Wikipedia article, despite the involvement of 132 French and Polish inmates (two of whom made it back to France). The second trumps this.

Ožbalt is located in modern-day Slovenia (then Yugoslavia), which by 1944 had become a relatively hostile territory for the Germans given the high levels of Partisan activity. POWs were housed in several camps whilst they were utilised as forced labour on a railway project and seven men initially managed to slip away from a work detail, making contact with the local resistance and convincing them to return with a hundred men. Three additional camps were liberated, two British and one French.

A 160-mile trek to freedom then ensued. Miraculously and in contrast to every other successful escape attempt of the War, none of the men involved were recaptured, leading to 105 out of 105 ‘home runs’.