National Geographic show

[RabidAlien]

Sunday nite, Aug 2nd, 8PM (Central Time):

Great Escape: The Final Secrets | National Geographic Channel

Looks interesting! Oddly enough....NatGeo seems to be doing alot more with history than the History channel.

 

[GrauGeist]

National Geographic always has had the good stuff...

Sad to say that Discovery and History channel have been falling by the wayside lately...glad I don't have cable anymore, those were the only channels I really watched...

The NatGeo program looks like it'll be a good one, PBS had a Nova episode about the escape from the German POW camp where the guys built a glider. The other PBS show I liked, was the Secrets of the Dead episode about the massive tunnel out of the POW camp.

 

[RabidAlien]

The glider was built in Colditz, and US tanks came clanking up to the castle door the day before they were planning on flying out. There's a book by Henry Chancellor that describes most of the escape attempts from Colditz....holy crap these guys were ingenius!

Amazon.com: Colditz: The Definitive History: The Untold Story of World War II's Great Escapes (9780060012861): Henry Chancellor: Books

The 2-part TV movie wasn't bad, either.

Amazon.com: Colditz: WWII: Jason Priestley, Timothy West, James Fox, Sophia Myles, Damian Lewis, Tom Hardy, Laurence Fox, Stuart Orme: Movies TV

 

[GrauGeist]

I agree, those guys were amazing with all thier secret stuff...I believe Hogan's Heros borrowed from the Stalag III and Colditz stories.

As far as the glider is concerned, they built a replica of the actual glider, and it worked perfectly.
Here's a good link regarding Colditz and the glider: NOVA Online | Nazi Prison Escape | Building the Colditz Glider

 

[wheelsup_cavu]

Cool link GG.


Wheels

 

[trackend]

I remember on a tv Chat show (Parkinson) some years ago a tv actor Graham Stark who was a POW had a right go at Pat Reid (colditz POW) on a chat show when Reid said he could never understand why more rankers did not escape. Graham said most Officers were not shot when you tried to escape, lower ranks nearly always got the chop he was really pissed off at Reid.

 

[Njaco]

"Secrets of the Dead' is a great show although I don't know how accurate. You have to watch PBS carefully, some things are 'slanted'. 'Nuff said.

But NatGeo does seem to lately focus on historical subjects.

 

[diddyriddick]

Thanks for the heads-up!