Recaptured Great Escape airmen 'betrayed' by English informants, unearthed document claims

A notable survivor of 'The Great Escape' claimed that British double agents, secretly providing information to the Nazis, were responsible for the swift recapture and subsequent execution of 50 Allied airmen in March 1944.

Map maker Flight Lieutenant Desmond Plunkett made the accusation in a questionnaire he filled out upon his release from captivity at the end of the war.

Plunkett had been one of 76 allied airmen to escape prisoner of war (PoW) camp Stalag Luft III, events later dramatized for the big screen in The Great Escape.

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The document containing Plunkett's claim was unearthed by archivists at the National Archives on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the breakout, considered one of the most courageous events behind enemy lines during World War Two.

In it, the Flight Lieutenant wrote that he believed there were "two individuals ... whose activities [had] a direct bearing on the fate of the 50 executed prisoners".

Adding: "These two persons must be traced, as both are undoubtedly indigenous Englishmen and must be tried for their collaborating activities with the enemy".

Plunkett's role in the operation was to forge maps to help escapees make it to safe countries and onto their respective home nations. 

In the 1963 hit movie, The Great Escape, Plunkett's character was portrayed by Donald Pleasence, who had himself been a prisoner in another PoW camp during the Second World War.

In the real-life version of the story, Plunkett's life was spared once he had been recaptured, but not before being subjected to mock executions and other forms of torture by the Gestapo. 

He survived the post-war years into his eighties, dying in 2002. 

Fifty of the recaptured 73 men were swiftly executed on the orders of Adolf Hitler. 

A contravention of the Geneva Convention, in 1947 a military tribunal found 18 people guilty of war crimes for shooting the recaptured prisoners of war. 

Thirteen of the convicted Nazis were executed for their role in the atrocity.