Lost Second World War tunnel depicted in 'Great Escape' discovered

A team of archaeologists has unearthed a missing tunnel at one of the most notorious German prison camps of the Second World War besides discovering a wealth of escapers’ tools and equipment sealed underground.

The tunnel’s location at the camp, depicted in the Hollywood blockbuster The Great Escape, remained a mystery until experts excavated the relics.

The British archaeologists used ground-scanning radar and the testimony of veterans who helped to construct it, to yield a hoard of materials from the tunnel, named George, which was shut down in 1945.

The excavated items include yards of wire, numerous ‘klim tins’, bedboards, jagged hinges, old metal pails, hammers and jemmies.

“It is hardly a treasure in the conventional sense,” the Scotsman quoted Marek Lazarz, director of the museum that has been built to honour the men of Stalag Luft III, as saying.

“But it is priceless to us and a time capsule of what life was like back then.

“The finding of George brings to a close the mystery of where the tunnel exactly was. And we now have to change the model in the camp museum, because the tunnel was on the opposite side of the theatre to where we thought it was,” he added.