When I remembered that 2019 marked the 400th anniversary of the birth of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, I immediately thought that this was something I wanted to mark:  I spoke to Jane Pleydell-Bouverie, Festival Director of Chalke Valley, and we agreed that I should put together a talk on him for the CVHF audience that I know - from recent talks I’ve given there, on Charles I and then (last year) on Charles II - loves the English Civil War.

In March 1944, some 80 Allied prisoners of war tunnelled out of a maximum security POW camp in Lower Silesia. Immortalised fifty years ago in the film The Great Escape, the breakout from Stalag Luft III has become a vital – and almost mythological – component of our Second World War story. In his talk, Guy will take a fresh look at the escape, and ask a number of penetrating questions. What was the point of the Great Escape? Did it really open, as is often claimed, a new front within the German Reich? How many POWs actually wanted to escape? How well was it organised? Did RAF officers really have a duty to escape? How much help did the Germans supply? What was the character and motivation of Roger Bushell, the squadron leader who led the escape? And finally, was the Great Escape really all that great? Guy’s talk promises to be both thrilling and controversial as he strips away the myth to uncover the reality.