[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by fumo30

In theory, when a POW escapes he no longer enjoys the status of a POW and instead is turned again an enemy fighter so being a legal target for use of weapons.


What did naz...err, Germans do with the escapees in case they got on their trails?
Did they open fire at them without hesitation, or were they gentlemen enough to just recapture them and send them back to the camp?

I'd suggest watching the movie because iirc they were (approx. 50) taken to a forested area and machine gunned.

Two weeks later the remaining prisoners at Stalag Luft III receive news that 42 of the recaptured escapees had been shot “resisting arrest or making further escape attempts after arrest”. When the list of victims was posted it amounted to 47 names, and a few days later another three were added, bringing the total to 50. Among the dead were 25 Britons, six Canadians, three Australians, two New Zealanders, three South Africans, four Poles, two Norwegians, one Frenchman and a Greek. A further 23 were sent back to various other Nazi prison camps. Only three of the escapees - two Norwegians and a Dutchman - made it home.http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/pr...ape/index.html