Stalag Luft III it as a longer third-person narrative under the title "The Wooden Horse", which was filmed as "The Wooden Horse" in 1950. He included many details omitted in his first book, but changed his name to "Peter Howard", Michael Codner to "John Clinton" and Oliver Philpot to "Philip Rowe". Williams also wrote a prequel, "The Tunnel", an extended study of the mentalities of life as a prisoner of war. Although not an escape novel, it shows the profound urge to escape, and explores the ways that camp life affected men's emotions. Paul Brickhill was an Australian-born Spitfire pilot, shot down in
Military history of Australia during World War II in many deaths. Four Australians were also executed following a mass escape from Stalag Luft III in March 1944. While the Australian prisoners suffered a higher death rate in German and Italian captivity than their counterparts in World War I, it was much lower than the rate suffered under Japanese internment. Like the other Allied personnel captured by the Japanese, most of the thousands of Australians captured in the first months of 1942 during the conquest of Malaya and Singapore, the NEI and New Britain were held in harsh conditions. Australians were held in camps across the Asia-Pacific region and