Peter Butterworth beyond the camp grounds. He was subsequently sent to Stalag Luft III, near Sagan, the scene of "The Great Escape". Whilst at Stalag Luft III he met Talbot Rothwell, who later went on to write many of the Carry On films in which Butterworth was to star. Rothwell and Butterworth formed a duet and sang in the camp shows, where booing and catcalls covered the sounds of an escape tunnel being dug by other prisoners. Butterworth was one of the vaulters covering for the escapers during the escape portrayed by the book and film "The Wooden Horse". Butterworth later auditioned
Stalag Luft III stop them. Built to hold 14,000 POWs, Stalag VII-A now held 130,000 from evacuated stalags with 500 living in barracks built for 200. Some chose to live in tents while others slept in air raid slit trenches. The U.S. 14th Armored Division liberated the prisoners of VII-A on 29 April. Kenneth W. Simmons' book "Kriegie" (1960) vividly describes the life of POWs in the American section of Stalag Luft III in the final months of the war, ending with the winter force-march from the camp, ahead of the advancing Soviet troops and eventually being liberated. The POW camp was actually