The Wooden Horse The Wooden Horse The Wooden Horse is a 1950 British Second World War war film starring Leo Genn, David Tomlinson and Anthony Steel. It was directed by Jack Lee. It is based on the book of the same name by Eric Williams, who also wrote the screenplay. The film depicts the true events of an escape attempt made by POWs in the German prison camp Stalag Luft III. The wooden horse in the title of the film is a piece of exercise equipment the prisoners use to conceal their escape attempt as well as a reference to the Trojan Horse
Derek Hodgkinson the Dutch coast. The crew, except Hodgkinson and his navigator were killed. Wounded, Hodgkinson was taken to a hospital as a prisoner of war. He was later transferred to Stalag Luft III, where he was made responsible for security under the leader of the escape committee "Big X". Stalag Luft III was made famous by the daring mass break-out through tunnels depicted in the film "The Great Escape". After several unsuccessful escape attempts, the camp was evacuated ahead of the Russian advance of January 1945 and the prisoners marched through severe winter weather to the naval PoW camp near Bremen.