January 24 - The One That Got Away

Today’s movie is a military biography with  a scene that happens today – January 24. I hope you will enjoy this film and watch it tonight.

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY    

Franz von Werra, a Luftwaffe fighter pilot is shot down over Britain and taken prisoner. He resists all attempts to extract information from him and is sent to a camp. He makes an escape attempt but is defeated more by the English weather than by the British army. He is transferred to another camp. Here he is involved in digging a tunnel.  Werra pretends to be a Dutch pilot as part of a plan to steal an airplane. He almost succeeds. After this he is sent to Canada. While traveling by train to the camp on January 24, 1941 [1:27:25 to 1:35:05] Werra jumped from the train. After almost freezing to death he managed to reach and cross the St. Lawrence river into the neutral United States. Werra returned to Germany and the Luftwaffe, but was shot down and killed

An interesting story about a little explored area of World War II history.

Top Secret Tales of World War II by William Breuer (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,

New York, 2000) at page 108 gives the date he leaped from the train

Producers - Julian Wintle and Earl St. John

Director - Roy Ward Baker

Screenplay - Howard Clewes

Runtime – 1 hour 51 minutes

Released -  December 2, 1957

   

Starring -

Hardy Krüger as Franz von Werra

Michael Goodliffe as RAF interrogator Captain Henderson Bell

Colin Gordon as Army interrogator

Alec McCowen as duty officer, Hucknall

Terence Alexander as RAF intelligence officer

Jack Gwillim as Commandant, Grizedale

Andrew Faulds as Lieutenant, Grizedale

Julian Somers as booking clerk

Harry Lockart as German prisoner

Robert Crewdson as German prisoner

George Mikell as German prisoner

George Roubicek as German prisoner

John Van Eyssen as German prisoner

Frederick Jaeger as German prisoner

Richard Marner as German prisoner

Paul Hansard as German prisoner