How a covert US Military operation fooled the Germans to help 73 prisoners of war escape in one of World War 2′s greatest untold stories.

Produced & Directed by Philip J Day
Edge West Productions
for National Geographic
Great Escape: The Final Secrets on National Geographic

It remains one of the greatest stories of heroism of World War II. Seventy-five men tunneled out of the Nazi’s most secure POW camp to wreak havoc on the German countryside. But who was the invisible hand that had reached out to help in the Great Escape. Now after nearly seventy years the true story can at last be told of how a handful of unsung heroes assisted the most famous escape of the war.

The top-secret unit run from Virginia was known as MIS-X and the handful of soldiers sworn to life-long silence assisted escape attempts from all 64 German camps scattered across Eastern Europe. The Prisoners of War received contraband successfully smuggled into the camps through packages sent by factitious organizations run out of Fort Hunt. But MIS-X also transformed the POW’s into spies along the barbwire front. The prisoners even escaped the camps to gather intelligence that was sent back to Fort Hunt in coded letters. But this jeopardized their status as POW’s with protections guaranteed under the Geneva Convention. That is why the operation remained one of the best-kept secrets of the war.