Wow- great stuff indeed. Stalag (Stockade) Luft (Air or aviation). McQueen did all his own stunts in that movie, no doubles- even the last motorcycle ride towards Switzerland and possible freedom. My favorite poem is "High Flight" written by Canadian John Gillespie McGee Jr. He died in a plane crash in 1941 (year I was born) while still in Canada- practice flight that went wrong- he had his orders to report to the RAF in England-- two books you might like to read, unless you already have: (1) "The Big Show" by RAF pilot Pierre Clostermann- describes the Battle of Britian- Radar and the longer flight lines for the Luftwaffe fighters in 1940 to get over England gave the Brits a slight edge- (2) The Eagle Has Landed- fiction about a Abwehr plot to kidnap Churchill from a weekend retreat in the Northern marshy areas of England-- a bit of Gen. Otto Skerzensky and his "Schirmfalljaeger" troops and a special op- involving both sea and air- the pilot chosen for this mission, even though he had over 40 kills in his ME-109 (mostly B-17's) had yet to receive his Ritter Kruz (Knight's Cross) from "Fat Boy" Hermann Goring at Karinhall-the usual Luftwaffe tradition- why? because he had the audacity to tell Goring to his fat face why the British SuperMarine Spitfire was a better fighter in a dogfight than his ME-109- Old "Fat Boy" didn't much like to hear that I guess- it's fiction, but a great read, and in a somewhat believable scenario.

My first wife's uncle Jack was a navigator on a B-17 on the raids on the Polesti oil refineries in Rumania- their plane was shot up, they all parachuted out- deep in Naxi territory, and were captured and ended up in a Stalag Luft (number unknown) Like in "The Great Escape" the CO was a Luftwaffe Oberst (Full Bird Col.)- but the German guards did random inspections and counted all the boards and studs in each barrack at random, the POW's were never given gardening or any other tools- they mainly played baseball and soccer- BUT-
when a Gestapo Major (Hauptsturmbannfueher) showed up and demanded the CO turn over all the POWs that were Jewish to him, the CO refused. The camp was liberated in March 1945. Her uncle said that their captors would often open their Red Cross packages and get the American cigarettes and Hershey bars- He spoke fluent German, but was smart enough not to let guards know that--

"The field is the touchstone of the man"..