entrance once more and hide inside the horse while it is carried back to their hut. They also devise a method of disposing of the earth coming out of the tunnel. They recruit a third man, Phil, to assist them, with the promise that he will join the escape. At the final break-out, Clinton hides in the tunnel during an Appell (roll call), before three men are carried out in the horse: the third to replace the tunnel trap. Howard and Clinton travel by train to the Baltic port of Lübeck; (in fact, they travelled via Frankfurt an der Oder to Stettin). Phil elects to travel alone, posing as a Norwegian margarine salesman and travelling by train via Danzig (now Gdańsk). He was the first to get to neutral territory. On the docks Howard and Clinton are forced to kill a German sentry who surprised the hiding men; and they contact French workers, through whom they meet "Sigmund", a Danish resistance worker who smuggles them onto a Danish ship. They then have to transfer to a fishing boat and arrive in Copenhagen, before being shipped to neutral Sweden. There they are reunited with Phil, who arrived earlier. Some details from Williams' book were not used in the film, e.g. the escaped POWs discussing the possibility of visiting potentially neutral brothels in Germany, an idea that was abandoned because of the fear that it might be a trap. Cast Leo Genn as Peter Howard David Tomlinson as Philip Rowe Anthony Steel as John Clinton David Greene as Bennett Peter Burton as Nigel Patrick Waddington as the Senior British Officer Michael Goodliffe as Robbie Anthony Dawson as Pomfret Bryan Forbes as Paul Dan Cunningham as David Peter Finch as the Australian in hospital Philip Dale as Bill White Russell Waters as 'Wings' Cameron Ralph Ward as the Adjutant Lis Løwert as Kamma Production The film was based on a book by Eric Williams which was published in 1949. The book was re-issued in 1980. Ian Dalrymple and Jack Lee read the book and bought the film rights. They out-bid John Mills who also wanted to make it. "I expect John would have been very good in it also," said Jack Lee "probably better than Leo Genn, who was very stolid as an actor." Leo Genn played the Eric Williams character while Anthony Steele played a character based on Michael Codner. Codner was