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NOTE FOR NEW VIEWERS OF THIS THREAD... Please note - before reading further - this thread 'stalled badly' as I inadvertently 'overstretched myself' - due to a massive attack of over optimism. Hopefully it still makes for an interesting read as it has turned into the 'true' story of The Great Escape - but it is no longer a WIP thread... This month sees the 75th anniversary of THE GREAT ESCAPE. Not the movie – but the actual escape of seventy six men from Stalag Luft III located near the Polish town of Sagan. Of the seventy six only three men made it home safely. Twenty three were captured and sent back to camp and notoriously fifty men were murdered on the direct orders of Hitler. Most people became aware of the escape from the 1963 movie, with its all-star cast and tense storyline. In more recent years many documentaries and books have emerged and the full story is well known. The phrase ‘For you the war is over’ was reputed to be a common statement made by Germans to captured flyers, however it was the sworn duty of all captured military personnel to continue to fight the enemy by trying to escape. Many of the prisoners at Stalag Luft III were re-captured escapees. The Germans believed that the security at the new camp was so tight that it would be impossible for anyone to escape and so they ‘put all their rotten eggs in one basket’. It was realised early on that for any escape attempt to succeed it had to be well planned and organised. The Prisoners at Sagan therefore established an escape committee. The chief escape officer was Squadron Leader Roger Joyce Bushell, a former escapee who had been recaptured several times. He was known as ‘BIG X’. BIG X had been shot down over France in the early days of the war. He was the Squadron Leader of 92SQN. There are only two pictures that I could find that show his Spitfire N3194 - GR-Z. This month it is my aim to build 3 versions of this aircraft, as a small tribute to a great man – who was killed on 29th March 1944 – along with forty nine other brave men – who dared to challenge the might of the third Reich – from the inside. I will be using three of these kits - as they depict the same squadron in the same time frame - with the black / white / silver underside and the older GR code for 92 Sqn. I also chose them over some starter kits with B/W schemes - as they had no stencil details and the white ones look great on the black wing side. I will be changing the code letters to Z's and cobbling together new serial numbers. My plan is to do 1 grounded / 1 in flight / 1 crashed. Having taken a closer look at the crashed one it might be a bit of a 'challenge' as I've never done 'crash damage' - but hopefully it will be fun and I've only got 4 weeks to get all three finished - so wish me luck. I'll keep the thread updated - Steve