1. The Great Escape

5.  The Great Escape, as it came to be known, was a mass escape attempt from the prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III located near the Polish town of Zagan  The purpose-built camp was opened in April 1942 and the Germans considered it to be practically escape-proof.

7.  The Outcome  Of the 76 men who escaped, 3 made it home to the UK. 23 were recaptured and sent back to Sagan. Hitler personally ordered the execution of the other 50 men.

9. Prisoners of War in Britain  In 1939 there were just two prisoner of war camps in Britain. By the end of the war there were more than 600.

10. . Prior to the successful allied defeat of Germany in Africa in 1943, the majority of German prisoners of war were sent to camps in Canada and the US.

11. POW camps in the US  More than 150,000 men arrived after the surrender of Gen. Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps in April 1943, followed by an average of 20,000 new POWs a month

12.  From the Normandy invasion in June 1944 through December 30,000 prisoners a month arrived; for the last few months of the war 60,000 were arriving each month. When the war was over, there were 425,000 enemy prisoners in 511 main and branch camps throughout the United States.

16.  five hundred major camps and several satellite camps in many U.S. states, including Ohio, California, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oregon, Georgia, Texas and Nebraska  In Texas alone, there were about seventy camps.