Escape Stories

Escaping death, escaping entrapment, or even escaping harm is arguably one of the most heart-pounding experiences in life. Witness some of the military’s most adrenaline pumping escapes during the course of this thrilling video, the SECRET ART OF ESCAPE.

Amazing stories of wartime escapes through the ages are told in three different episodes:

HOMERUN: Daring escapes from World War II.
BEHIND ENEMY LINES: Break-outs from the Civil War, World War I and Vietnam.
TRIUMPH OVER TYRANNY: Escapes from Nazis and Communists.

Short Film – On The Run

There were six episodes total of this program, Michael narrates each one of these stories.

Home Run tells the story of the biggest mass American breakout from a World War II Japanese POW camp. Marine General Austin Shofner tells how he engineered the escape from Davao Prison in the Philippines. The program also features U.S. Air Force veteran General Albert Patton Clark, who flew British Spitfires in World War II and wound up in the notorious Stalag Luft III POW camp. Finally, it describes the exploits of Luftwaffe hero Baron Franz von Werra, the only German to escape from a British POW camp.

Triumph Over Tyranny celebrates the success of two Cold War escape bids from East to West Germany. In the first, a young couple drove their open-top sports car under the barriers of border guards at Checkpoint Charlie. In the second, a whole family hid inside the icy interior of a butcher’s truck to avoid detection. Polish-born New Yorker Kristine Keren tells the tale of how she, a Jewish child caught in the Holocaust, survived the Nazi terror by hiding with her family in a sewer for 14 months. Finally, the program tells the story of Orestes Lorenzo, a Cuban Air Force pilot who escaped the island in a MIG jet, then flew back in a light plane two years later to get his family.

On the Run introduces Chris Ryan, a British SAS commando who tells how he made military history with his 200-mile Persian Gulf War escape across war-torn Iraq. The program travels to Rio de Janiero and the 70th birthday party of Britain’s “Great Train Robber,” Ronnie Biggs, who tells the sometimes comic story of how he gave Scotland Yard the slip. Finally, the program revisits the story of the enigmatic skyjacker, D.B. Cooper.

Great Escapers tells the true story behind the movie “Midnight Express,” which depicted the Turkish prison in which Billy Hayes found himself, and visits the Moscow exile home of Cold War spy George Blake, to relive his breakout from a grim British prison to East Germany. Also, Betty Mahmoody describes her escape from Iran with her 7-year-old child, an event captured in the film “Not Without My Daughter.” Finally, ABC News Correspondent Charles Glass shows how, in 1987, he gave his Lebanese captors the slip.

Jail Break In 1786, a Cornish woman named Mary Bryant was convicted of assault and robbery. Two years later, she was deported to the penal colony of Botany Bay, Australia, where she met her husband William, and they became one of the first three European couples married on the continent. But in 1791, Mary Bryant stole a longboat and escaped with her husband, children and seven other felons. After 70 days at sea, they made it to Dutch Timor, where they enjoyed a brief taste of freedom before being recaptured. The program also takes viewers to Alcatraz to try and reconstruct the only successful jailbreak from that prison. Then, the program explores the true story behind the book “Papillon,” which chronicles Frenchman Henri Charriere’s escape from the prison on Devil’s Island.