Seventy-seven years ago this morning, around 4:55 a.m. local time, the last of a group 76 Allied prisoners of war managed to tunnel out of a German camp, as part of a “great escape” that was later immortalized in a 1950 book and a 1963 movie.

The whole thing has a sad ending, in that only three of the prisoners made it home, and 50 of those who were reca…