The series opens with the exciting tale of fighter pilot Jack Rae – a Spitfire Ace whose luck ran out when he was shot down high over France. Jack saw out the rest of the War in the notorious Stalag Luft III and witnessed the famous ‘Great Escape’ in which 76 prisoners broke out of a 300ft long tunnel.
The series continues with the extraordinary tale of Nancy Wake – a New Zealand born journalist who married a French millionaire and lived the high life in Marseille, while secretly working for the resistance and helped over a thousand people escape from German occupied France.
Fighter pilot Jim Sheddan proved virtually ‘unsinkable’, surviving a horror-run of crashes and near misses that culminated in a 20 hour ordeal in the middle of the English channel.
Allan Yeoman, whose war ended early, when he was captured after a huge blunder at Tobruk (Libya) when his battalion continued an aborted night attack against German forces. Yeoman spent the rest of the war concocting desperate, and sometimes very successful escape plans from prison camps in Italy, Austria and Germany.
This episode covers the most famous of reluctant heroes, Charles Upham. Captain Upham is the most highly decorated Allied soldier among the millions who fought in WWII, and the only infantry officer to ever win the Victoria Cross twice. But this great Kiwi hero was painfully shy, and hated the adulation and recognition that came with his awards.
Bomber pilot Geoff Rothwell flew spies into Europe before he was captured after a terrible crash in Holland.
The series finishes with real unsung hero, Eric Batchelor, a simple Sergeant who like Upham is one of the world’s most highly decorated soldiers. Batchelor twice won the Distinguished Conduct Medal after a series daring front line patrols.