Humans are hard to confine. Even when it looks like they have been put into an inescapable situation, they sometimes manage to escape anyway. Throughout history, people have been escaping from structures that have been labeled as "escape proof", or from situations that looked hopeless. One of the greatest escapes of World War II, was from a prison camp that was only 100 miles from Berlin. This meant that whoever escaped from the camp had to make their way completely through Germany. This was certainly a daunting task, especially if you didn't speak German and didn't have legal papers. Stalag Luft III was the camp that the prisoners escaped from, all 76 of them and they did this on the night of March 24, 1944 and the morning of March 25, 1944. The camp was located in Sagan. Unfortunately, most of them were recaptured. Hitler was so angry at the escape, that he order fifty of the prisoners shot. Twenty three were put back into concentration camps and three made it to safety behind the allied lines. It took the successful escapees, over three and one half months to get back to England.

Over the centuries, the Tower of London gained a reputation as a place that you couldn't escape from. Many a prisoner that was kept there, met his end from the headsmen's axe. This was not the case however, for a Jesuit priest named John Gerard who was sent to the tower in 1597. Gerard had studied his situation and realized that if he could loosen the stones around the door, he could get out. He also knew that he would need help from someone on the outside to complete his getaway. He made these arrangements and spent the good part of the night digging away at them and finally they came loose. He was still not free though. There were guards in the hallways, but he managed to get by them without being seen. The hallway had taken him to a high wall. The wall stood next to a moat. A boat was down there waiting for him and the person that had arranged for it was none other than the prison warden who felt sorry for the priest's plight. The warden threw him a rope and he promptly tied it to a cannon and slid down the rope to the boat and made his successful bid for freedom.

I would like to tell you about another escape from the tower, since it is the last one ever made from the tower, when it was used as a prison. It was during World War One. A British soldier who liked to write rubber checks was thrown into the tower. By this time, it is said that security at the tower had become extremely lax. To prove this point, one day the soldier found that his door had been left unlocked. I must admit that forgetting to lock a cell door in a prison is about the most lax thing that anyone could do. Security was so bad that the soldier walked right past the guards while he was wearing an overcoat that he had put on. They hardly even glanced at him. The guards had thought that he was just another visitor, because the prisoners were allowed as many visitors as they wanted at the time. Here is the strange part, the soldier headed out to London for a good time and when he had his fill, he went back to the tower and tried to get back into his cell. He failed. Apparently getting out was easier than trying to get in.

I am sure that most of you have heard of Giacomo Casanova. He was the most famous lover the world has ever seen. There came a time when all his activities attracted the attention of the criminal authorities who had him captured and tried on numerous counts of adultery. It just so happens that he was found guilty and sentenced to the hardest prison in Italy, Venice's Leeds prison. He had been sentenced to five years and was determined that he would not serve them. Casanova kept looking around for things that he could use to help him escape. He found an iron rod and made it into a tool for digging. He constructed a tunnel and dug in it for several months. Fate stepped in and he was moved to a different cell and all his work went down the drain. He found himself in a cell next to a monk. He somehow got his tool to the monk and asked him to dig two tunnels, one connecting the two cells and then a second under the walls. The monk complied and eventually they both escaped.

One of the most famous people in American history was also a person that had made an incredible escape. That person's name was Buffalo Bill or as his family had named him, William F. Cody. We all know that Bill was one of the most famous Buffalo hunters in the history of this country, but how many of us know that he had escaped from fierce indians, who had captured him? The indians were very short on meat and Bill had convinced them that he knew where a herd of cattle was. They allowed him to ride with them and direct them to the heard, but they had surrounded him as he rode. Somehow there came a point where he decided to take a chance and made a break for freedom. The indians followed him at full gallop and he was not able to get very far ahead of them. They began to shoot arrows at him, but missed. Finally he was able to get away. By the way, he not riding a horse, but a mule.

One of the most famous escapes in this country, took place when several prisoners decided to escape from Alcatraz. Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay, was also known as the Rock. Only the most violent prisoners were sent there. It was thought that the currents surrounding the island that the prison was on, made escape impossible. It even had microphones hidden in the structure for detecting digging. In 1962, Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers decided that they could break out of this escape proof prison. Somehow they were able to chip away at the concrete surrounding the grates that covered the air shafts in their cells. Using homemade tools they were able to get not only through the concrete without detection, but also through steel bars. They were able to sneak through the ventilation system of the prison and use rafts that they had made out of old raincoats. Some say they died that day in the waters of San Francisco Bay, but no trace of them was ever found. It is just as possible that their escape was successful.

I guess we would have to say that there has been nothing built yet. or no situation, that proved to be completely escape proof. It seems that all situations, when looked over carefully, may contain a glimmer of hope of getting away. I am not talking about individual events in a situation, because there may be times when no one could get away under certain circumstances, but in longer term situations, the odds seem to get better for the prisoner.