It sounds like a classic war-time escape drama - 67 prisoners making a bold bid for freedom by tunnelling under the barbed wire!

This time though the men involved were not Britons breaking out of a stalag but German prisoners of war cooped up in a Welsh camp - Island Farm, Bridgend.

These captives made history by pulling off the biggest mass escape from any UK camp in World War Two.

They crawled through that 60ft tunnel on a moonless night in March 1945, at a time when the Allies had still to make the final dash for Berlin that finished off Hitler. The breakout set alarm bells ringing far from Wales.

With the war still raging, there was no knowing what these young warriors might attempt.

There were fears that they might sabotage coal mines, steelworks and docks - for South Wales was then a powerhouse of the war effort.

In the event, all were captured within a week. But in that time, some amazing things happened.

Four men actually reached the fringe of Birmingham airport, where they planned to steal a plane and fly back to Germany. They had cheekily forged false papers in the camp, made rough-and-ready ignition keys out of nails and broken into a car parked nearby.

When the engine failed to fire, they had the audacity to persuade some guards rolling back to the camp after a night on the beer to help them push-start it. "We are Norwegian engineers," they explained, to account for their foreign accents.

On Margam Mountain, an arrogant young Nazi told his captors he would soon be back - as a regional governor of Wales when Hitler won the war!

And in Porthcawl, a Canadian soldier reported that two escapers had shot his wife. It was a big lie, for it was he who had fired the shot that killed Lily Griffiths - they were never married - and he was hanged for murder.

All these true stories - and many more - are in my book Come Out, Wherever You Are, the only full account of a real-life adventure which has been called the most forgotten story of World War Two.

I have been fascinated by it ever since visiting the camp at a time when the huts that once housed 1,600 captives were still standing. Rotting away inside were remarkable wall paintings - the work of the prisoners themselves.

Some depicted landscapes, others were of their home towns. There were quite a few pin-ups too, as you would expect!

I pleaded with the Imperial War Museum in London to rescue them before they faded away entirely, but got nowhere. Since then some have been stored away by Bridgend County Council - and photographs of them appear in my book.

There are also pictures of maps ingeniously drawn on handkerchiefs by the escapers - copied from railway maps left carelessly displayed in the trains taking them to Bridgend.

All that physically remains of Island Farm Camp today is the concrete block where the tunnel began - Hut 9, now a listed building. At one time there were plans to keep some of the nearby huts as well and create a tourism-cum-educational centre. Unhappily, these came to nothing.

Something could still be made of the escape hut, but I fear that a great opportunity has been missed. If the Great Escape had happened near London, would it now be the most forgotten story of the war? I wonder.

© Herbert Williams - 2004
Come Out, Wherever You Are
is published by Gomer Press