Policeman joins the Great Escape Pt II in charity ride
A team of 12 British bikers are riding 3,500 miles to the scene of the Great Escape during the Second World War to raise £10,000 for the Royal British Legion and Help For Heroes military charities.
They will set off on Saturday from RAF Biggin Hill in Kent for France, Belgium, Germany and Poland, on Triumph Bonneville motorbikes similar to the one ridden by Steve McQueen in 1963 film The Great Escape, based on the 1943-44 Allied
prisoner-of-war plot.
They will take in Stalag Luft III, the Nazi camp near Zagan in Poland, where three escape tunnels were dug by more than 600 PoWs, plus the former Gestapo HQ in Berlin, and Hitler's "Eagle's Nest" where the order for the execution of 50 of the 73 recaptured escapees was signed. The team have also had a replica of McQueen's bike made, with the number plate WW11POW, which they intend to sell after the 20-day trip.
Met Police officer Peter Spowage, 54, from Rochester, whose father was a wartime pilot, came up with the idea, aiming to help soldiers today and honour those from the past - even losing more than 4st on a 500-calorie-a-day diet to experience what the Allied prisoners endured.
Mr Spowage, whose son David, a Sheerness dock worker, is also taking part, said of the team: "These are people thrown together. I know everyone personally but they don't know each other and we've got to make it work. I'm very excited, it's a journey of a lifetime."
