by PAUL HUARD

On March 24, 1944, 76 Allied prisoners of war crawled out of a tunnel during a moonless night and headed through the snow-covered woods of Poland.

They were fleeing the German prison camp Stalag Luft III. What happened next confounded Nazi Germany’s security forces for weeks, infuriated Hitler and led to the murder of 50 of the escapees by the Gestapo.

It’s known as “The Great Escape,” and it was World War II’s most daring and ingenious effort by Allied POWs to flee their German captors. A best-selling book and a popular Hollywood movie chronicled their flight.

But more than 70 years later, what many forget is that despite months of dangerous and backbreaking work, only three men made it all the way to freedom.

Stalag Luft III was about 100 miles southeast of Berlin near the town of Zagan, in what is now present-day Poland. The prison was huge. Divided into five compounds, the 60-acre POW camp eventually held more than 10,000 prisoners.

Opened in 1942, it was a high-security camp where the Germans intended to put all their rotten apples in one basket. The Nazis often shipped troublemakers, repeat escapees and malcontents there. And from the beginning, Berlin planned Stalag Luft III to hold Allied airmen.

Forest surrounded the camp for miles, isolating it from roads and railroad lines.

The camp’s designers picked the area because the underlying soil would help thwart tunneling, and they elevated the numerous POW barracks off the ground to make it more difficult for prisoners to clandestinely dig their way out.

Watch towers —which the POWs nicknamed “goon towers” — surrounded Stalag Luft III. So did a “death zone” stretching along the inside perimeter of the camp’s barbed wire fence. Cross the death zone, and guards would shoot you on the spot.

Still, many of the prisoners made escape plans. One of them wanted an escape so big, it would damage the German war effort.