The One That Got Away (film) - Plot

Plot

Luftwaffe fighter pilot Franz von Werra (Hardy Krüger) is shot down during the Battle of Britain, and captured. He bets the RAF interrogator at the POW reception centre that he will escape and return to Germany within six months. He is initially sent to a prisoner of war (POW) camp in Furness, Cumbria (but then part of Lancashire).

His first escape sees him recaptured after five or six days while hiding in a muddy hole on a moor, and von Werra is sent to a more secure POW camp (based on the Hayes Conference Centre) near Swanwick, . He and four others escape through a tunnel. The others pair up, but von Werra goes it alone. Reaching Codnor Park railway station, he impersonates a Netherlands pilot whose Wellington bomber has crashed while on a secret mission. He telephones the nearest airfield, and cons the duty officer into sending a car. When his story starts to fray, von Werra sneaks away and tries to steal an experimental Hawker Hurricane, only to be caught at the last moment.

He and many other POWs are sent by ship to Canada. On the train ride across the country, von Werra escapes near by opening and jumping from a window while the guards are distracted. He makes his way south, and crossing the nearly frozen St Lawrence River using a stolen rowboat, reaches Ogdensburg, New York in the United States, which at that time was still neutral, and claims asylum. The RAF interrogator receives a postcard from von Werra posted from New York featuring a Statue of Liberty photograph, informing him that he has lost his bet.

After Von Werra reached Germany, he was lost while on a patrol over the sea, probably due to engine failure, but there were no witnesses.