Heritage Events Archive

'The Great Escaper. Flight Lt. Mike Casey and the Rathangan connection'
A talk by James Durney, historian with Kildare Arts and Library Service.

On Wednesday February 20th. 2019 at 8pm in The Old Schoolhouse, Leinster Street, Rathangan - Rathangan Local History Group host 'The Great Escaper - Flight Lt. Mike Casey and the Rathangan connection.' 

A talk by James Durney, historian with Kildare Arts and Library Service.

The Great Escape is an iconic film which portrays a fictionalised account of real events i.e. the escape of 76 POWs from a German POW Camp run by the Luftwaffe - Stalag Luft III. Looking behind the filmed account of events, James will tell the story of Mike Casey a man with Rathangan connections.

Amongst the escapees was Flight Lieut. Michael Casey (O.C. 1927-’30) who had been taken prisoner in 1939. Mike Casey and his crew were flying a Blenheim 1 (L1141) on a reconnaissance of the main road between Wesel and Bocholt, in Germany, when they were spotted by a Luftwaffe fighter plane. 

According to the German pilot, the Blenheim led him in and out of cloudbanks before taking him on a mad pursuit across the countryside around Emden. 

Casey, described as a 'good, adroit and skillful airman' used every dip in the ground, every hedge and every tree as cover, in what his German pursuer called 'an aerial steeplechase'. 

The Blenheim skimmed over rooftops, sometimes barely six foot off the ground, until finally the fighter’s gunfire found its vitals. With no time to lower the undercarriage Mike landed the Blenheim in an open field. The crew bailed out with moments to spare as the Blenheim burst into flames. They gave a hearty wave to the German pilot circling overhead. German troops arrived rapidly and the aircrew were taken off to the first of several prisoner-of-war camps. Mike Casey was to spend five years as a POW before he escaped from Stalag Luft III.

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