Everyone who's seen the Frank Darabont movie, The Shawshank Redemption, finds himself rooting for the hero Andy Dufresne. Many people still think that the film is based on real life events, when in fact it was a short story written by Stephen King. Of course, being a fictional event means that it can never compete with the strangeness of real-life. Throughout history there have been many famous and daring escapes.  Let's have a look at some of these real-life stories that would certainly give the Shawshank Redemption a good run for its money.

Colditz

Colditz was one of the most famous prisons in use during the Second World War. And though there were a huge number of efforts to escape it's walls, in truth only 15 escapees managed to completely evade later capture. One of the most famous of all escapes was by Airey Neave. He actually marched out of the prison just in a German uniform. Then there was the story of Jack Best and Bill Goldfinch. Over a number of months they collected metal and steel with the idea to build a glider. They made some quite significant progress but never got to fly out, as the Colditz prisoners were rescued by Allied soldiers before they had time to complete the aircraft.

The Great Escape

Though this is another famous Second World War escape,  you can probably thank Steve McQueen for putting the Great Escape on the map. A British soldier called Roger Bushell organised the building of 3 tunnels. In January 1943, these deep tunnels called “Tom”, “Dick” and “Harry” were dug over a period of 5 months. Harry with the first tunnel to be completed. The entrances to all three tunnels were chosen very carefully so they wouldn't be found by the prison guards.  Unfortunately it turned out that the tunnels were too short. And though around 70 prisoners did manage to escape, virtually all of them were later caught.

Alcatraz

Sitting in San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz island is probably the most famous US prison. Although now closed, it was considered  for many years to be one of America's most secure prisons. During its 29 years operating as a federal prison, it's claimed that no one was able to successfully escape. The reason being that even if you managed to break out of the prison itself, you then had a very cold swim ahead of you. In 1962, Frank Morris and the Anglin Brothers were able to escape from the prison itself via a tiny air event. But it's thought that they drowned while swimming to shore. Although the prison would claim that it was impossible to swim to the shore, that wasn't true. In the same year, a prisoner called John Paul Scott made his escape and was able to swim to shore. Unfortunately, when he landed, he was so exhausted and suffering from severe hypothermia that he fell unconscious and was later found by police.

Pascal Payet

When it comes to using helicopters to escape from prisons, Pascal Payet holds the world record. In 2001 he made his first escape from the prison in Luynes in France on board a hijacked helicopter. Two years later he was to organise his own helicopter in order to help his friends escape from the same prison. Then in 2005, Pascal Payet was finally arrested and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Thanks to his previous escapes, he was one of the most closely guarded prisoners in the whole of France. Nevertheless, on Bastille Day, four of his friends hijacked a helicopter from Cannes airport and rescued him from a prison in Grasse. Once again he was quickly apprehended. Though finally released from prison in 2019, his freedom didn't last long, as he was soon arrested for extortion and now remains in prison once again.

The Maze Breakout

The Maze prison is situated in County Antrim in Northern Ireland. It was a maximum security prison and was considered one of the most escape-proof in the whole world. Nevertheless, in 1983, the UK's biggest prison escape would take place. A total of 38 Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoners escaped from H-Block 7. Utilising smuggled weapons, as well as replica prison officer uniforms, the prisoners took over the Guard House of a prison and forced a lorry driver delivering supplies to crash the gate. Of the escapees, 15 were caught on the same day. Over the following years, virtually all the others have been either arrested or killed. Some even ended up starting new lives with new families in the United States. Of the 38 escapees, two of them, Gerard Fryers and Séamus Campbell, have never been traced.

The Midnight Express

In 1970, a US student called Billy Hayes was caught smuggling 2 kilos of hashish at Istanbul Airport. As a result he received a four-year prison sentence, though the sentence was later increased to that of life imprisonment for smuggling as opposed to possession. This sentence was later commuted down to 30 years, though behind-the-scenes the Turkish government informed the Americans that he would probably be released within 3 years and banned from Turkey. Nevertheless, before this could happen, Hayes managed to escape using a stolen rowing boat. He dyed his hair to blend in with the locals after arriving in Istanbul. Later he was able to cross the border into Greece from where he was deported back to America. Once there, he wrote the book “The Midnight Express.” You've probably seen the movie directed by Alan Parker and written by Oliver Stone. Unfortunately Haye’s book has, in typical Oliver Stone fashion, introduced many fictional elements. Such as showing that Hayes escaped after killing a prison guard. In real life this never happened. Nor were conditions as dire as depicted on celluloid. To that end, Hayes has spent much of his life debunking the film, as he felt that it has caused considerable harm to the country of Turkey and the Turkish people as a whole.