A prisoner lives to tell

PORT TOWNSEND – It’s a love letter and a hero’s journey: “Stalag Luft III: One Man’s Story”, the upcoming Port Townsend Pic Film Festival.

Starting Monday, the film will air online for a full week, with tickets for $ 10 via PTFilmfest.com. A documentary that combines animation, archival footage and intimate interviews, the film tells the story of an eighth US Air Force bomber shot down and captured by the Nazis.

Charles Woehrle lived to talk about it. He was somehow able to talk, in detail, about what so many WWII veterans couldn’t: two years as a prisoner of war. And Woehrle, who died in 2015 at the age of 98, has lived a busy life after returning to Minnesota, ultimately inspiring his niece, Louise Woehrle.

As director of “Stalag Luft III”, she is his co-storyteller. The youngest Woehrle has presented her documentary at festivals across the country, winning awards including the Audience Award in Port Townsend. “Stalag Luft III” screened during the 2019 festival, eliciting applause and tears in the theater.

She is now looking for the distribution of her film on a platform such as PBS or Netflix.

Lieutenant Charles Woehrle, who spent two years in a prison camp during World War II, tells his story of survival – and prosperity – in “Stalag Luft III: One Man’s Story”. (photo courtesy of Whirlygig Productions)

PTFF Pics, a year-round online program that started last month, airs selected films with an interview with the director, so this time the festival’s general manager, Janette Force, interviews the boiling Woehrle.

The 25-minute conversation is a companion to the film, revealing the director’s process, unexpected events and all.

Woehrle is still in awe of what happened when she decided to piece together the day her uncle’s B-17 bomber was shot down from the sky.

To film the scene, Woehrle first had to find a real B-17. In early 2013, she learned that one of the warbirds would be taking history buffs on short flights from Anoka, Minnesota Airport, not too far from her studio in Minneapolis.

After asking permission to use the plane for five months, she was not only given the green light, but also got the usual $ 1,500 fee waived after her guards heard part of the story from his uncle.

Woehrle’s cast and crew only had four and a half hours to complete the footage: Lieutenant Charles Woehrle is on a bombing mission when his B-17 is hit by enemy fire. The survivors jump, Woehrle parachuting last.

Woehrle salutes his cameramen, Bill Carlson and Chip Johnson, for their handiwork in making the scene a scene that takes the viewer’s breath away – while the plane remains safely on the tarmac.

She had invited her nonagenarian uncle out at the airport to see the scenery. Don’t feel the pressure, she told him, but “everyone would love to meet you,” the guy who went through what he just recreated.

“He happened to go out at this golden hour of the day, just as we were about to finish,” so the filmmakers filmed him approaching the plane. She waited, giving him time to take it.

So Woehrle asked, “What do you see, when you look at this B-17?”

What he said “was just magic,” she recalls. It became the opening scene for “Stalag Luft III”.

In his post-war life, Charles Woehrle founded Empire Photosound, a film company, then went to work for 3M. He was also a musician, playing the piano alongside his niece, who played the flute.

Woehrle remembers his uncle as a very gentle man; she also observed what happened when he started talking about his wartime ordeals.

“Right outside he was talking… and people were starting to congregate,” Woehrle recalls.

“He had this incredible photographic memory… and he knew, when he was in the prison camp, that it was historical, it was important. That’s why he took good notes and used his camera to document it.

Photos of Charles, taken with a Voigtlander camera, were then used in the Nuremberg trials, Woehrle added.

Force, for his part, said that this film, triggered by a man’s experience 77 years ago, corresponds to the present moment.

“At a time when the world is looking for inspiration,” she said, “Uncle Charles is the perfect role model.”

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Jefferson County Senior Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or [email protected]