What is it about a tunnel that excites us so? Last week’s story about the secret one in a New York synagogue fascinated the world, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that no one knew why the thing had been built in the first place. Police attempted to close it, and indeed fill it with cement, leading to fights with a group of young men trying to defend the tunnel, which went under the street and led to at least one other nearby building.
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David Butterfield
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Maybe it’s the word ‘secret’. Of course that explains our interest in Tom, Dick and Harry, the three tunnels dug during the Great Escape. Roger Bushell, who masterminded the exit from Stalag Luft III to ‘make life hell for the Hun’, insisted everyone use the code names for security’s sake, threatening to court-martial anyone who even said the word ‘tunnel’.
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