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Survivors great escape Stalag Luft 3

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Maria030 (U14796854) on Friday, 25th February 2011

  
  As far as I know there are still three survivors of the great escape alive. (Who actually made it out of the tunnel)
  
  Les(lie Brodrick who lives in South Africa
  
  Paul Royle who lives in Australia
  
  Richard (Dick) Churchill who lives in the UK
  
  Is there anyone who knows whether these men are still alive?

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by LairigGhru (U14051689) on Saturday, 26th February 2011

  I rather think that Paul Royle may have been the one who appeared on Kate Humble's episode of 'Who Do You Think You Are? a year or two ago. He was showing her a spot where he and Kate's grandfather had spent a night when the Stalag Luft III survivors were being force-marched westwards as the Russian Army rolled towards Germany. They arrived at a big barn close to the German/Polish border and everyone was in very poor physical shape. Mercifully the next leg of their journey was by train (cattle trucks, of course). They ended up in Lubeck because they were force-marched north-east on the final leg to avoid the advance of the British Army. Shortly after that it was repatriation time, which of course was achieved by fleets of Lancaster bombers. Such a nice chap - it was a pleasure to see this programme.
  
  You are bound to be interested to know that Kate showed an expert her grandfather's diary as she was being shown over the remnants of Stalag Luft III, and when he saw a list of cheques he had written at the back of the book he excitedly announced that this was a discovery. It was money for the families of the fifty who were shot on Hitler's orders after the Great Escape - the proceeds of any sales of their belongings. Clearly Kate's grandfather (her mother's father) had been the one who wrote and sent the cheques.
  
  Her paternal grandfather was Bill Humble, the test pilot who flew many of Hawker's planes on their first flights. He is especially famous for the Hurricane, the Typhoon and the Tempest.

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by LairigGhru (U14051689) on Saturday, 26th February 2011

  No, I was wrong. The man who helped Kate Humble was called Frank Stone.

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• Message 4

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by Maria030 (U14796854) on Sunday, 27th February 2011

  Thank you, I'll have a look at the Kate Humble episode anyway.

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• Message 5

  , in reply to message 4.

  Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 2nd March 2011

  Maria30
  
  This may not help -- but the first of the current Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ TV series [Mondays 9 pm]about teenagers and the elderly featured a number of very poorly old people in a residential home whom the teenage volunteers learned to treat with rather more respect when they were told that one centenarian lady had been a world famous pianist, a stroke-victim man who could merely now blink his eyes and squeeze with his fingers had built the world's first computer, and one rather irrascible old gentleman had been a great war hero, famous for his ability to forge documents and was the actual person whose role had been played in one of the war films about great escapes from German detention.
  
  The film seems to have been shot last year since in this week's episode the teenage volunteers took a number of the more independent "inmates" of the home away for a week's summer holiday.
  
  It might be worth seeing that first episode if it is on iplayer. It gives the name of the residential home and the man. If you can fast-track it,- the key scene is one in which the young man, who has just decided that he can not get on with this old-man, having just tried to spoonfeed him his lunch, is shown a picture of the dapper young pilot that he used to be and told his wartime story.
  
  Cass
  
  

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