Wing Commander Tim Thomas, Last survivor of Great Escape camp dies at 87

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1078662/Last-survivor-Great-Escape-camp-dies-87.html

Last survivor of Great Escape camp dies at 87


By Matthew Hickley
Last updated at 10:51 PM on 17th October 2008


Hero: Tim Thomas as a young
officer with three of his brothers


The last known survivor of the German prisoner-of-war camp which inspired the film The Great Escape has died aged 87. Wing Commander Tim Thomas, who was awarded an OBE and the Air Force Cross, had suffered a long illness at his home in Portugal.

He was among hundreds of servicemen who spent 14 months digging three tunnels - Tom, Dick and Harry - under the fence at the high-security Stalag Luft III camp. The PoWs' escape in 1943 inspired the classic film two decades later starring Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough and Charles Bronson. Although 76 escaped using Harry, only three made it to freedom from the German Air Force camp in Zagan, Poland. Another 50 were executed.

Mr Thomas was captured as he scrambled for the exit but persuaded guards to spare his life. He left the camp when it was liberated in 1945 and stayed in the RAF until 1967 before becoming a management consultant living in Croscombe, Somerset.

In 1985, he moved to the Algarve with his wife Sybille. His nephew Adam Thomas, a presenter-with BBC Somerset, said Mr Thomas, who had no children, 'was a real gentleman who has done his family proud'.

He added: 'By some accounts, we believe he tried to go through the tunnel and was found when he was halfway through.

'He had been involved with making the tunnel. But it was probably fortunate he didn't make it through the other side when you consider that 50 were shot.'

Directors used Mr Thomas's account of the war in the 1960s film The Battle of Britain when he was cast as a pilot in the Luftwaffe and flew a Messerschmitt.