Flight Lieutenant Paul Gordon Royle (17 January 1914 – 23 August 2015) was an Australian

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

pilotPaul Royle at elsham
. Retrieved 26 August 2014 who was one of the last two survivors of the 76 men who were able to escape from the

Stalag Luft III Stalag Luft III (; literally "Main Camp, Air, III"; SL III) was a ''Luftwaffe''-run prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during the Second World War, which held captured Western Allied air force personnel. The camp was established in March 1942 near th ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured as Prisoner of war, prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, inte ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

in what became known as '' The Great Escape''.Paul Royle profile
War History Online, 29 March 2014; retrieved 29 August 2014.

Early life

Royle was born in

Perth, Western Australia Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

and he attended

Hale School Hale School is an independent, Anglican day and boarding school for boys, located in Wembley Downs, a western suburb of Perth, Western Australia. Named after the school founded by Bishop Mathew Blagden Hale in 1858, Hale School claims to ...

and then worked in mining in

Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie-Boulder (or just Kalgoorlie) is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder as the surroundi ...

. A Royal Air Force recruiting team visited Australia and he was selected for a short term commission and pilot training. He flew solo in a

de Havilland Tiger Moth The de Havilland DH.82 Tiger Moth is a 1930s British biplane designed by Geoffrey de Havilland and built by the de Havilland, de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and other operators as a primary traine ...

and then learnt to fly the

Avro Anson The Avro Anson is a British twin-engine, multi-role aircraft built by the aircraft manufacturer Avro. Large numbers of the type served in a variety of roles for the Royal Air Force (RAF), Fleet Air Arm (FAA), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), R ...

twin engine trainer and the

Bristol Blenheim The Bristol Blenheim is a British light bomber designed and built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company, which was used extensively in the first two years of the Second World War, with examples still being used as trainers until the end of the war. ...

aircraft at No.2 School of Army Cooperation at

Andover, Hampshire Andover ( ) is a town in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England. The town is on the River Anton, a major tributary of the River Test, Test, and lies alongside the major A303 road, A303 trunk road at the eastern end of Salisbury Plain, ...

. He was then posted to

No. 53 Squadron RAF No. 53 Squadron was a Royal Air Force Squadron (aviation), squadron that saw service in both the First World War, First and Second World Wars. History No. 53 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps was formed at RAF Catterick, Catterick on 15 May ...

in Northern

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Paul Royle at the Imperial War Museum
Retrieved 26 August 2014 as a

pilot officer Pilot officer (Plt Off or P/O) is a junior officer rank used by some air forces, with origins from the Royal Air Force. The rank is used by air forces of many countries that have historical British influence. Pilot officer is the lowest ran ...

Captivity

On 17 May 1940, his aircraft crash landed after being attacked by

Messerschmitt Bf 109 The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is a monoplane fighter aircraft that was designed and initially produced by the Nazi Germany, German aircraft manufacturer Messerschmitt#History, Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (BFW). Together with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the ...

fighters whilst on a reconnaissance mission and he was taken prisoner by advancing German troops. After a year in

Stalag Luft I Stalag Luft I was a German World War II prisoner-of-war (POW) camp near Barth, Western Pomerania, Germany, for captured Allied airmen. The presence of the prison camp is said to have shielded the town of Barth from Allied bombing. About 9,000 ...

he was transferred to

Sagan, Germany (now

Żagań Żagań (French language, French and , ) is a town in western Poland, on the Bóbr river, with 25,731 inhabitants (2019), capital of Żagań County in the Lubusz Voivodeship, located in the historic region of Lower Silesia. Founded in the 12th ce ...

, Poland) where he was one of the prisoners nicknamed "the penguins" who helped to dispose of sand from tunneling in their trousers and he started a tunnel under block 68.

The ''Great Escape''

On the night of 24 March 1944, he was number 57 in the queue of war prisoners waiting to escape and teamed up with Flight Lieutenant Edgar Humphreys who was the next in line. After being pulled through the narrow tunnel on a trolley and climbing the exit ladder, Royle and Humphreys ran for the cover of pine trees and then set off in the direction of

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. POW Escape inspired Hollywood at ''The West Australian'' 28 January 2012
Retrieved 26 August 2014 They evaded capture for two nights and crossed the

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

to Breslau

autobahn The (; German , ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track'. Much of t ...

before they were arrested by home guard upon entering a village. The two men were interrogated by the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

Görlitz Görlitz (; ; ; ; ; Lusatian dialects, East Lusatian: , , ) is a town in the Germany, German state of Saxony. It is on the river Lusatian Neisse and is the largest town in Upper Lusatia, the second-largest town in the region of Lusatia after ...

, Royle was then returned to solitary confinement in Stalag Luft III but Humphreys was one of the 50 escapers who were victims of the

Stalag Luft III murders The Stalag Luft III murders were war crimes perpetrated by members of the Gestapo following the " Great Escape" of Allied prisoners of war from the German Air Force prison camp known as Stalag Luft III on March 25, 1944. Of the 76 successful escape ...

, having been selected for execution by SS-''

Gruppenführer __NOTOC__ ''Gruppenführer'' (, ) was an early paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), first created in 1925 as a senior rank of the SA. Since then, the term ''Gruppenführer'' is also used for leaders of groups/teams of the police, fire d ...

Arthur Nebe Arthur Nebe (; 13 November 1894 – 21 March 1945) was a German SS functionary who held key positions in the security and police apparatus of Nazi Germany and was, from 1941, a major perpetrator of the Holocaust. Nebe rose through the ranks ...

on the orders of

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

Later life

In January 1945 with Soviet forces only 16 miles away the camp was evacuated and the prisoners including Royle were marched west to

Marlag und Milag Nord Marlag und Milag Nord was a Second World War German prisoner-of-war camp complex for men of the British and Canadian Merchant Navy and Royal Navy. It was located around the village of Westertimke, about north-east of Bremen, though in some sour ...

prisoner-of-war camp. He was finally liberated by British troops on 2 May 1945 and was flown to Britain where he was discharged from the RAF. He then attended the

Royal School of Mines The Royal School of Mines comprises the departments of Earth Science and Engineering, and Materials at Imperial College London. The Centre for Advanced Structural Ceramics and parts of the London Centre for Nanotechnology and Department of Bioe ...

and worked in the mining and engineering industries upon his return to Australia. He married twice and celebrated his 100th birthday in January 2014.''Britain at War'' Magazine interview. Key Publishing ISSN 1753-3090. August 2014 Royle died, aged 101, on 23 August 2015, leaving Dick Churchill as the only remaining survivor of the 1944 escape from Stalag Luft III. Churchill himself died four years later.

References

External links