Taken from
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/7364216/last-great-escape-survivor-dies-at-97/"A veteran thought to be the last survivor of the prisoner-of-war breakout immortalised in the film
The Great Escape has died, it has emerged.
Jack Harrison, one of scores of Allied servicemen who tried to flee Stalag Luft III during the Second World War, passed away aged 97, his care home said on Tuesday.
The former RAF pilot was waiting to go down the tunnel when the underground escape attempt was noticed, and he frantically burned his forged documentation before changing back into a PoW uniform.
A total of 76 prisoners broke out of the camp in March 1944, but only three reached safety. Fifty of those recaptured were shot.
The episode was featured in the blockbusting 1963 film, which starred the likes of Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Garner and Richard Attenborough.
Mr Harrison had been working as a Latin and classical teacher at Dornach Academy in Sutherland when he was called up to serve in the RAF as a pilot.
He was shot down on his first mission in November 1942, to bomb German supply ships at the Dutch port of Den Helder.
After being captured by German forces, he was eventually transferred to Stalag Luft III on the Polish border.
On the night of March 24, 1944, around 200 prisoners prepared to escape through a tunnel code-named Harry about 10 metres under the ground. Two other passages, called Tom and Dick, had already been discovered by the camp guards.
Mr Harrison was number 98 on the escape list, but the breakout was noticed as the 77th PoW was making his bid for freedom.
The veteran pilot spent his last years at Erskine veterans' home in Bishopton, Renfrewshire, and died on Friday last week.
A joint statement from Mr Harrison's son and daughter, Chris and Jane, said: "To others he was considered a war hero, but to us he was much more than that.
"He was a family man first and foremost as well as a church elder, Rotarian, scholar, traveller and athlete.
"He took up marathon running in his 70s to raise money for charity. He was a caring father and grandfather and he will be missed by the whole family.
One of Mr Harrison's co-Great Escape comrades, Alex Lees, died last year also aged 97 after being cared for by Erskine."
