THE other day contestants in a radio comedy panel game were asked to name their favourite Bank Holiday films. Inevitably, The Great Escape was one.

To most, the sight of Richard Attenburgh, Donald Pleasance and Charles Bronson getting away under the nose of the Germans and Steve McQueen performing daredevil leaps on a captured motorbike are, well, pure escapism.

But to men like former RAF man Donald Wilson real life in Stalag Luft III was somewhat harsher than any '60s Hollywood movie would show.
Donald, now 92, spent almost five years in the camp after being shot down during a bombing mission over Germany. He enjoys the movie with the rest, but recognises its inevitable flaws.

"A lot of it was fantasy. Roger Bushell (the escape leader, played by Richard Attenborough) was a big South African and a lawyer. To be interrogated by him was dreadful. He had blue eyes and would frighten you to death. He was well portrayed in the film.

"One or two were recognisable but it's a bit difficult when you know the real ones. Substitutes never really come up."

With the war just a couple of days old, the air observer and his RAF Dishforth-based Whitley crew received their first mission, and it would take them into the heart of the Third Reich.

They were ordered to fly over Germany and drop hundreds of propaganda leaflets - bumf, or toilet paper, Donald called it - aimed at persuading the Nazis to withdraw from Poland.

"It was a stupid idea; it was a waste of men and material," he says from his home near Pateley Bridge.

"The morale in Germany was so high, having invaded Poland and taken it over just like that.

"We had no idea what sort of reception we would get once we crossed to Germany. With hindsight I know what (our commanders) did and I don't resent it. They chose the least trained personnel and sent us on the first trip. On my crew there were no officers."

Donald had been married to Vera for just two days. The so-called Phony War followed, the period leading to the Nazi invasion of France and the British retreat home via Dunkirk. But it was far from quiet for Donald, who flew over blacked-out enemy territory, navigating home via the lights of still-neutral Holland.

"The Dutch were very good," he said. "I was never fired on. Some were but I never had any trouble."

Donald's war began in earnest when Germany swept into Norway and Denmark. The crew was involved in hunting and attacking the invasion fleet.

But a mission bombing oil refineries near Hanover would see their luck run out.

They set back for Dishforth, with Donald in the nose of the aircraft when the second pilot told him to return to return to his position.

"Just then a bit of shrapnel hit the pipe between the fourth Merlin engine and the gun turret. They were all operated by oil pressure and the bit of shrapnel hit this and sprayed down just as the second pilot came down to take my place.

"He put his hand up saying, I'm hit, I'm hit. I grabbed him by the shoulders, took the silk lining of my gloves and wiped his face. I said, you silly so-and-so, it's not blood, it's oil. You're covered in oil!"

Donald returned to his table, turning to his maps and log-book when the heaviest onslaught struck.

"One actually came through and burst in the cabin and blew me out of my seat up against the fuselage. It knocked me out and when I came to the cabin was filled with smoke.

"All I could see was a white-faced figure looking from behind a stack of ruined radio sets torn to bits by shrapnel. He said, are you okay, Jock? I said yes and that was nearly the end."

Speaking urgently through the intercom, the pilot said control wires had been hit, he was struggling to hold the aircraft steady and they should grab their parachutes.

"Then eventually he said, I can't do this any more, get out. I got to the trapdoor and stood back to let the second pilot out. He said, no, no - you go. The skipper had gone straight through the trapdoor, so I thought, if he's gone I'm going too!"

Donald bailed at 8,000 feet, still under fire. Terrified, all thoughts of parachute training were lost and he landed badly, damaging his knee. Miraculously, all five crew survived – including the tail gunner, who jumped later after an accidentally disconnected intercom denied him the order to bail out.

Donald was quickly surrounded by German troops and taken to a Dulag, a virtual jail, near Frankfurt-am-Main where he was interrogated about his squadron and target.

"580878 Wilson, sergeant, and that's all I gave them," he said.
"They kept me there day after day. Fortunately a Swiss Red Cross doctor came by and spoke to the Germans. He wanted to know how I was being treated."

Donald told him he was being denied the right to have his wife informed of his capture, so the doctor arranged to have his photograph taken and sent to Mrs Wilson. A grateful Donald later learned that by the time it arrived she was receiving letters of condolence for her husband's death.

By June 1940 Donald was in Stalag XII/A at Limberg, near Dresden. The German invasion of France was underway and he was sharing the camp with around 6,000 prisoners, including French, French colonial troops, Dutch, Belgians and Polish. Sanitation was poor, which quickly led to the inmates becoming lousy and cases of typhus.

"So, the Germans cut the hair from all parts of our bodies and put paste in where hair was. It was agonising. They took our uniforms and treated them with poison gas.

"It was the funniest sight you'd see - all your friends going in with hair and coming out with absolutely none!"

By April 1942 and having been captive in several locations, Donald was transported to the camp which would inspire the film: Stalag Luft III at Sagan, now in Poland.

"It was completely new, we opened it," said Donald.

"There were no other prisoners there and it was hardly finished. There was no sanitation."

He recalled that to make up for lack of toilet facilities the Germans had dug large trenches which they went to use the morning after their late-night arrival.

"We were confronted by the this huge trench with a single tree across. We all did our business and heard cackles of laughter. We turned round to see a gaggle of German women by the barbed wire laughing their heads off to see a load of bare British bottoms."

Camp life, shared eventually with 10,000 other generally well-educated airmen, became a round of exercise, self-initiated lectures and frustrating attempts at gardening the sandy soil to supplement a protein-weak, virtually vegetarian diet. The Red Cross parcels were considered a godsend.

Planning escape, either one's own or others', was a constant.

"At the reception centre a senior officer, a Wing Commander Day, had said to everyone, you are a prisoner of war but it's not the end of the war for you. It's your duty to cause as much trouble as you can so the more guards they have to keep bringing from the Eastern Front.

"We wouldn't speak German so they had to supply loads of interpretors. I think our camp had more guards than any in Germany because of that policy."

Sagan saw numerous individual and smaller scale escape attempts, but by 1944 it was clear that the most audacious bid yet would be taking place.
Three tunnels named Tom, Dick and Harry were being dug and plans laid to get scores of prisoners under the wire.

"We knew. You couldn't not know," said Donald.

"They kept it secret as they could, but when you see a load of air force guys walking around the perimeter of the camp dropping sand out of their trousers legs you knew something was going on."

The best German speakers were chosen for the escape, with the rest picked through a lottery. Donald was not among them, but his efforts gave the forgers valuable access to one of the ever-changing German identity documents necessary for smooth passage beyond camp.

"It did help that a German sergeant who had custody of the cook house was a First World War man and very amenable.

"The way to get things out of the Germans was to blackmail them. We'd give them cigarettes. That's what happened to this chap. Emil Glaiser was his name. We said to him, we need a camera. He said, streng verboten – strictly forbidden. So we said if you don't get us a camera we'll report you to the Gestapo – you smoke English cigarettes, you drink English coffee, which is streng verboten."

Glaiser got the camera and even supplied films. Donald's was then tasked to acquire German identity documents to be photographed with the camera. Glaiser was again the target.

"Me and another guy, Charlie Saunter who came from Jersey, did it. It was dead easy. We watched Glaiser and what he did. He always had his pocket book in his breast pocket and he'd come into the camp, show his pass and stick it back. Then he'd take his jacket off and put it over the back of the chair.

"I was entertaining Glaiser at his desk with Charlie behind and showed him pictures my wife had sent from home of my baby. I chatted him up no end.

"Charlie took his pocket book and took it to Big X, Roger Bushell, it was photographed and taken back. It was then Donald's turn to return the pocket book without being detected.

"It was dead easy," he recalled.

Tunnel Harry was ready in March 1944 and a moonless night, the 24th, chosen for the break-out. Donald recalled the dramatic evening 76 men escaped from Sagan.

"We were lying in bed and suddenly there were shouts and shots fired and we knew the tunnel had been discovered.

"Suddenly our windows flew open, two shady figures came diving through and there was a guy I still keep in contact with, Neville Carson. He said, sorry lads, I'm in a hell of a hurry. He had to dash to get back to his hut and into his night clothes before the guards came."

The bewildered Germans immediately paraded the prisoners to discover how many had escaped, but it was made an impossible task.

Later they were paraded again and addressed by a German officer, Captain Pieber.

"He said, gentlemen I've bad news, I'm sorry to inform you that 47 of your comrades have died attempting to escape.

"Group Captain Massey (the senior Allied officer) said, how many were wounded? He said they had no news of any wounded at all, it was 47 dead. Massey said to him, how can you have no wounded. If people are escaping and you fire at them a certain number will survive and you say there's none."

Pieber said his orders were to tell them none.

"Of course, it rose to 50 eventually. The atmosphere was terrible. It was such a shock. The quiet. Everyone looked at each other and said, oh, God."

It was a personnel tragedy to Donald whose friend and fellow air observer Flight Lieutenant Jack Williams had been among the escapees and who had approached Donald the evening before.

"He said, I know I'll not get away, I couldn't possibly get away so I'll probably see you in the next fortnight.

"But if by any chance I do would you kindly take my two wrist watches home and he gave me a pile of letters from his girlfriend to take back. Jack never came back.

"Sadly he's the only guy that was murdered and they never caught up with who murdered him. All the others they caught up with and they were tried and hanged. The only news is that Jack was cremated at Breslau."

For Donald captivity went on. A theatre was built for the prisoners at Stalag Luft III, on condition it would not be used for escape. Shows were arranged, but it was not long before the stage was hiding the sandy soil from tunnelling.

By 1945, with the end in sight for the Germans, Donald was moved from one camp to another, eventually being liberated by fellow Scots from the Fife Yeomanry.

"It was unbelievable. They were accompanied later by the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders. They asked us if any of the German guards had maltreated us. This one guard, Herman, had shot two of our people dead, so we told the Argyle Highlanders so they chased him up to the woods. Then we heard this 'trrrr! trrr!' and Herman was no more.

"It was one of those things that happened in war. Sadly not legal, but that was how it was."

In common with his comrades, Donald was repatriated suffering from severe undernourishment and still affected by his parachute injuries of 1940. It signalled the end of his RAF career and a return to his wife, Donald junior – the son born during captivity, and the beginnings of civilian life.

Donald went on to work in pharmaceuticals, eventually combining pre-war riflery skills learned in the army with his student veterinary training, assisting vets with a dart gun tranquilliser service for troublesome animals in need of treatment.

Now widowed, he still lives in the house near Pateley Bridge in which his family of six children was raised.

He often considers the great loss of life among those of the so-called Great Escape, but knows that in similar circumstances they would have done it all again.

"The only thing you can do is think about how you'd get out," he said.
"As soon as you lose your liberty you lose your life."

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