Survivor Of 'Great Escape' Pow Camp Dies
By Russell Myers
A HERO pilot who made five attempts to flee German prisoner of war camps has died - leaving only three British survivors of the "Great Escape" gang.
Sydney Dowse was among 76 Allied aircrew who tunnelled their way out of the German Stalag Luft III camp in March 1944.
Only three of the escapees managed to reach the UK and of the remaining 73, 50 were murdered on the direct orders of Adolf Hitler.
The 23 survivors were sent to serve their time in German concentration camps.
The audacious breakout was immortalised in the 1963 film starring Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough and Charles Bronson.
The Stalag Luft, or "Permanent Camp for Airmen", stood in a forest north of Berlin.
Sydney, a flight lieutenant, was imprisoned after being gunned down in his Spitfire over France in 1941.
After previously fleeing three other prisoner camps, he played a major role in the tunnel escape.
Sydney and Polish prisoner Stanislaw "Danny" Krol made it to within a few miles of the Polish border before being discovered by a farmer who turned them in to members of the Hitler Youth.
Krol was executed but Sydney was sent to Sachsenhausen camp in Germany until it was liberated.
In all, Sydney made five attempts to escape, a feat that won him the Military Cross.
The 89-year-old leaves behind the three remaining British survivors - Ken Rees, of Anglesey, Les Brodrick, who lives in South Africa, and Dick Churchill, of Devon.