Flight Lieutenant Paul Royle
Australian survivor of the ‘Great Escape’ who dismissed Hollywood’s ‘gaudy’ version of events
FLIGHT LIEUTENANT PAUL ROYLE, who has died aged 101, was one of the last two survivors of the “Great Escape”, when 76 airmen escaped through a tunnel at Stalag Luft III, the notorious prisoner-of-war camp.
Royle was the 54th man to leave the tunnel, named “Harry”, on the night of March 24 1944. He teamed up with Flight Lieutenant Edgar Humphries and they planned to walk south-west towards Switzerland. At daybreak they hid in the woods and, despite the bitter cold, remained hidden until nightfall. They moved off as darkness fell and crossed the Cottbus-Breslau autobahn. There was not a person in sight. As they passed through the village of Tiefenfurt before dawn on March 26, three men of the German home guard captured them. They had only travelled about 20 kilometres.
The two men were handed over to the Gestapo. Royle was returned to Stalag Luft III on April 2 to face two weeks in solitary confinement. Humphries, however, was one of the 50 escapers murdered by the Gestapo on the direct orders of Hitler. In later years, Royle commented: “I don’t know how the 50 were selected, or the 26 who survived. Perhaps it was just chance.” Three men – two Norwegians and a Dutchman – successfully evaded capture.
Paul Gordon Royle was born on January 17 1914 in Perth, Western Australia, and attended Hale School. He worked in the gold mining industry at Kalgoorlie before volunteering for the Royal Air Force.
After completing his training as a pilot he joined No 53 Squadron, flying Blenheims. The squadron moved to France soon after the outbreak of the Second World War and, after the German Blitzkrieg on May 10 1940, it began flying strategic reconnaissance sorties. On May 17 Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters attacked Royle’s aircraft and he was forced to crash land. He and his observer were taken prisoner but his gunner managed to evade capture and return to England.
After initial interrogation at the Dulag Luft PoW camp near Frankfurt, Royle was moved eastwards and on July 2 arrived at Stalag Luft I, a camp built specially for Allied aircrew at Barth on the Baltic coast. He and his few colleagues were the first “guests” at the camp and moved into newly built huts. He was one of the early members of the escape organisation, created by Squadron Leader Brian Paddon and Lieutenant-Commander Peter Fanshawe of the Fleet Air Arm, who dubbed it the “X Organisation”. Royle recalled: “Our major preoccupation was attempting to escape, over the wire, under it or through it.”
In March and April 1942 all the prisoners at Barth transferred to Stalag Luft III at Sagan, in Lower Silesia, which the Germans claimed was escape-proof.
On April 1 1943 most of the officers were moved a few hundred yards to an even bigger compound, known as “North”, where an ambitious escape project was planned that involved digging three tunnels simultaneously: Tom, Dick and Harry. Royle’s part was twofold: to keep a lookout for guards and to dispose of the tunnel spoil.
“Harry” was completed in March 1944. At 348ft in length, lined with bed boards and equipped with electric lighting and a ventilation system, it was a major feat of engineering.
After Royle’s escape and return to Sagan, he discussed his experience with Flight Lieutenant Paul Brickhill, the Australian journalist-turned-Spitfire pilot. Royle described Brickhill’s account, The Great
Escape, as “reliable” but dismissed the Hollywood film of the same name: “It gives a completely false impression – the gaudy and garish colour concealing the drabness of our existence – and is factually incorrect.”
Royle remained at Stalag Luft III until the end of January 1945, when the inmates were marched westwards as the Soviet army neared. He and his fellow prisoners were liberated by British troops on May 2.
After his release from the RAF he attended the Royal School of Mines in London before returning to Australia in 1947 where he worked in the mining and engineering industries. He retired in 1979.
Paul Royle did not speak of his wartime experiences until the PoW historian Charles Rollings approached him in 1991. “I do not think I could have written this story to you any time in the first 40 years after the end of the war,” Royle told him.
He is survived by his second wife Pamela and their two children, and by three children of his first marriage. Flight Lieutenant Paul Royle, born January 17 1914, died August 23 2015