‘Great Escape’ tunnel digger dies

Airman Eric 'Digger' Dowling, an important figure in the break-out of Allied PoWs from Stalag Luft III in the Second World War, immortalised in the film The Great Escape, has died, aged 92.

There were parts of Dowling's role in the escape in the officers played by Charles Bronson and Donald Pleasance, but John Sturges, the movie's director, took many liberties blending fact and fiction and Dowling had a low opinion of the film, according to his son, Peter Dowling.

'Digger' Dowling (pictured) was captured after being shot down in April 1942 and incarcerated with other airmen in the camp, now in Poland. He played important roles in digging three tunnels that were started, forging documents and preparing maps. He wasn't, however, selected for the escape in March 1944 and very probably owed his life to that. Of the 76 escapees, only three made it to safety. Most were recaptured and shot. (Continued below)

His son said: "My father was happy to talk about his wartime experiences at some length, when he was asked, and wrote down his memories in great detail. But he had two memories which caused him great sorrow and pain.

"The first was when he had to go on a bombing training mission in Ireland. He was supposed to be in the Wellington but missed the flight. The entire crew died and he felt a sense of guilt that he had survived it.

"He also felt angry, more than angry, that Hitler had 50 of the 76 escapees shot, and my father was friends with seven of them."

The airman was liberated the following year and returned to his native Bristol and later worked on the development of Concorde. But to his end, he disliked how the escape was treated in the cinema.

His son says: "He wasn't a fan of the Steve McQueen film. He wasn't the greatest admirer of Americans and it didn't go down too easily that one of them should be playing the starring role. Parts of it he acknowledged were quite realistic but then he felt it turned into something that was completely untrue. For someone who was actually there, that was upsetting.

"For instance, he thought the scene with the motorbike was well over the top. A lot of the reality of digging tunnels was left out too."