Last of the Gladiators begins ominously enough. At dusk on an August day of 1941, I flew into war in a lumbering Whitley. Six hours later it lay smashed on a hilltop in the Dales. Two pilots stared skyward with sightless eyes. The aircraft was 30 miles off course and I was the navigator. The gods laughed.
I recall how on the last night of May 1942 I hung by my parachute straps in a moon washed sky watching Cologne aflame 60 miles away. A morning later I was the prey running the woods and ditches to the edge of a Dutch town. Here An de Werdt, a fearless Dutch woman, risked her family’s lives to help me escape in civilain clothes. A week later after that, handcuffed and shackled, I was grilled by four Gestapo men.
He was imprisoned at Stalag Luft 3, Sagan (North Compound) and Stalag Luft 6, Heydekrug.
Recounted his “wartime derring-do” in the book “Last of the Gladiators”. The book also includes an intimate view of legless ace Douglas Bader and “Wings” Day, whose escape efforts were legendary.