Paul Royle, WWII veteran and ‘Great Escape’ survivor, dies at 101

Paul Royle, an Australian World War II veteran who took part in the most famous prison escape during the war, has died. He was 101.

His son, Gordon Royle, confirmed to local Australian media that Royle died in a Perth hospital Sunday after surgery for a fractured hip, reports BBC News.

Royle was one of 76 airmen who managed to escape the Nazi Stalag Luft III camp in Poland in 1944. The escape was dubbed ‘The Great Escape’ and was the basis for the 1963 Steve McQueen film The Great Escape. The film took several liberties with the actual story, including adding American prisoners.

“He felt the movie was a glamorization of the tedium and the drabness of the actuality,” Gordon Royle told the Australian Broadcasting Corp., reports The Associated Press. “The idea that they got on a motorbike and soared over a barbed wire fence is far from the reality which was darkness and cold and terror.”

Only three prisoners were never re-captured. Fifty others were shot and killed, while the rest were taken to other camps.

Royle flew in the Royal Air Force and was shot down in May 1940 over France. He had been in captivity from that point until the rest of the war, when British troops liberated the Marlag und Milag camp in May 1945.

Only one other survivor of the escape is still alive. Dick Hurchill of the U.K. is 94.