Windsor pilot, 22, among ‘Great Escape’ airmen Hitler ordered executed

Breadcrumb Trail Links

Local News

Article content

It was one of the most famous prison breaks in history — the stunning ‘Great Escape’ by 76 Allied airmen from a German penal facility deemed escape-proof by the Nazis during the Second World War.

So outraged was Adolf Hitler by the March 24, 1944, daring tunnel escape that he issued an order to the Gestapo to execute 50 of the 73 prisoners of war who were recaptured.

Article content

Article content

Among the six Canadians lined up and machine-gunned to death for outwitting their captors and embarrassing the Germans was Flight Lieutenant George W. Wiley of Windsor. The Royal Canadian Air Force airman was only 22 years old.

“These guys gave their lives for their country — I want people to remember that,” said Ted Krasowski, who sent emails to the hometown newspapers of those six Canadians ahead of the 80th anniversary of the mass breakout in the middle of the Nazi Third Reich.

“This was something really, really important,” said Krasowski, a pilot himself.

The plan to escape Stalag Luft III took months to prepare, keep concealed and then execute. While most of the PoW fugitives were soon recaptured, their daring flight tied up large numbers of enemy forces — 70,000 German soldiers by one estimate — at an important period of the war, and it was a massive propaganda boost for the Allied side.

“I have a real feeling for those guys. I think about them when I’m flying,” said Krasowski, a chief pilot with the Victoria Flying Club.

Born in London, Ontario, but growing up and then enlisting in Windsor in December 1940 at age 18, Wiley had already survived two aircraft crashes in North Africa by the time he was captured by the Germans in Tunisia in March 1943. He was eventually shipped to Stalag Luft III, a high-security penal facility set up in what was then part of Nazi Germany (now part of Poland) and designed to keep valuable Allied pilots and other airmen out of the fight.

Article content

According to his family, as later told to Windsor Star columnist Marty Gervais, Wiley’s mother played an unwitting yet important role in the Great Escape.

During the war, Ethel May (nee Root) Wiley worked in the downtown Windsor Red Cross office where relief and comfort packages were prepared and sent to Allied PoWs. George Wiley had a special request for Indian ink and brushes and pens, which he wrote —in letters that would have been censored by his captors — would help him with posters used to advertise plays put on at the camp.

The posters and plays were all part of the act to conceal the secret tunnelling that was going on underground. But the real purpose for those tools was helping forge passports and fake documentation needed by the escapees.

It was on an October 1942 mission that Wiley first went down in an aircraft, breaking his ankle in a rough landing in the middle of a mine field.

Back in action a short time after recuperating in a hospital in Egypt, his Kittyhawk fighter plane was shot down during fighting in Tunisia in March 1943, this time behind enemy lines. After wandering in the desert for several days, he was captured by the Germans.

Article content

Krasowski, 64, said he’s been fascinated with the story of the Stalag Luft III mass breakout since Wiley and his fellow flyboys were immortalized in the epic 1963 war movie The Great Escape, featuring a star-studded cast that included Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn and Richard Attenborough.

A volunteer pilot with Angel Flight, a B.C. non-profit providing free air transport to cancer patients needing to access clinics and hospitals, Krasowski said it’s a tale of service and sacrifice that should resonate today.

“Look at what’s going on in Ukraine — you’ve got to remember the past so you don’t repeat it.”

Recommended from Editorial

Life of Essex Scottish soldier’s three years as a PoW described in his diary

Photos bring back memories for last known Essex Scottish survivor of Dieppe Raid

Shot down over Nazi-occupied Europe, RCAF veteran remembers the dead

According to Wiley’s family, father Morley, traumatized by his son’s execution, never forgave himself for granting permission to his teenaged son to sign up for the war, and he died later that same year.

George W. Wiley’s grave is in Poznan Old Garrison Cemetery in Poland.

Fourteen of the 18 Gestapo officers connected to the Stalag Luft III PoW executions were themselves executed after the war.

dschmidt@postmedia.com

twitter.com/schmidtcity

Article content

Share this article in your social network