airborne
30-08-08, 04:47
Survivor of 'great escape' attempt from Stalag Luft III
SQUADRON Leader Eric Dowling was one of the last survivors of the brave but ill-fated "great escape" attempt from the Luftwaffe's Stalag Luft III prisoner-of-war camp, made famous by the 1963 film starring Steve McQueen. "Digger" Dowling, however, was not enamoured of the Hollywood movie which, he said, glamorised the role of the Americans and underplayed the efforts of British airmen and Polish prisoners, many of them coal miners, who tried to dig their way to freedom.
Dowling, who has died one day short of his 93rd birthday, was particularly irked by the famous scene in which US airman Virgil Hilts (McQueen, with a little help from stuntman Bud Ekins) tries to outrun a Nazi patrol and propel his motorcycle over barbed wire into Switzerland. It never happened and was "rubbish, well over the top", he insisted.
"Dad 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," said Dowling's son Peter. "For someone who was actually there, that was upsetting."
Flight-Lieutenant Dowling, then 26, was navigator on board a Vickers Wellington bomber when it was shot down during a raid on Hamburg at 2am on 18 April, 1942. He recalled in his diary: "April 17, 1942 – Departure! Hamburg at midnight, alone in the sky and covered in a myriad of searchlights – a perfect prey for the waiting Focke-Wulfs (German fighter planes] – the ensuing 15 minutes until the crash seemed like an eternity, and the escape from the crashed Wellington an unbelievable remission."
Like most allied airmen, he was transported to the Luftwaffe's specially-built prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft (Air) III, near Sagan in occupied Poland, more than 100 miles south-east of Berlin. Among his fellow prisoners initially was Group Captain Douglas Bader, the legendary legless pilot, who would later be transferred to the notorious Colditz Castle PoW camp for "incorrigible" Allied officers.
A keen cricketer, Dowling captained a team of prisoners he called Stalag Luft Somerset and spent his spare time learning foreign languages from other prisoners, in the end speaking five of them quite well. In 1943, he volunteered to join the Stalag's X group, led by Squadron Leader Roger "Big X" Bushell – played by Richard Attenborough in the movie – which was planning a mass escape via three tunnels code-named Tom, Dick and Harry.
He was appointed a digger – hence the lifelong nickname – and map-maker and forger of identity cards, rail passes and other documents vital to the escape. He was one of several camp forgers, though they turned into a single composite character in the film, memorably played by Donald Pleasence.
With tunnels Tom and Dick already rumbled by the camp guards, around 250 prisoners queued or began squeezing into the 360ft-long Harry on the moonless night of 24 March, 1944. When the first man emerged from its exit hatch, he found the tunnel ended short of the surrounding forest and within sight of a watchtower.
Nevertheless, 76 men made it out until the 77th was spotted by a guard and the game was up. Dowling had drawn a high number in the escape lottery and was still in the queue to get into the tunnel. Of the 76 who fled, only three made it to freedom while 23 were captured. In the great tragedy of the great escape, 50 of the escapers were executed by the Nazis as a deterrent, on the specific orders of a furious Adolf Hitler. Seven of those shot dead were among Dowling's close friends, a fact that left him "more than angry" with Hitler for the rest of his life, according to his son.
Dowling remained in Stalag Luft III until January 1945, when, with the Soviet army pushing west, the inmates were put on a forced march in freezing conditions to camps inside Germany until liberation by allied forces.
After the war, he worked as an air crash investigator for the RAF in Norway, where he met Agnes Marie and married her in 1946. Back in England, he eventually worked for British Aerospace, ultimately on its Concorde project at the Filton complex in Bristol.
In his later years, particularly during Margaret Thatcher's tenure as prime minister, he campaigned strongly for the rights of former PoWs.
Eric Dowling was born in Glastonbury in 1915. He joined the Royal Air Force as soon as war was declared in 1939 and did most of his flight training in South Africa before being assigned to Bomber Command 57 Squadron at RAF Feltwell, Norfolk. The squadron had moved south after being based for much of 1940 in northern Scotland – at Lossiemouth and Bogs o' Mayne (RAF Elgin) – to disrupt German shipping movements off the coast of occupied Norway. He flew 29 combat missions before being shot down.
Eric Dowling's wife died in 1997. He is survived by a son, a daughter and two sisters.
SQUADRON Leader Eric Dowling was one of the last survivors of the brave but ill-fated "great escape" attempt from the Luftwaffe's Stalag Luft III prisoner-of-war camp, made famous by the 1963 film starring Steve McQueen. "Digger" Dowling, however, was not enamoured of the Hollywood movie which, he said, glamorised the role of the Americans and underplayed the efforts of British airmen and Polish prisoners, many of them coal miners, who tried to dig their way to freedom.
Dowling, who has died one day short of his 93rd birthday, was particularly irked by the famous scene in which US airman Virgil Hilts (McQueen, with a little help from stuntman Bud Ekins) tries to outrun a Nazi patrol and propel his motorcycle over barbed wire into Switzerland. It never happened and was "rubbish, well over the top", he insisted.
"Dad 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," said Dowling's son Peter. "For someone who was actually there, that was upsetting."
Flight-Lieutenant Dowling, then 26, was navigator on board a Vickers Wellington bomber when it was shot down during a raid on Hamburg at 2am on 18 April, 1942. He recalled in his diary: "April 17, 1942 – Departure! Hamburg at midnight, alone in the sky and covered in a myriad of searchlights – a perfect prey for the waiting Focke-Wulfs (German fighter planes] – the ensuing 15 minutes until the crash seemed like an eternity, and the escape from the crashed Wellington an unbelievable remission."
Like most allied airmen, he was transported to the Luftwaffe's specially-built prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft (Air) III, near Sagan in occupied Poland, more than 100 miles south-east of Berlin. Among his fellow prisoners initially was Group Captain Douglas Bader, the legendary legless pilot, who would later be transferred to the notorious Colditz Castle PoW camp for "incorrigible" Allied officers.
A keen cricketer, Dowling captained a team of prisoners he called Stalag Luft Somerset and spent his spare time learning foreign languages from other prisoners, in the end speaking five of them quite well. In 1943, he volunteered to join the Stalag's X group, led by Squadron Leader Roger "Big X" Bushell – played by Richard Attenborough in the movie – which was planning a mass escape via three tunnels code-named Tom, Dick and Harry.
He was appointed a digger – hence the lifelong nickname – and map-maker and forger of identity cards, rail passes and other documents vital to the escape. He was one of several camp forgers, though they turned into a single composite character in the film, memorably played by Donald Pleasence.
With tunnels Tom and Dick already rumbled by the camp guards, around 250 prisoners queued or began squeezing into the 360ft-long Harry on the moonless night of 24 March, 1944. When the first man emerged from its exit hatch, he found the tunnel ended short of the surrounding forest and within sight of a watchtower.
Nevertheless, 76 men made it out until the 77th was spotted by a guard and the game was up. Dowling had drawn a high number in the escape lottery and was still in the queue to get into the tunnel. Of the 76 who fled, only three made it to freedom while 23 were captured. In the great tragedy of the great escape, 50 of the escapers were executed by the Nazis as a deterrent, on the specific orders of a furious Adolf Hitler. Seven of those shot dead were among Dowling's close friends, a fact that left him "more than angry" with Hitler for the rest of his life, according to his son.
Dowling remained in Stalag Luft III until January 1945, when, with the Soviet army pushing west, the inmates were put on a forced march in freezing conditions to camps inside Germany until liberation by allied forces.
After the war, he worked as an air crash investigator for the RAF in Norway, where he met Agnes Marie and married her in 1946. Back in England, he eventually worked for British Aerospace, ultimately on its Concorde project at the Filton complex in Bristol.
In his later years, particularly during Margaret Thatcher's tenure as prime minister, he campaigned strongly for the rights of former PoWs.
Eric Dowling was born in Glastonbury in 1915. He joined the Royal Air Force as soon as war was declared in 1939 and did most of his flight training in South Africa before being assigned to Bomber Command 57 Squadron at RAF Feltwell, Norfolk. The squadron had moved south after being based for much of 1940 in northern Scotland – at Lossiemouth and Bogs o' Mayne (RAF Elgin) – to disrupt German shipping movements off the coast of occupied Norway. He flew 29 combat missions before being shot down.
Eric Dowling's wife died in 1997. He is survived by a son, a daughter and two sisters.