The Story of Flight Lieutenant Paul Gordon Royle, One of the Last Survivors of The Great Escape.”
Flight Lieutenant Paul Royle in later life holding his wartime RAF portrait, alongside photographs of Stalag Luft III, a group of fellow prisoners with Royle highlighted among them, and his original RAF portrait.
“He Survived The Great Escape, Outlived Almost Every Other Escaper… And Lived to Be 101.
The Story of Paul Gordon Royle was born on 17 January 1914 in Perth, Western Australia. Educated at Hale School before studying at the Western Australian School of Mines, he worked as a mine surveyor in Kalgoorlie. Before the Second World War, he volunteered to serve with the Royal Air Force after a recruiting mission visited Australia, travelling thousands of miles from home to begin pilot training in Britain.
After learning to fly the de Havilland Tiger Moth, Avro Anson and Bristol Blenheim, Royle was commissioned into the RAF and posted to No. 53 Squadron RAF in France as Europe edged towards war.
On 18 May 1940, just days after Germany launched its invasion of France and the Low Countries, Royle was flying a reconnaissance mission in a Bristol Blenheim when his aircraft was brought down near Fontaine-au-Pire, close to Cambrai. He and his navigator survived the crash but were captured by advancing German forces, beginning what would become almost five years as prisoners of war.
After periods in Stalag Luft I, Royle was transferred to Stalag Luft III at Sagan, the purpose-built camp that housed captured Allied airmen. Determined not to accept captivity, he became involved in one of the most ambitious escape operations of the war. He was one of the prisoners known as the “penguins,” men who secretly carried tunnel sand from the diggings inside specially adapted trousers before quietly scattering it around the camp to avoid detection. He also helped dig part of a tunnel beneath Block 68.
Months of painstaking work culminated during the night of 24-25 March 1944. Crawling through the 336-foot tunnel known as Harry, Royle emerged into a snow-covered pine forest as the fifty-seventh of the seventy-six men who escaped. He teamed up with Flight Lieutenant Edgar Humphreys and headed south, hoping eventually to reach neutral Switzerland.
For two days they evaded capture, travelling mostly under cover of darkness and even crossing the Berlin-Breslau autobahn. Their freedom was short-lived. After entering a village they were recognised, arrested by German Home Guard and handed over to the Gestapo for interrogation at Görlitz.
Both men had escaped together. Both were questioned together. Yet their fates could not have been more different.
Following Adolf Hitler’s order that captured escapees should be executed, the Gestapo selected fifty of the recaptured officers to be murdered. Edgar Humphreys was among them. Royle was spared and returned to solitary confinement in Stalag Luft III.
For the rest of his life he never understood why.
“There’s no reason why one should live and not the other. Rationality didn’t come into it. I haven’t a clue as to why I wasn’t chosen.”
In January 1945, as Soviet forces advanced towards the camp, Royle and thousands of other prisoners were forced onto a bitter winter march westwards before eventually reaching another prisoner-of-war camp. On 2 May 1945 he was finally liberated by British troops. After returning to Britain, he completed his RAF service before making the journey home to Australia.
Back in Western Australia, Royle studied at the Royal School of Mines and built a successful career in the mining and engineering industries. He married, raised a family and lived a remarkably long life, eventually becoming one of only two surviving participants in the Great Escape.
Although forever associated with the famous 1963 film, Royle never hid his dislike of Hollywood’s portrayal. He often pointed out that there were no dramatic motorcycle chases and that no Americans took part in the escape, believing the true story was remarkable enough without embellishment.
Paul Gordon Royle died in Perth on 23 August 2015 after complications following surgery for a fractured hip. He was 101 years old. His death left Squadron Leader Dick Churchill as the only surviving participant of the Great Escape until Churchill’s death in 2019.
Today, Flight Lieutenant Paul Gordon Royle is remembered as one of the courageous airmen who refused to surrender hope in captivity. He survived almost five years as a prisoner of war, took part in history’s most famous prison escape, outlived almost every other Great Escaper and carried with him, for the rest of his life, the memory of those who never returned.
Lest We Forget — Flight Lieutenant Paul Gordon Royle, Royal Air Force. Great Escaper, prisoner of war and one of the last surviving participants in one of history’s most famous wartime escapes.
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