Remembering the Glasgow teacher who took part in famous 'Great Escape'

And Jack Harrison’s story HAS been immortalised in film, in fact, alongside the courageous team who tunnelled their way out of the Stalag Luft III camp.

The Great Escape, as it became known in both history and Hollywood, took place 78 years ago this week and Jack – and his friend, Alex Lees, who went to school in Paisley – played an important part.

Veterans’ charity Erskine has been remembering the two men who once admitted they thought they would not survive the night of March 24, 1944, let alone meet each other again in later life.

Jack, from Glasgow, joined the RAF as a pilot and when his aircraft crashed under fire from the ground he was captured and taken to Stalag Luft III on the Polish border.

On the night of the escape, 200 prisoners had planned to get out through a tunnel ingeniously constructed as part of a daring plan. Jack was number 98 on the list, waiting in hut 104 until it was safe for him to go but the escape was discovered. He quickly burned his forged documentation in a stove and changed back into his POW clothes. Of the 76 who broke out of the camp only three reached safety and of the 73 recaptured, 50 were shot.

The 1963 film The Great Escape starring Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough was based on the events.

After the war Jack returned to his wife Jean in Glasgow and resumed his career as a teacher before becoming director of education for the isle of Bute.

Jack spent his last years at Erskine veterans’ home in Renfrewshire along with his friend and fellow former Stalag Luft III prisoner Alex Lees.

Alex was born in Manchester while his father, from Elderslie, was working there. After the family returned to Scotland, Alex attended Camphill High School in Paisley.

When war broke out, he signed up for the Royal Army Service Corps, providing life-saving support to those on the front lines. He was captured by the Germans in 1941. While never in the tunnel, Alex played a key role, as Erskine’s centenary book A Century of Care explains: “In a 2007 interview, he recalled that the Germans knew tunnels had been excavated at other camps, so the prisoners had to be very careful in disposing of the sand.

Being in charge of the garden afforded Alex the opportunity to dig a trench and disguise the sand by scattering it in the bottom and planting radishes, cress and tomatoes.... The German guards would sometimes admire his efforts, little suspecting that his vegetables were an elaborate way to disguise what was going on nearby.

“Alex remembered vividly that after the discovery of the escape, a German guard burst into the room...he was marched outside along with other prisoners. They had an anxious wait, assuming their last moments had come. After several hours shivering in freezing temperatures, however, they were allowed to return to their huts. Alex would later reflect they owed their lives to the fact that Stalag Luft III was run by the German air force under the terms of the Geneva Convention; had the camp been run by the Gestapo, things might have been very different.

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“Jack and Alex were unaware of each other until both were in their nineties. A neighbour of Jack’s from Rothesay visited Erskine and discovered that Alex had been at Stalag Luft III. The two Veterans finally met in November 2006 to share their stories and memories and eventually both were cared for by Erskine.

“The Great Escape is now more than seven decades ago but it is still commemorated as the most iconic escape story of the Second World War and we are very honoured to have cared for two of these courageous men.”

To donate directly to Erskine, visit Erskine.org.uk/donate