Paul Gordon Royle: A Fortunate Life
When Australians hear the phrase, âa fortunate lifeâ our minds inevitably turn to the title of Albert Faceyâs memoir. Published in 1981, it chronicles his early life (including escaping from abusive employment), Great War service on Gallipoli, and his post-war years until the eve of his 83rd birthday. It also describes, in a diffident, matter-of-fact way, considerable hardship, loss, friendship and enduring love. This memoir has become a watchword in Australian literature for exemplifying the extraordinary within the ordinary, and the ordinary within the extraordinary. Paul Gordon Royle, in many ways, was his generationâs Albert Facey.
Born on 17 January 1914âthe year Facey turned twentyâ Paul experienced a South Perth childhood many would consider idyllic. He lived close to the river, swam whenever he had the chance, and his father built him a little boat when he was about ten. He sailed it âquite a lotâ andâenjoyed [it] very much. I liked it.â
When he was fourteen, he was selected for a naval cadetship at Jervis Bay on the other side of the country. He stayed there for three years and a half years but, without ready contact with his family, was âabsolutely devastated by homesicknessâ and pulled out. He admitted that it was âa very stupid thing to do but I just couldnât help it. Pure homesickness ⊠That was the most terrible thingâ. Looking back, he considered it a great âfailureâ, but when one career path is blocked, another one often opens.
Although jobs werenât easy to find in the Depression, Paul was unemployed only a short while. His father, who was travelling around Western Australia inspecting aerodromes, came to his rescue. He needed a driver. It wasnât the most exciting job but he saw a lot of the state and it had another advantage. âI was always interested in aeroplanesâ and at one point had paid over the two-and-sixpence for a joy ride in a large de HavillandDH50. âI took a newspaper with me and threw the paper out the windowâ to prove he âwas in the planeâ. He now saw aircraft aplenty as he chauffeured his father around and more passenger opportunities presented themselves courtesy of a de Havilland Dragon and an Airco DH4. It was not long before the thought of learning to fly began to appeal so he applied to join the Royal Australian Air Force in September 1934. He was unsuccessful and so continued to drive his father around until the position was abolished in December 1935. He packed away the driving gloves he had diligently worn for three years and, within the month, was working in a Kalgoorlie gold mine.
The lure of aviation was strong and Paul continued to dream of an air force career. War clouds might have been looming but the young man gave no thought to them. âI was not particularly concerned with the political aspectsâ of the international situation. âI wanted to flyâ. Indeed, âI was very anxious to learn to flyâ. So much so that, giving no thought to the ârights or wrongs of the political anglesâ of the time, âI was only too happy to join the air forceâ.
With only 20 hours as a passenger to his credit but an impressive sporting CV which included rugby, hockey, cricket, boxing, swimming, tennis and lifesaving, as well as some engineering subjects, Paul applied to the Royal Air Force. As 1938 closed, he received the welcome advice that he had been âselected to proceed to England to undergo a course at a civil training school for subsequent appointment to a short service commissionâ. The 25-year-old embarked for Britain in February 1939 as part of the second last Australian contingent.
First stop was No. 7 Elementary and Reserve Flying Training School, a civil training school at Desford, in Leicestershire.
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Desford flying school, courtesy of Paul Royle, via Charles Page.
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His first dual flight was on 14 March in a de Havilland DH82 Tiger Moth where he carried out some straight and level flying. He soloed for five minutes on the 29th after 10 hours 45 minutes dual.
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Paul with Tiger Moth G-ADXX in which he did much of his early training, including making his first solo flight. Courtesy of Paul Royle, via Charles Page.
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A glimpse of the joy Paul must have felt at this watershed event in a budding pilotâs career is seen in the careful entry in his log book, âFIRST SOLOâ underlined in red. As with any young pilot, it wasnât all smooth flying.
First solo. Courtesy of Paul Royle, via Charles Page.
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On 14 April, during a session where he was practising taking off into the wind, medium turns, slide slipping, and approaches and landing, he made a heavy landing and damaged the Mothâs strut on the starboard side of the fuselage, just above the undercarriage. He put that mishap aside and went on to master the Tiger Moth. On 13 May, he was posted to Uxbridge for formal induction into the RAF, including receiving his service number, 42152. Two weeks later, he was at 9 Flying Training School at Hullavington in Wiltshire, where he qualified for his flying badge on 29 August 1939. He was rated average in âproficiency as pilot on typeâ and the only special fault âin flying which must be watchedâ was a tendency to side slip too close to the ground.
Paul Royle all kitted up in flying suit and furlined boots. Courtesy of Paul Royle, via Charles Page.
Paul had almost completed his training when war was declared on 3 September. âThings then speeded up, and we were shortly to learn how to land on three wheels instead of two, or, was it the other way round?â, he joked, obviously pulling the interviewerâs leg given he completed the six monthsâ course three days later with an assessment on ground subjects as a âkeen officer with above the average intelligence. Has shown interest in his work with very good resultsâ. Flying-wise, after notching up experience on the Hawker Hart, Audax and Fury, he proved âan average pilot with no outstanding faultsâ. His overall assessment was âan average officer not outstanding in any way.â
The next day he joined the first war course at No. 2 School of Army Cooperation at Andover in Hampshire, flying twin-engine Bristol Blenheims. His flying skills improved so dramatically that he emerged on 13 May 1940, according to Eric Woods, his observer, as âone of the most experienced pilots on the courseâ.
Formal portrait of  Paul Royle, with RAF Wings. Courtesy of Paul Royle, via Charles Page.
Paul was happy to have achieved his goal of being a pilotââvery happy, pleased that it was happeningâ. In fact, he had no doubts that it would happen. As long as you applied yourself, âit was just part of the sequence of events. You trained for so many hours and suddenly found you could flyâ. But there was a downside. âAlmost the worst feelingâ was when he first took up a passenger. âThat was not a very pleasing sensation ⊠because you felt the sense of responsibility for somebody elseâ.Â
On 14 May, Paul was posted to 53 Squadron which had been based at Poix-de-Picardie in northern France since the earliest days of the war. On the 18th, Paul, Sergeant Eric Woods and LAC AH Malkin set off in Blenheim L4861 on their first operation which turned out to be, according to Woods, âa rather tricky reconnaissanceâ over the advancing German army near Cambrai. As Paul recollected, âthe job I was to do was to see whether the Germans were crossing over certain canals in France ⊠I canât remember [now] what I saw but I saw itâ, then âturned around to go backâ. It wasnât long before some â109s got to work. I was flying as low I couldâ... [and] doing about 250 miles an hour, right on ground levelâ. He had no chance of evading the Messerschmitts. They fired. Woods âwas quite seriously injuredâ and âI had splinters, bullets in my handsâ. As far as he could remember, âthe gunner ⊠[who] sat well back behind us, nothing happened to him at all.â The situation was dire. They were too low to bale out and âso, eventually, well, we just had to land this wretched thingâ.
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53 Squadronâs Bristol Blenheim Mk IV L4842 which was shot down in France during the same period. Photo from Aviation Heritage Museum of WA, Courtesy Paul Royle, via Charles Page May 2015.
Ably demonstrating his expertise with the Blenheimâfor which Eric Woods was particularly grateful: âvery fortunate for me I can tell youââPaul force-landed in a field at Fontaine-au-Pire, southeast of Cambrai. âWe just landed on a bare patch of ground, avoiding the trees.â After 148 hours 5 minutes as a captain of a Blenheim, and only 37 minutes on operations, Paulâs career as a pilot had ended.
As Eric Woods put it, âthis at the time was in French hands and we fully expected to get away. But unfortunately, I had a broken leg and transport was unavailableâ. Paul and Malkin carried Woods to a nearby village, and Woods later acknowledged that âMr Royle risked his life to get me into hospitalâ. They were taken into care by a priest and, despite his injuries, Paul returned to the Blenheim and destroyed it. He hiked back to the village then passed out from his wounds. He regained consciousness about two hours later. Malkin, who was not injured, went in search of an ambulance accompanied by the village schoolmistress while Paul, whose sense of responsibility towards his crew extended beyond the cockpit, stayed with Woods. (Paul never saw Malkin again but learned years later that his former gunner evaded capture, escaped to England, and wound up in a hospital at Evesham eleven days after the forced landing. Sources do not indicate whether he was hospitalised because of wounds from the landing or injuries sustained en route to England.)
Later that afternoonâabout six hours after the crashâthe Germans arrived at the village and the priest told them of the two RAF men. They were arrested the next day. Although Paul was âin the bagâ, he was entitled under the Geneva Convention to medical care and so a German doctor treated him and Woods, who was later taken away to hospital. At some point, Paul found himself in a church which was serving as a field hospital. Â
Servicemen can expect to see many harrowing things in wartime and the 26-year-old was no exception. The Battle of France was taking its toll on the Allies. Paul had already lost squadron friends during his brief sojourn in France and hundreds of men had been killed, wounded and captured in this sector. The church was crowded. âPeople here and people there, some of them seriously wounded.â Some âwith arms blown off, people with blood all over themâ and âsome like me very lightly wounded. Lots of French army people were there and this one British army officer.â The young man was dying. Paul took him in his arms to offer the comfort of human contact in his last moments. âHe was wounded and I was holding him and he died. I will never forget that.â The memory and the impact of such intimacy with a dying manâwho could quite easily have been him if he had not been such a good pilotâremained with Paul a life time.
With barely an opportunity to inure himself to the trauma of death and the dying, and little time to think of the consequences of capture, Paul was carted off to Germany. He recalled that he had had no briefing during training about what to do if taken prisoner.âNothing. Hadnât been toldâ. Even if something had been mentioned at the training schools, the shock of captivity, compounded by the trauma of witnessing close up so much death and the agony of the wounded, might well have pushed any briefing to the back of Paulâs mind.
It is possible too that there may have been another factor at play. In one of the earliest considerations of the psychology of prisoners of war, Captain AL Cochrane, a medical practitioner with the Royal Army Medical Corps who was taken prisoner on Crete in 1941, stated that, not only had he âvisualised death and wounds fairly oftenââhe was aware of what had happened at Dunkirk and in Greeceââbut I never thought of being taken prisonerâ, despite it being patently obvious to any impartial observer that, given the situation in Crete at the time, it would be highly likely that he and many thousands of others would be captured. Perhaps not trusting his own experience, he spoke about this to other prisoners and discovered the âextraordinary factâ that âpractically none of them even considered the possibility of their being taken prisonerâ. Cochrane concluded âthat there was some strong unconscious factor inhibiting normal reasoningâ. Somehow, personal psychological âcensorsâ had allowed him and other servicemen operating on Crete to consider death as a natural consequence of service, but had blocked any consideration of imprisonment.
Despite no conscious awareness of what to do under enemy interrogation, by the time Paul arrived at Durchgangslager der Luftwaffe, the Luftwaffeâs transit camp and interrogation centre at Oberursel, near Frankfurt (more commonly known as Dulag Luft), he was confident of how he would handle himself. He was âquestioned frequently, but under no great pressure, although occasionally encouraged by a cigarette or twoâ. It was all, however, a matter of saying as little as possible. âYou knew what to do, you knew that you never told what youâd been doing. You had to observe the secrecy.â It was simply name, rank and serial number. âI do not think anything was given away. In my case at least there was nothing to give.â He was at Dulag Luft for a fortnight, then, âa party of us, about a dozen, were sent to Stalag Luft I which was a camp on the Baltic.â
The trip to Barth, in the far north of Germany on the Baltic Sea, took a number of days with a couple of stop offs, including at Limburg. While waiting to embark on the next stage of the journey, another group of prisoners arrived including Bertram âJimmyâ James who recalled that âwe were housed in a dark, dirty barrack block containing three-tier bunks on which we slept on filthy straw. There was only one tattered book in English calledâ, perhaps appropriately, âCold Comfort Farm which Paul Royle ⊠was gloomily readingâ. The next staging post was Oflag IIA at Prenzlau where he was allocated his prisoner of war number and identification tag: from now on, he was known to the Germans as Kriegsgefangen (prisoner of war) 2269. The word was a handful and was soon almost universally shortened to Kriegie within the RAF prisoner population.
Paulâs POW card and identification tag, both issued at Oflag IIA at Prenzlau. Courtesy of Paul Royle, via Charles Page .
The Luftwaffe-run Stalag Luft I had only just opened and âwe were the first âguestsââ. They âmoved into newly built huts, four to a room, I think, with nothing to do and nothing to do it with. Food was minimal, soup and a small piece of sausage, rye bread, potatoesâfrequently bad, and ersatz coffee, barely enough for survival.â
Ersatz coffee and tea. AWM private records.
Underneath the Luftwaffe camp administration, the prisoners established their own organising system, with its own hierarchical command structure, largely based on a well-run RAF station. Within that framework, Paul and his fellow captives learned the art of communal living and, regardless of political persuasion, adapted to a system which incorporated elements of socialism where everything was pooled, including âhouseholdâ duties in individual rooms. German rations were supplemented by Red Cross food parcels, as well as packages from England, Australia and America. As well as gifts from family, friends and welfare organisations they even benefited from the personal bounty of total strangers. âAfter a time several of us received parcels of food and clothing from unknown well-wishers in Denmark, me from Frau Rigmor Benthin, to whom I am eternally grateful.â
Rigmor Benthin. Courtesy of Paul Royle, via Charles Page.
So much did they rely on the additional rations that âtimes were grim when no parcels arrivedâ. Each package was scrupulously dividedââmeticulously shared by roomsââ but ideas differed as to how they would be used. âMike Bussey, when our cook, believed in one good meal and hunger for all the week. When I cooked, it was equal meals and hunger for all the weekâ.Â
One of the most difficult things to do in captivity is fill the days. Paul recognised the âextraordinary sensation [of] having no playthings, but as time went on we got books and cards, and we made and did many things including much tunnellingâ. From December 1941 until February 1942, the Western Australian was in charge of tunnel operations. Participating in the escape schemes seemed a natural thing to Paul. âWell, I had worked underground in Kalgoorlie, being in the tunnels was nothing new to me, I felt comfortableâat home digging in the tunnel ... it was pretty hard work, you have to go down, you worked like mad and dug out the soft soil, it was all soft sand.â It was always an effort finding new places from which to start the tunnel but often the best place (or so they thought) was close to home. Sometime after arriving at Stalag Luft I, Geoff Cornish, one of Paulâs old friends from Perth, arranged to move into Paulâs room and discovered that his new room mates were working on a tunnel. The entrance was under Paulâs bed. Despite the best efforts of the campâs keen potential escapees, which now included Cornish, Paul recalled ruefully that âwe did our bit unsuccessfullyâ.
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Room mates at Stalag Luft I, Barth. L-R Geoffrey Cornish, Joe Hill, Paul Royle, Tom Whiting. Courtesy of Paul Royle, via Charles Page.
Barth filled rapidly and, in March 1942, Paul and a large contingent were transferred to the recently completed East Compound of Stalag Luft III, located near the town of Sagan in the German province of Lower Silesia (now Zagan in Poland), about 100 miles southeast of Berlin.(Barth closed down in April, but was reopened in October 1942.) The RAF command and administrative structure was replicated in the new camp and escape work was not only actively encouraged but officially endorsed. Paul was involved in tunnel construction until December and his enterprises included a tunnel from Hut 68 for which he had recruited a crew of novice diggers. That, like the Barth attempts, came to naught.
(Blurry - sorry) map of East Compound, Stalag Luft III. AWM private records.Â
In April 1943, Paul took up residency in the newly opened North Compound. Life mirrored that of East Compound but for one significant difference. The Senior British Officer, Group Captain Herbert Massey, decided to formalise the hit-and-miss escape attempts and appointed the charismatic and arrogant Roger Bushell to head the newly designated X Organisation. Paul recognised the competency of the man who masterminded what would become the organisationâs greatest and most notorious achievement and put his name down as a volunteer for the grand scheme. âI think we were aware of the plan to escape from day one, you always had [the thought]âwe will have to go soon, we will have to go.â It was well known within the RAF camp administration who could be counted on to participate in a combined escape effort. There were the âleading spiritsâ, the experts, âthe keen escapersâ, âthe self-effacing but thoroughly co-operative menâ, like Paul, and the ânot-interested classâ. The majority who were willing were mobilised in some way âto bring out the most useful qualities of each manâ. Those who werenât were also pressured to take their part, mainly on the âstoogeâ, or watcher roster, or by their silence. The compiler of the North Compound history recorded (perhaps a little too glowingly) that âthere were no square pegs in round holes, and the general efficiency was increased by each prisonerâs sense of his own responsibility, the importance of his part in the life of the compound, and his opportunities for making the fullest possible use of all his mental and physical energyâ. (The ambitious undertaking wasnât referred to as the Great Escape until after the war when Paul Brickhill coined the phrase for the title of his book; it was simply referred to as a breakout.)
The men planned and worked for months on three underground escape routes, dubbed Tom, Dick and Harry to ensure that the word âtunnelâ would never be accidentally uttered anywhere near a lurking guard.Paul was one of those drafted to dispose of the dirt excavated from the tunnels âthrough my long underpantsâ. Nicknamed penguins, because of the way they waddled around with cumbersomely-filled long john legs hidden under their outer clothes, Paul would surreptitiously shake his feet and the soil would fall to the ground, to be kicked or dug in. Others stole equipment and supplies, manufactured escape kits, forged papers, or tailored clothing.
Secrecy was paramount. âYou didnât want to talk to anybody about anything. You all kept your mouth shut because you never knew who was listening to you. Because there were Germans in and out of the camp among us and you didnât want to say anything or do anything.â Not one word leaked out but there were other signs that something was afoot and Tom waseventually discovered. Later, Dick was decommissioned and used for storage when it was realised that the campâs expansion would cover its planned exit. Harry became the sole lifeline to the outside.
In about January 1944, Paul took on a new job as a âwatcherâ or âstoogeâ, where he kept a look out during tunnelling operations for any sign of âthe goonsâ or âferretsâ, whose particular job was to nose out escape activity. But his entire camp life was not entirely devoted to the escape effort. He enjoyed the many shows put on by the compoundâs theatre crowd, he played sports, went ice-skating, and studied engineering subjects. He even joined in the âgoon-baitingâ, such as mucking up during roll call and trying to âconvince the Germans of our certain victory, and their stupidity in continuing the war to no availâ. He may have been a prisoner, but Paul was certainly not downtrodden.
According to Eric Woods who, despite confinement in the non-commissioned officersâ compound, was able to exchange a few messages with his former pilot and even managed to see him for a few minutes on one occasion, Paul âwas looking extremely fit and entirely unalteredâ. Woods was later repatriated to the United Kingdom and wrote to Paulâs father to assure him that âyou need have no worries as to the life out here ... life is comparatively easy. Red Cross supplies are abundant ⊠Sports equipment of all descriptions has been received from Switzerland and England for quite a time now, and organised games are the order of the day ⊠Last year the officers sent across articles selected from their arts exhibition including some model yacht hulls carved by your son. They are very fine indeedâ. It seems Paul had inherited his fatherâs craftsmanship, albeit on a smaller scale. Despite the rosy glow portrayed by Eric Woods, it wasnât an entirely easy existence. Paul later recalled that âthe weather seems to have been always cold, and the heating stoves in our rooms were starved of fuel, as were weâ.
Paul stayed mentally active. âWe spent our time talking, reading in our own language when books arrived, and German newspapers after I had learnt to do so. I translated German news bulletins ⊠and pinned them up on a noticeboard daily.â So good were his language skills that he even instructed in elementary German. He studied maths and physics, âand passed an examination set in Englandâ. As well as wood carving, he turned his hand to making model aircraft. This, and his other activities, âslightly alleviated the boredom of camp life ⊠the drabness of our existenceâ.
Model aeroplanes made by Paul Royle, in camp. Photo taken by either guard, Hauptmann Pieber, who took many photographs of the prisoners, or a fellow Kriegie with a secret camera, obtained by bribing one of the guards. Courtesy of Paul Royle, via Charles Page.
But the intellectual and physical diversions were not enough to compensate for the fact that Paul and his friends were prisoners. Life was going on elsewhere, the war was being won without them, and perhaps there was a sense that they were forgotten. âWe wrote the two letters that were permitted each month and mourned the frequent lack of replyâ. Some drew comfort from their faith. Paul noted humorously that the American prisoners in particular âwere great churchgoers. We had a Scottish padre in camp. He was kept busy by them but less so by the rest of usâ. And so, âour major pre-occupationâ and prime factor in coping with captivity, âwas attempting to escape, over the wire, under it or through it, but with limited successâ. As 1944 opened, hopes were pinned on the audacious and carefully planned scheme which, if successful, would see two hundred men breaking out of Stalag Luft III.
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Endpapers from Guy Walters: The Real Great Escape, Bantam Press, London, 2013. Len Kenyon painting showing the entrances of the four main tunnels in Stalag Luft III North Compound. Paul Royle lived in Hut 121 in the latter stages of 1944.
Time passed and Harry was nearing completion. On 20 February 1944, âI was told that I was to be a member of the escaping party and that my number was 55 [in the] order of exitâ. Paul got in touch with number 54, Edgar Humphreys. (Paulâs accounts of the order vary. In his wartime log book he noted that he and Humphreys were numbers 55 and 56. His MI9 report states that he was 55 and Humphreys was 54.) âBetween us we made plans for our journey outside.â They prepared their equipment and rations, and ensured they âhad the right form of clothing that could be mistaken for civilian clothingâ. The breakout was set for the night of 24 March and on that day, âwe were issued with maps, compasses, special food etcâ.
Map of Germany, courtesy of Paul Royle, via Charles Page.
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The night was freezing, moonless, and snow covered the ground. The escapers gathered in Hut 104 where Harryâs entrance was located, anxiously awaiting their turn to enter the tunnel. âAll of us were nervous in some way or another. We didnât want to be caught.â The first men made their way through Harry at about 10.30 p.m. but progress was immediately impeded. The boards across the exit shaft had swollen and could not be budged. When they were finally dislodged, the front men discovered that the tunnel was roughly 15 feet short of the tree line and the nearest watchtower was about 30 yards away. More time was wasted figuring out a way to safely dash across the bare ground between the exit and the pine trees. Once the escapers started passing through, more delays were caused by blankets or briefcases getting stuck in the sides of the tunnel. They were behind schedule when Paul climbed into the tunnel, with just the bare necessities for a long march. âEverything we had was in our pockets.â Then, âwe were pulled on the trolley and that took us from the hut where it started, up to the discharge point. We got to that point, climbed up ⊠and just got up and there we were on our feetâ. It was 2.30 a.m. on 25 March. âIt was very cold when we got out of the tunnel ⊠and all we could see was pine trees up above and snow banked up against the trunks ⊠and snow underfoot.â It was exhilarating. âWeâd got that far, an achievement.â Then, âI looked up at the stars, and ⊠back at the watchtower and the barbed wire.â After almost four years in captivity, the 30-year-old was free. He ran for the pine trees and waited with the others in his party for Humphreys.
The ten men headed off. Despite all the months of planning, they hadnât really thought much beyond the actual breakout. âI donât know what our plan was, except we would head for Switzerland.â After about an hour trudging through the snow, the party split up and Paul and Humphreys travelled southwest.
While they tramped, the escape continued but with so many delays, there was no hope that two hundred men would be able to escape. Dawn approached, and would have to be called off at that point. Fate, however, intervened and, with men still making their way along the tunnel, the scheme was discovered. It was bedlam in Hut 104 as the prisoners covered up or destroyed all traces of the enterprise. Guards rampaged through the camp looking for signs of a tunnel. Outside, a Kriegsfahndung, or war emergency manhunt, was initiated. Then, when the full scale of the breakout was realised, this was upgraded to a national alertâGrossfahndung. Police, armed forces, Hitler Youth, and thousands of factory and field workers were mobilised to search for the escapees.Â
Meanwhile, âwe walked that same night as far as we could.â At about eight oâclock in the morning, they rested, burrowing into the depths of the pine forest, hiding themselves from view. âThe bitter cold being exaggerated by our inaction.â Twelve hours later, under cover of deep darkness, they resumed their trek.
Somewhere around 2.30 a.m., they entered a small village and were soon stopped by three members of the German auxiliary police. âWe were apprehendedâ. They had been free for just 24 hours.
Paul and Humphreys were held locally at first, then, in the morning, they were taken to Sagan and incarcerated in the townâs gaol. âAt 22.00 hours, with twenty other escapers, we were moved to Gorlitz Gaol.â It was âan awful placeâ. Crowded, dirty, no blankets, nothing but black bread and watery soup to eat. There, Paul watched as some of his fellow prisoners, including Humphreys, were led away. Those who remained assumed their comrades were on their way back to Stalag Luft III.
According to his MI9 report, âI spent six days [in Gorlitz] and was interrogated onceâ. His interrogator warned that he could be made to disappear if he did not reveal full details of his involvement, and would automatically be blamed if any acts of sabotage in the area were discovered. âIâm afraid Iâve told you all I can.â The questioner pressed him but Paul was deliberately vague, claiming only that he was tired of being in prison and had decided to take a chance at freedom. He was returned to his cell.
âOn 2nd April I was sent back to Stalag Luft IIIâ (his wartime log book records that he returned on 3 April) and consigned to the cooler for three weeks. When Paul arrived, Ken Rees, who had been in the tunnel when the escape was discovered, was already part way through his punishment stint. He recalled that Paul and his three companions âwere astonished to be the first back in camp, since they had all been detained in a gaol with a group of about twenty other escapees who had all left before themâ.
It was almost inconceivable: no one else from the Gorlitz group had returned. A few days later, Rees heard the reason, âshouted to us from outsideâ. Those taken from Gorlitz, and others of the escapers, had been shot. Ultimately, of the 76 who had got away, only three made it to Britain. Twenty-three of those seized on the run, including Paul, were despatched to various prison camps; only some were returned to Stalag Luft III. When they discovered that fifty of their fellows had been killed, Rees could barely articulate âthe collective shock at this news. In wartime you are, if not actually ever used to death on a daily basis, at least prepared for it. You take your chances against the enemy and, on the whole, you know what youâre up against. But this was murder.â
Later, when attempts were made to rationalise the mass escape attempt, many claimed that, although there was little possibility of success, it was their duty to try. Moreover, they believed a large-scale breakout would divert a good proportion of German resources into recapturing them. Paul, however, did not feel that way. In a brave, late-life honesty that is contrary to the accepted narrative, Paul admitted that the idea simply was ânot in my mind. No thought of it. We only thought of ourselves getting out.â As for redirecting troops from the war effort, âeven if the whole lot of us had got out we couldnât have done much harm, even a couple of hundred of unarmed individuals couldnât have done any useful, critical harm. We had no weapons ⊠we merely did it for our own purpose and that was getting out.â As for the consequences, the murder of fifty of his comrades, including his escape partner Humphreys, Paul was pragmatic. âYou couldnât foresee these things, you just wanted to get out, then what happens would happen.â Even so, Paul, like the other survivors, had to live with the âwhat happens would happenâ and, even at the end of a long, full life, still hadnât âa clue as to why I wasnât chosenâ; why he had survived.
And so, Paul settled down to waiting out the war in Stalag Luft III. âThings were comparatively quiet thereafterâ and Paulâs specific recollection of the months after the breakout was poor, probably, he considered, âclouded over by the dramatic events on the frontsâ. He had no doubts that the Allies would prevail. âWe were absolutely confident that we were going to winâthere was never any doubt about thatâ. If he had had any niggles beforehand, when he saw the state of the German civilians during his brief liberty, he would have been reassured. âEven after our long stay in prison, we stood out as strong and fit compared with the other occupantsâ of a railway refreshment room where Paul and his fellow captives were taken for coffee en route to Gorlitz. âThe civilians were obviously ill fed.â It was evident to Paul that, by âthat stage Germany was in terrible conditionâ.
D-Day came and conviction in Allied success continued strong but before release, came hardship. As the Allied invasion gained momentum, more airmen arrived and Stalag Luft III was uncomfortably overcrowded. Rooms originally inhabited by six men were soon bursting; Paulâs Room 12 in Block 121 (conveniently positioned for the shower house, if nothing else) somehow managed to âhouseâ âten bodsâ in studied orderliness: everything was neatly stowed in its own place, on shelves or under beds.
 âTen bodsâ , Room 12, Block 121. Courtesy of Paul Royle, via Charles Page.
As Germanyâs fortunes worsened, so too did the prisonersâ. Red Cross parcels were rationed and rumours circulated about what might happen to them in the event of a German collapse or Russian advance. Secret plans were put in place to cater for either eventuality, included digging another tunnel, George, but Paul had no knowledge of this. Secrecy had been utmost during the construction of Tom, Dick and Harry and it again prevailed to the extent that only those who needed to know had an inkling. There was little escape fever in camp in those days as, shortly after the mass breakout had been sprung, the Senior British Officer declared that the danger was too great for future attempts. In September, a coded message was received from Britain stating that escape was no longer considered a duty.
Despite any concerns about what would happen in the future, Paul and his friends were able to celebrate Christmas 1944 with a festive cake containing biscuits, margarine, raisins, dates, nuts, Klim milk powder, one and a quarter pounds of sugar and a packet of pancake mixture courtesy of saved up ingredients and a bonus Red Cross parcel ration. The concoction was baked all night and, as with every other prison meal, painstakingly divided and shared on what would prove (finally) to be their last Christmas in captivity.
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Christmas cake, 1944. Courtesy of Paul Royle, via Charles Page.Â
There had been rumours but little forewarning that the Germans would evacuate Stalag Luft III and, in late January 1945, the camp was emptied of prisoners. Ten thousand or so men from Stalag Luft III joined thousands of other prisoners from nearby camps who clogged the road as they âmarched westward in bitterly cold weatherâ. The men took with them as much food as they could manage, cigarettes to trade with civilians on the route, and precious objects they could not bear to leave behind. In Paulâs case, this included his wartime log book, issued to him in camp by the YMCA, and a map of Germany (had he managed to hide his own escape map when he was recaptured? Or was it a spare from the map-making department?).
Paul Royleâs Wartime Log, courtesy of Paul Royle, via Charles Page.
He cobbled together a sled to carry his possessions and sixteen American Red Cross parcels which would sustain him and his friends. He pulled it along as he trudged away from the camp. In the prisonersâ wake was âa mountain of tins of Klim dried milk, eagerly seized by the local inhabitantsâ.
Klim. Aviation Heritage Museum of Western Australia. Photo taken by Charles Page, May 2015.
âMarched 35 kmsâ on the first day. âMarched 30 kms with sleigh to Muskau. Stayed at riding schoolâ or some such place, on the second, he wasnât really sure. âAbandoned sleighâ three days later as âno ice left on road, marched 18 kms with pack. Slept in hay loftâ. Paul and his comrades were growing steadily weaker from the rigours of the march; few had been terribly fit before that, having been on half rations for months before. It would get worse but Paulâs brusque sentences recording the first stage of the march fail to describe the true horror of the experience.
On 2 February, they arrived at a railway station near Spremberg. âForty men in each truckâ. Paul doesnât elaborate but those were enclosed cattle trucks. They were so crowded, the men could not move. They could not lie down. The only ones who could get fresh air were those pressed against the sides, and only if they pushed their faces into the slats. The only light came through the few remaining gaps in those slats. There was no provision for sanitation, they were given no water, and they werenât allowed out when the trucks stopped. Many men had diarrhoea. Some suffered the worst effects of motion sickness. Paul and his fellows were confined in the cattle truck for two days. Looking back, some former prisoners considered this utterly dehumanising experience to be the most traumatic of all their years of captivity; it was this journey which brought on repeated night terrors.
On 4 February, they arrived at Tarmstedt, near Bremen at 4.30 p.m. They were herded out of the trucks, in a pathetically weak state and then forced to march to nearby Marlag und Milag Nord, a camp for naval and marine prisoners. There they stood, in the rain and mud, for six hours, âentering Marlag at midnight. Wool shavings on floor, no furnitureâ.
Route map, Sagan to Tarmstedt, January to February 1945. Dotted line indicates forced march route and crossed line from Spremberg to Tarmstedt indicates journey in cattle trucks. From Ken Rees Lie in the Dark and Listen, Grub Street, London, 2006, p.191.
Despite the hardship of the preceding days, incarceration at the dirty and overcrowded camp until 9 April, another march which ended at an estate at Trenthorst, near Lubeck, during which they were strafed by Allied fightersââLt Cdr from Marlag killed and several woundedââmorale, incredibly, was high according to Paul because âwe were completely convinced that we are going back to the victorious armyâ. Or, if not going back to the victors, at least sitting right in their path when they turned up. In the interim, they were better fed as Lubeck hosted a Red Cross depot which provided as many parcels as they could consume. Another prisoner, Alec Arnel, recalled that they âate well for the rest of our internment. As a result most of us were in good shape when releasedâ.  Â
âI was liberated ⊠on 2 May 1945 by Allied forces.â Paulâs terse post-liberation debrief gives no hint of the profound relief he must have experienced when an âarmoured recco vehicle [dubbed] âJoan-Annâ arrived at camp 1300 hrs, driver from Cheshire Rgt 11th Armoured Div[ision]â. Perhaps it was still sinking in, because it was all a bit of a whirl. From Lubeck, âafter three days, Army trucks took me to Luneberg and on to Rheine, from where I was flown to the UK arriving on 8 Mayâ to discover, as he climbed out of âwhat was to us pioneer prisoners a new-fangled Lancasterâ, that it was VE Day.
The next morning he was âre-kittedâ and assaulted by âforms etcâ. Before he knew it, he was in London on âVE2 night. Great difficulty in finding accommodation.â Not surprising, really, with the steady flow of liberated men, but he managed to secure a bed at the King George V officersâ club in Piccadilly. Then, âI was in the Strand with thousands of other people ⊠it was marvellousâ. And after that, âa bath ⊠clean clothes, slept in [a] bed with clean white sheets, had a decent breakfastâ. The whirl continued, and within months he was engaged to be married.
War and captivity affect people differently. Some are scarred by the trauma. In others, the marks are less obvious. For Paul, âI do not know what the impact of my imprisonment was. Health does not seem to have suffered, on character I cannot comment.â At first, he had wanted to go back on active service and spoke to Group Captain Herbert Massey, former Senior British Officer of Stalag Luft III. The news was not good. He âadvised me to leave the service if I had a job in view as chances of a [permanent commission] were smallâ. As he would have suspected when he first encountered the ânew-fangled Lancasterâ, the RAF had moved on and Paul would have to convert to more sophisticated types of aircraft. Not only that, there was simply no place for Paul and thousands of other liberated, under-skilled airmen who wanted to pick up their flying careers. There wasnât even a place for all of those at the peak of their abilities; there even too many to absorb into Far East operations.
Paul accepted that there was no place for him in the RAF and, from that point, âmy concern was to resume my engineering and put the past behind meâ. Perhaps there was a sense that the years were slipping by and so the 31-year-old lost no time in preparing for his future and physically and psychologically walking away from his life of confinement. He travelled around Britain, took his discharge from the RAF, interviewed for positions in an overcrowded civilian job market, studied at the Royal School of Mines, visited friends, married Georgina Forster-Knight on 23 March 1946 (almost exactly two years after the Great Escape) after a five month engagement, and brought his young bride back to Australia in August. His first job was as an assistant surveyor at Fimiston gold mine near Kalgoorlie.
It seems that Paul hadnât totally buried his hopes of a service career. He reapplied for a permanent commission but, on 6 May 1947, he was bluntly advised that âafter the most careful considerationâ the Air Council, which had been set up to deal with the innumerable applications for post-war commissions, had âregretfully decided that it is not possible to offer you either a permanent or an extended service commission.â In 1959, after turning 45, his last link with the RAF was severed when he was released from his obligations under the Royal Air Force Reserve of Officers.
Professionally, Paulâs star rose and he established a good career in mining and engineering which took him around the world. It was a different matter, however, on the home front. Although Paul and Georgina had three children, their relationship did not work out. True conjugal bliss of over half a centuryâs standing came after his 1961 wedding in Yorkshire to second wife, Pamela Yvonne Fortune.
In 2014, shortly after his 100th birthday, at the end of a marathon interview which had extended over eight sessionsâone was conducted on the 70th anniversary of the Great EscapeâPaul admitted that âI have been very happyâ in life, his second marriage, and fatherhood, although âI am very unhappy at having a first marriage which was unsuccessful. ⊠But everythingâs alright now. I have five children, three by the first and two by the secondâ and of course, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, âand it seems alright.â
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Paul Royle and grandchildren, Sam Cameron, Amy and Sophie Royle, April 2014. Courtesy of Paul Royle, via Charles Page.
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Paul Royle and his congratulatory letter from Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, celebrating his 100th birthday.
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One indication of potential long-term trauma as a consequence of surviving the Great Escape and the arduous forced march was perhaps a deep-seated reticence in talking about his captivity. Despite ongoing public interest in Stalag Luft III, fostered by books and a movie, Paul was silent. Then, four decades after his release, Paul began to share his memories. âI do not think I could have written this storyâ, he admitted in one account, âanytime in the first forty years after the end of the war.â Like Albert Facey, Paul told his story plainly, with little embellishment and no sentiment. Readers have to peer between the lines to discover his true feelings about those long ago events. In recorded interviews, Paul injects humour by treating some incidents lightly but there are also long pauses, moments of contemplation where the listener must penetrate the silence to discern the profound emotion underlining his experiences. As he reflected in his fierce desire to fly courtesy of an air force career over seventy years later, Paul quietly acknowledged, âthe consequences of that I couldnât foreseeâ.
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Paul Royleâs service medals which were presented to him at his 100th birthday party, thanks to the assistance of researcher and aviation writer Charles Page.
Paul Royle died on 23 August 2015. He was 101. In recent years, with public attention to anniversaries of the Great Escape and his longevity, media and in-depth oral histories recorded for public collections have concentrated mainly on his involvement in the mass breakout. Publicly, at least, it seemed as if the events preceding his 24 hours of freedom seventy years earlier defined his life. But they did not. âThat was a minor part of my life, only a matter of a couple of days.â Indeed, Paul preferred to down play his part, putting it down to âour duty not to languish in a prison camp if we could help itâ. Reflecting the community of the escape effort and the crowded communal aspect of camp life, when speaking about his prisoner of war experience, he tended not to relate what âI didâ but what âwe didâ. Indeed, âmy overwhelming impression of my experience is of the loyalty shown to the RAFââand the RAF in campââby its many menâ. Captivity for Paul was a shared experience which did not detract from any sense of his identity as an air force man.
There was more to Paul than one failed escape. His life was full of personal and professional achievements which included publication of âA Simple Method of Determining Tunnel Cross Sectionsâ in the Journal of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and, at one point, responsibility for 70 staff, three main contractors and contracts valued at $HK300 million (Hong Kong dollars).
Paul eventually returned to Western Australia. After retiring in 1981, he took up bowls, until an operation stopped that. He then gave free rein to his creative side. He studied at the Claremont School of Art and was particularly drawn to abstract painting. He also continued with woodwork, but looked at this craft from an artistic perspective, the result determined by the shape of the piece rather than his will. Like his father, he also put his woodwork talents to practical use and designed and constructed pieces of furniture. Demonstrating his on-going intellectual acuity and enthusiasm for contemplating some of the major themes of life and the human condition, including ageing, the man of few words picked up his pen and wrote rhyming poetry. Many revealed his strong sense of humour. He even shared a few of them for posterity in his 2014 interview, including:
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In As You Like It, Shakespeare said
Youâll live for seven ages then youâre dead.
Life ends for you, thereâll be no moreâ
Thereâs nothing you can now live for.
But some live longer up to eight
You canât foretell you must just wait.
Perhaps thereâll be another sign
Saying you will live to nine.
What comes next, it might be ten
I wonder how one feels just then.
But there are limits to our lives
So hold on tightly, avoid dear strife.
After that I donât know what,
You had it all, the blooming lot,
So quieten down and live at ease
And to the Lord say âno more pleaseâ
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During that last, lengthy interview, Paul was asked what phrase he would use to sum up his life. Echoing Albert Facey, Paul replied: âI am very fortunate to have lived so long, extremely fortunate, without any particular illness, in my whole life.â And would he have done anything differently? âI canât say that I think I did anything wrong, and that I should have done it differently. It was just fate that brings it to you and Iâve been very lucky.â A fortunate life indeed for a man who experienced much in his 101 years and who graciously gave up some of his final months to share details of those events. Unpretentious and unassuming to the last, while simultaneously revealing yet again his strong sense of humour which punctuated that interview, Paul was never sure that anyone would get anything out of his story. When asked what he thought a researcher stumbling across that interview in fifty yearsâ time might think, Paul laughed. He thought, modestly, that that âthey might say âqueer chap, lucky chap to have lived so longâ. Thatâs all I could say about that.â Paul, of course, will be proved wrong. Any future listener will discover a life that was not defined by one incident andwill gain a sense of the extraordinary in the ordinary, the ordinary within the extraordinary. They might well consider that the concluding words of Albert Faceyâs memoir could equally apply to Paul: âI have lived a very good life, it has been very rich and full. I have been very fortunate and I am thrilled by it when I look back.â Vale, Paul, man of good fortune. Rest in peace.
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Paul Royle, 101, proudly holding the photo taken after he was awarded his wings. This photo was taken by Garry Sarre as part of the WWII Reflections Project which honours Australia's WWII veterans. Courtesy of Garry Sarre and Paul Royle, via Charles Page. Â
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Although I have drawn on the North Compound History and some published references, the main sources for this piece are: Paul Royleâs interviews for the Imperial War Museum Catalogue No. 26603, Reel 1 and the State Library of Western Australiaâs Nedlands and South Perth Oral History project, Reels 1â8; an unpublished record of Paulâs experiencesas a prisoner of war; his RAF service record; and his flying log book, wartime log book, and other items from his personal papers. For access the SLWA interview, private records and the accompanying photographs, I owe my thanks to fellow researcher and friend, Charles Page, who, with Paulâs permission, provided me with copies.
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