Paul Gordon Royle (1914 - 2015)

Ancestors

Biography

Flight Lieutenant Paul Royle was an Australian Royal Air Force pilot who was one of the last two survivors of the 76 men who were able to escape from the Stalag Luft III German prisoner-of-war camp in the Second World War in what became known as The Great Escape. He was the second-last survivor at the time of his death at 101 years of age in 2015.

Paul Royle

Paul Gordon Royle was born on 17th January 1914 at Perth, Western Australia, Australia. He was the second son of Gordon Royle and May Ruby Healey.^[1] After completing his formal education at Hale School, Wembley Downs, he obtained work in the mines at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. ^[2]

Paul was selected by a visiting Royal Air Force (RAF) recruiting team before the Second World War for a short term commission and pilot training. Following training in the de Havilland Tiger Moth, then the Avro Anson twin engine trainer and the Bristol Blenheim, Paul was posted as a Pilot Officer to No. 53 Squadron RAF.^[2] He was on ops during the Battle of France when Blenheim L4861 was attacked by Luftwaffe fighters on 18th May 1940. He and his two crew members force-landed in a field at Fontaine-au-Pire, southeast of Cambrai and were captured. The observer was wounded so Royle and his air gunner carried him to the village and left him in the care of a priest. The air gunner went in search of an ambulance and Royle, although injured, returned to the Blenheim and destroyed it. He hiked back to the village but passed out from his wounds. Later that afternoon, the Germans arrived in the village and the priest told them of the two RAF men.^[2]

And then Royle was ‘in the bag’. The newspapers at home reported Paul 'missing',^[3] before hearing he was a POW.^[4] After being held for a year in Stalag Luft I he was transferred to Stalag Luft III at Sagan, Germany (now Żagań, Poland) when it was opened in March 1942. After the escape plans were hatched, he was one of the 'penguins' drafted to dispose of the dirt dug from the tunnels.^[2]

On the night of 24-25th March 1944, Paul was number 57 in the queue of war prisoners waiting to escape and teamed up with Flight Lieutenant Edgar Humphreys who was the next in line. After being pulled through the narrow tunnel on a trolley and climbing the exit ladder, the two men ran for the cover of pine trees and then set off in the direction of Switzerland. They evaded capture for two nights and crossed the Berlin to Breslau autobahn before they were arrested by home guard upon entering a village. The two men were interrogated by the Gestapo in Görlitz, Paul being returned to solitary confinement in Stalag Luft III but Humphreys was one of the fifty escapees who were murdered by the Gestapo on the orders of Adolf Hitler.^[2]

In January 1945, with Soviet forces only 25 kilometres (16 miles) away, the camp was evacuated and the prisoners marched west to Marlag und Milag Nord prisoner-of-war camp. Paul was finally liberated by British troops on 2nd May 1945 and flown to Britain, where he was discharged from the RAF.^[2]

Paul married Georgina Forster-Knight in 1946 at Whitchurch South, Shropshire, England.^[5] They had three children, before divorcing:^[6]

• Paul Royle (c1948-)
• Francis Royle (c1950-)
• Margaret Royle (c1952-), married surname Verling

Whilst in England Paul attended the Royal School of Mines. Later, he returned to Western Australia, where he returned to mining until he switched to engineering in the mid-1950s.^[7]

Following his divorce from Georgina, in 1961 Paul married Pamela Yvonne Fortune. They had a further two children:^[6]

• Professor Gordon F Royle PhD (1962-), a mathematics professor in the Faculty of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, University of Western Australia.^[8][9]
• Lucy Royle (c1964-)

Following a fall at the low-care Hollywood village, Nedlands where he was living, Paul was hospitalised and passed away, aged 101 years, on 23rd August 2015 in Royal Perth Hospital. He is buried at Karrakatta Cemetery.^[10] Paul's death left Dick Churchill (1920-2019) as the last survivor of The Great Escape.^[7]

He was survived by Pamela, his five children and children-in-law, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, and a sister, Shirley Rogers.^[7]