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Great Escape POW Jack Harrison, Scottish veteran and teacher, dies at 97

BY Jeff Zalesin
DAILY NEWS WRITER

Tuesday, June 8th 2010, 10:58 AM
Harrison didn't escape in the plot, but his role in planning it made him a war hero.

Harrison didn't escape in the plot, but his role in planning it made him a war hero.

Scottish World War II veteran Jack Harrison, who helped plan the famous Great Escape that inspired the 1963 Steve McQueen movie, has died at age 97.

Harrison was believed to be the last surviving conspirator from the 1944 plot, in which Allied prisoners of war tried to escape from a Nazi prison through secret tunnels they called Tom, Dick and Harry.

Escape masterminds made Harrison, a Royal Air Force pilot, one of those responsible for hiding the dirt cleared from the tunnels.

The escape did not go according to plan. Of the 200 men slotted to flee through Harry, only 76 made it through the tunnel, and just three got away without being recaptured, according to The Associated Press.

The other two tunnels were found by prison guards before the escape and had to be closed.

Harrison was 98th on line to escape, but he never got his chance. When he heard guards firing at the 77th fugitive, he changed out of his civilian disguise and back into his prison garb.

"I guess it was a blessing in disguise I never made it through, as most were shot," Harrison told the Scottish Sun last year. "But the main purpose wasn't just to escape. It was to outfox the Germans. It was a huge moral victory. It humiliated Hitler and gave the Nazis a bloody nose."

Harrison finally got his freedom when Russian forces liberated the prison. He then returned to Scotland and his career as a Latin teacher.

Until his death, Harrison spoke modestly about his role in the plot and focused on his career in education, London's Daily Mail reported.

According to Harrison's family, he started running marathons as a charity fund-raiser in his 70s.

"To others, he was considered a war hero, but to us he was much more than that," his children said in a statement. "He was a family man first and foremost as well as a church elder, Rotarian, scholar, traveller and athlete."

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