From left, James Coburn, Wally Floody, and Charles Bronson chat on the movie set of The Great Escape, built near Muninch, in 1962.
Photo courtesy of Catherine Floody
Chatham’s Walter Chant Floody was a fighter pilot and prisoner of war in the Second World War who was instrumental in the Hollywood movie ‘The Great Escape’ for his cave-digging skills.
Floody, who died in September 1989 at the age of 71, played the fictional ‘Tunnel King,’ Danny Velinski, played by Charles Bronson in the blockbuster movie.
The pilot acted as the technical adviser of the 1963 award-winning feature film.
Floody on set with the late great Steve McQueen.
He at one time worked in a mine in Timmins as a mucker, shovelling the rock and mud into carts to be hauled up to the surface.
Floody was living in Toronto when he applied to join the military. In 1940 he was sent to an air station in Manitoba and became an operational pilot with No. 401 Squadron.
His Spitfire was shot down in October 1941 over France and two German soldiers were waiting for him on the ground.
He was imprisoned at the prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III at Sagan, now Zagan, Poland. There, he joined the “X-Organization”, headed by Roger Bushell codenamed “Big-X”), who put Floody in charge of digging tunnels and their camouflage for the upcoming escape attempts.
By March 1944, suspicious German guards found the tell-tale sign of sand being dropped by one of the ‘penguins’ out of the bottom of his pant legs and immediately rounded up Floody and 19 others and transferred them to another camp in Belaria.
Charles Bronson as ‘The Tunnel King’ in a scene from The Great Escape. Photo courtesy United Artists
The escape of 76 men went ahead on the moonless night of March 1944. Eventually the Germans caught all but three prisoners, and to make an example of them to all the other prisoners, Hitler ordered the execution of 50 of the recaptured Allied officers under the pretext that they were shot while attempting escape.
Floody at the end of the war gave evidence about conditions in prisoner of war camps at the Nuremberg Trials.
He was made a Member of the British Empire in September 1946 by King George VI two days after his first son, Brian, was born.
The veteran was asked to work as a technical adviser in the high-profile 1962 film based on a book by Paul Brickhill, an Australian flyer and writer who, like Floody, had spent time at Stalag Luft III.
Returning to civilian life, Floody became a businessman and co-founder of the Royal Canadian Air Force Prisoners of War Association.
The film starred top actors as Steve McQueen, James Garner, James Coburn and Charles Bronson among others.