The mastermind of the Great Escape was recommended for a posthumous George Cross by intelligence chiefs after the Second World War, files have revealed.
Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, architect of the mass breakout from a German prisoner of war camp in 1944, was put up for the medal after senior spies deemed his mention in dispatches insufficient tribute to his heroics.
They disclosed that he “passed valuable information to the War Office by secret means” on several occasions after his capture in 1941. The request was later dismissed by the War Office but Bushell was immortalised as Roger “Big X” Bartlett in the 1963 film The Great Escape.
Tomorrow marks 75 years since Bushell and 75 other allied prisoners tried to abscond by
