Squadron Leader

Squadron Leader

Squadron Leader is a commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence. It is also sometimes used as the English translation of an equivalent rank in countries which have a non-English air force-specific rank structure. In these...

 Roger Joyce Bushell RAF

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 (30 August 1910 – 29 March 1944) was a South African-born British

British people

The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

 Auxiliary Air Force pilot who organised and led the famous escape from the Nazi

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 prisoner of war camp

Prisoner-of-war camp

A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of combatants captured by their enemy in time of war, and is similar to an internment camp which is used for civilian populations. A prisoner of war is generally a soldier, sailor, or airman who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or...

, Stalag Luft III

Stalag Luft III

Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war camp during World War II that housed captured air force servicemen. It was in the German Province of Lower Silesia near the town of Sagan , southeast of Berlin...

. He was a victim of the Stalag Luft III murders

Stalag Luft III murders

The Stalag Luft III murders was a war crime perpetrated by members of the Gestapo following the "Great Escape" of Allied prisoners of war from the German Air Force prison camp known as Stalag Luft III on March 25, 1944. Of a total of 76 successful escapees, 73 were recaptured, mostly within days of...

. The escape was used as the basis for the film The Great Escape

The Great Escape (film)

The Great Escape is a 1963 American film about an escape by Allied prisoners of war from a German POW camp during World War II, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough...

. The character played by Richard Attenborough

Richard Attenborough

Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough , CBE is a British actor, director, producer and entrepreneur. As director and producer he won two Academy Awards for the 1982 film Gandhi...

, Roger Bartlett, is modelled on Roger Bushell.
Bushell was born in Springs

Springs, Gauteng

Springs is a city on the East Rand in the Gauteng province of South Africa.It lies 50 km east of Johannesburg. The name of the city derives from the large number of springs in the area; it has a population of more than 200,000, and is situated at 5,340 ft a.s.l...

, Transvaal

Transvaal Province

Transvaal Province was a province of the Union of South Africa from 1910 to 1961, and of its successor, the Republic of South Africa, from 1961 until the end of apartheid in 1994 when a new constitution subdivided it.-History:...

, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 on 30 August 1910 to English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 parents Benjamin Daniel and Dorothy Wingate Bushell (née White).