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Britain's most prolific wartime tunnel-digger and one of the men behind the Great Escape has died aged 95.Nicknamed The Mole, John Fancy helped dozens of his fellow inmates escape from prisoner-of-war camps in Poland, Lithuania and Germany.Warrant Officer Fancy, an RAF navigator who trained in land management before enlisting, was captured in 1940 after being shot down on a bombing mission over occupied France.During five years of captivity in a number of camps, he dug at least eight tunnels and escaped three times himself but was recaptured on each occasion.He was sent to Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Poland, in 1942.There his expertise was used to help plot the break-out of 76 men that became known as the Great Escape.The plan was to dig three tunnels - Tom, Dick and Harry; the first of which, Tom, was built by Mr Fancy and others in the corner of a hall.In order to keep the tunnels from being detected, they were 30ft below the surface and were only 2ft square.Although Mr Fancy was transferred away from the camp and Tom was later discovered, 76 men did escape through Dick the following year.Of these, only three evaded capture - 50 men were killed and the rest were sent back to the camp.Two decades later, the escape attempt caught the imagination of movie bosses and inspired the 1963 Hollywood blockbuster The Great Escape, which starred Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough. ...
