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By: 19th March 2010 at 23:47 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-RIP Sir....blue skies....you did your country proud
thankyou
By: 20th March 2010 at 02:43 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-I think Bill Dean deserved a bit of a better obituary; they are usually much better than this in the Telegraph.
How could Bill Dean “help Colin ‘The Forger’ Blythe create fake passports” since Colin Blythe isn’t a real person but a character in a film? The number of escapees executed by the Nazis was fifty, not “at least fifty”. And, although I’m sure it was an arduous march in terrible conditions, could Bill Dean really have been forced to march 2000 miles between Stalag Luft III at Sagan (which was in Germany not Poland in 1944) and Luckenwalder which is about 100 miles away as the crow flies?
Also didn’t Bill Dean actually take part in ‘the Great Escape’ or is it more important that he “helped inspire” the making of a movie?
Good job this obituary writer wasn’t forging documents in a POW camp during the war! :rolleyes:
By: 21st March 2010 at 12:48 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-obit for bill dean
looking through the january section of my trusty 1944 chorley 'losses' i see a P/O AW DEAN of 102 sq survived the shooting down of HALIFAX HX187 on 20/21 jan 1944 and was taken POW . is this the same 'bill' dean ????????
By: 23rd March 2010 at 23:32 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-Possibly, P/O A W Dean is in the POW appendix of BCL 1944 but the camp he was sent to is not listed.
It is curious that Bill Dean was only shot down in January and yet he was involved with forging documents for an escape that took place only two months later; an escape that had involved hundreds of POWs and had been in preparation for over a year.
By: 24th March 2010 at 13:13 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-bill dean
i expected to identify BILL DEAN using Chorley's BCL 1944 - but there was no mention of his squadron or the type of a/c he was flying in the obit - so - knowing he survived the incident - and knowing it was a BERLIN operation - it should have been easy to find him in the BCL records ..............
but obviously not - 'BILL' might have been a preferred name instead of his first name which began with an 'A' ...........................
so - his POW camp was not isted in BCL and then Creaking Door adds his suspicions about BILL DEAN being involved with forgery of documents during the two or three months after his capture .......................
most of this puzzle could have been solved if the original obit had been more accurate !!!
actually it is the anniversary of the mass breakout today .
By: 24th March 2010 at 13:31 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-...actually it is the anniversary of the mass breakout today.
Well spotted!
My ‘suspicions’ about Bill Dean make it all sound very sinister! :D
I was really commenting about the security aspect of allowing somebody so new to the camp when the planning for an escape that had taken months was so nearly complete. Anybody who was helping to forge documents would surely be privy to the fact that an escape was planned, that large numbers of documents were being prepared and possibly, due to dates on the documents, when the escape was to take place.
With the high turn-over of bomber crews plus the tragically small chances of escaping from a shot-down bomber there would be every chance that nobody in the camp had ever met a new POW before and so I would expect new arrivals to be treated with a little caution, especially so near to the end of a huge undertaking such as ‘the Great Escape’.
By: 24th March 2010 at 13:47 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-It could be that he had a particular skill to help with the documents i.e experience in printing, artist etc. which enabled them to be produced a bit quicker.
By: 24th March 2010 at 14:09 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-I understand that some crew members were prepared by the security services. In the event of them being taken prisoner they already had training in organising escapes, contacts etc. Possibly even codes and equipment concealed about their person.
Posts: 88
By: Whiskey Magna - 18th March 2010 at 12:34
From the Telegraph today:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/7470969/War-hero-who-helped-inspire-The-Great-Escape-dies.html
The sad loss of another hero from a heroic generation.
Rod