Scots war hero who planned own great escape dies aged 94

Former telephone engineer John McCallum, originally from Maryhill, Glasgow, died just weeks before his story is due to be screened on a special Armistice Day programme.

Mr McCallum recently took part in a documentary narrated by the actor David Jason.

It looks at iconic films such as The Great Escape and Colditz and the real stories of brave and dramatic escapes which inspired the movie-makers.

During the interview, Mr McCallum told the former Only Fools and Horses actor how he and two others managed to flee a notorious Nazi prisoner of war camp named Stalag VIIIB in Upper Silesia.

With his brother Jimmy and friend Joe Harkin, Mr McCallum, who had been a reservist in the Signal Corps, spent four years devising a plan after being captured near Boulogne, in France, and taken to the camp.

The trio spent months analysing failed escape bids in an attempt to ensure the success of their mission – but it was thanks to the intervention of a local girl called Traudl that they finally managed to defy their captors.

In his bestselling book The Long Way Home: The Other Great Escape – which was published in 2005, after declassification of key documents under the Official Secrets Act – Mr McCallum told how Traudl forged documents which would allow them to travel by train across Germany pretending to be locals, after they had cut through a barbed wire fence at the camp. Ironically, the men passed through the town of Sagan on 25 March, 1944 – where on that same day, the famous Great Escape was taking place.

The Glasgow men eventually made it back to the RAF base in Leuchars, Fife, unscathed – after hiding in the coal hole of a ship during a journey which had taken them via Sweden.

During the operation, however, Mr McCallum had fallen in love with Traudl – but dared not attempt to contact her for fear of endangering her life. Many years later, he learned that she had married a Czech army officer.

Despite his experiences, he always held a place in his heart for Germany and returned to the country to work as an intelligence officer in Hamburg after the end of the conflict in 1945. He reached the rank of major.

It was here he met a German woman named Franziska, who would soon become his wife.

The couple lived in the west of Scotland for most of their married life, where Mr McCallum resumed work for the post office, before moving to Blairgowrie, Perthshire, in 2001. Mrs McCallum died in 2006.

Mr McCallum, who died in a community hospital in Crieff, Perthshire, last week, is survived by sons John and Kenneth.

He spent his last years in the nearby town of Comrie.

The forward to his book was written by George Robertson, former UK defence secretary and Nato chief, who described it as “a great tale with a deep message”.