A veteran thought to be the last survivor of the prisoner-of-war breakout immortalised in the film The Great Escape has died, it emerged yesterday.

Jack Harrison, one of scores of Allied servicemen who tried to flee Stalag Luft III during World War II, passed away aged 97, his care home said. The former RAF pilot was waiting to go down the tunnel when the underground escape attempt was noticed, and he frantically burned his forged documentation before changing back into a PoW uniform.

A total of 76 prisoners broke out of the camp in March 1944, but only three reached safety. Fifty of those recaptured were shot. The episode was featured in the blockbusting 1963 film, which starred the likes of Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Garner and Richard Attenborough.

Mr Harrison had been working as a Latin and classical teacher at Dornach Academy in Sutherland when he was called up to serve in the RAF as a pilot. He was shot down on his first mission in November 1942, to bomb German supply ships at the Dutch port of Den Helder.

After being captured by German forces, he was eventually transferred to Stalag Luft III on the Polish border.

On the night of March 24, 1944, around 200 prisoners prepared to escape through a tunnel code-named Harry about 10 metres under the ground. Two other passages, called Tom and Dick, had already been discovered by the camp guards.