Air Commodore Charles Henry Clarke, (25 November 1923 – 7 May 2019) was a British Royal Air Force officer. Having served in Bomber Command in the Second World War, he was shot down and interned at Stalag Luft III—this was The Great Escape camp and he acted as a watcher but was not involved in the escape itself. He remained in the RAF after the war, commanded RAF Stafford, served in Palestine, Aden and Malta, before retiring in 1978. He later campaigned for a memorial to Bomber Command: one was finally erected in 2012 in London. Early life and education Clarke was born on 25 November 1923 in the Old Street area of Tottenham, London, England. He was the eldest of three children of Thomas Clarke, who had fought in the Machine Gun Corps in the First World War, and Elizabeth. He was educated at Down Lane Central School in Tottenham. He left school at the age of 17. RAF career Second World War In 1941, Clarke joined the Royal Air Force. Serving in the other ranks, he rose to leading aircraftman. On 1 March 1943, he was commissioned into the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve as a pilot officer on probation (emergency commission). He was posted to No. 619 Squadron, where he served as a bomb aimer on the squadron's Lancasters. He completed 18 missions before being shot down on his 19th. On 25 February 1944, while on a bombing mission to Germany, Clarke was shot down over the Black Forest. He and three others parachuted from the plane; the three other crew members died in the crash. He was captured by the Germans, and eventually taken to Stalag Luft III: he arrived at the prisoner of war camp weeks before The Great Escape of 24/25 March 1944. Clarke acted as a watcher to those digging the tunnels (warning them of any nearing guards) and as a forger (creating papers for the escapees). He did not take part in the escape itself, and remained in the camp until a forced march in January 1945 (the "Long March") took him and the remaining prisoners to a new camp near Lübeck. He was promoted to a war substantive flight lieutenant on 1 March 1945. He was liberated by British forces in April 1945. In later life, he helped build a replica of Hut 104 (the start of The Great Escape tunnel)