compound shortly before the escape. Born in 1910 to a wealthy and prominent family in the US state of Georgia, Harsh, a medical student, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1929 for the self-confessed thrill killing of a grocer. He saved the life of a fellow prisoner by performing an emergency appendectomy, for which Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge released him on parole in November 1940 and finally granted him a full pardon. He then joined the RCAF as a tail gunner and after being shot down in 1942 was sent to Stalag Luft III. In 1971 he published his autobiography which has since been translated into German and Russian. George J. Iles, US Army Air Forces officer and fighter pilot with the 332nd Fighter Group's 99th Fighter Squadron (the Tuskegee Airmen or "Red Tails) Transferred to Nuremberg-Langwasser, and finally to the 86-acre, multinational prisoner of war camp, Stalag VII-A, the largest POW camp in Nazi Germany. Lt Alexander Jefferson of the 332nd Fighter Group, the "Red Tails" of the Tuskegee Airmen based out of Ramitelli Airfield near Foggia, Italy. During his 19th mission over Toulon, southern France on 12 August 1944, while attacking a radar installation he was shot down. Parachuting to safety and landing within a forest, he was immediately captured by Nazi ground troops, and was interred at Stalag Luft III after the Great Escape. He was later transferred to Stalag VII-A, just outside Dachau. After the Russian Army entered Poland, the prisoners were marched to Munich by the Germans, where they were freed by General George Patton's US Third Army. David M. Jones, Commander of the 319th Bombardment Group in North Africa, was an inmate at Stalag Luft III for two and a half years. According to his biography he led the digging team on Harry. In early 1942 Jones took part in the Doolittle raid on Japan undertaken in retaliation for the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Squadron Leader Phil Lamason of the Royal New Zealand Air Force, who was also the senior officer in charge of 168 Allied airmen initially held at Buchenwald concentration camp. Fl Sgt Nathan 'Nat' Leaman, MiD escaper - attempted escape from Stalag Luft III - later transferred to Heydekrug - believed the 'scrounger' character in the film played by James Garner is based on Nat. See article by Martin Sugarman of AJEX, on Jewish Virtual Library and JHSE web