Remembering Alex Cassie: A Key Figure in ‘The Great Escape’

Alex Cassie was an officer in the British RAF who was captured by the Germans during World War Two.

His document-forging work in the prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft III was immortalized in the movie “The Great Escape.”

In fact, he was one of a group of men who inspired the character of Blythe (played by Donald Pleasence) in the 1963 film. That’s appropriate: among the prisoners at Stalag Luft III, the individual was less important than the group. 

But, in a British TV program, Alex Cassie did credit one man as the driving force behind the escape: a South African born Royal Air Force squadron leader named Roger Bushell.

Bushell was the model for the character played by Richard Attenborough in the film. For a while, Cassie and others thought he’d been killed. But, said Cassie, “then I remember a distinct note of elation when people said Roger Bushell’s coming back. And there he was, [and] he was put in charge of escaping. One felt then that the thing was in safe hands.”

Roger Bushell put in place an extraordinary operation, code-named X-Organisation. The prisoners of war built three tunnels, named Tom, Dick and Harry. Those tunnels required elaborate planning, right down to the installation of a system that could pump oxygen deep underground. It was made out of tin cans.

But Alex Cassie’s work was about preparing for the journey beyond the tunnels, when an escapee in disguise might be confronted by a German soldier. He and the other forgers created hundreds of ID cards, complete with official-looking stamps. But how did they make those stamps? 

Alan Bryett, another British airman held in Stalag Luft III, recalled “a chap coming round and taking my boots away. When I got them back the rubber heels had been taken off and there were wooden heels there. Because the rubber heel was used to make rubber stamps which you could then cut a swastika out to put stamps on passes.”

The passes that Alex Cassie forged had to be exact in every detail. They stained paper with tea to make it the correct color; they made ink by mixing soot with oil. It was work to which Cassie was well-suited: he was a talented artist.

Everything had to be correct, right down to the date printed on the stamp. So when bad weather threatened the long-planned escape attempt, the passes were in danger of becoming obsolete. Cassie and his fellow forgers would have had to begin again–a process that would take another nine months.

As it turned out, the escape went ahead as planned. But Alex Cassie chose not to go himself. He suffered from claustrophobia and was afraid of holding back others in the tunnel.

On March 24th 1944, 76 men did escape. It was thought an astonishing success, until news came back two week later via the senior British officer at Stalag Luft III, Group Captain Herbert Massey.

Cassie said, “Massey came forward and said–and he was obviously deeply moved–he said ‘I was called to the commandant’s office this morning where he gave me the awful news that of the 76 officers who went out of the tunnel, 45 had been killed.’”

Of those 76 men who escaped, just three found their way to freedom. 50 were executed and the rest were again imprisoned.

Alex Cassie remained a prisoner until the end of the war. He went on to be a successful psychologist and painter. 

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