Canadian navigator Bill Paton was shot down in his 431 Squadron Wellington near Mannheim in April 1943 and sent to Stalag Luft III.  During the building of the tunnels for ‘The Great Escape’ he helped disperse the waste sand .  An expert baseball pitcher, he arranged matches to divert the attention of the guards and the activity on the field helped to spread the spoil dropped by the ‘penguins’ from the pouches suspended down the legs of their trousers.  In late January 1945, the PoWs were forced to march west in terrible weather in an ordeal that became known as ‘The Long March’. In the photograph of the Canadian PoW’s baseball team, Paton is 3rd from the left in the back row.

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