MALAYA: End of the Hunt

Though many had tried, none had ever escaped for long from Stalag-Luft III, deep in the heart of Germany. But past failures did not discourage Captain Richard Michael Clinton Codner of the Royal Artillery, a young (23) and bronzed Oxford undergraduate with a mop of black hair and a sensitive, mischievous face. Around the camp he was known as "a classical fellow, always reading Latin and he could spout it by the yard."

It was Codner, with his knowledge of the classics, who thought of the wooden horse and convinced two others—Navigator Eric Williams and Squadron Leader Oliver Philpot—that it...