Bill Goldfinch Flight lieutenant Bill Goldfinch ( 12 July 1916 – 2 October 2007 ) was a Royal Air Force pilot who , with Tony Rolt and Jack Best , designed and built a glider in an attic of Colditz Castle , as part of the most audacious of all the projected escapes from the Second World War ' s most famous prison camp . Early life . He was born Leslie James Edward Goldfinch , but was always known as ' Bill ' , was born at Whitstable , Kent . He was a second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers from 1935 to 1939 . After enlisting in the RAF he began training at RAF Martlesham Heath , Suffolk , was then sent to Rhodesia and completed his operational training in Egypt . Active service . Posted to No . 228 Squadron RAF , he flew Short Sunderland s where he played an important role during the evacuation of Greece . At Kalamata on 25 April 1941 the plane was overloaded with 72 men and on its second attempt required a five - mile take - off run , and reached Suda Bay , Crete . Goldfinch and his crew were immediately ordered to return to Kalamata . As the aircraft attempted to land in the dark it hit an object in the water and sank . Goldfinch was one of four survivors from the crew of 10 . Badly injured , he was taken to a military hospital , where he met Best , who had also crashed off southern Greece . The hospital was then captured by the Germans Escape attempts . At Stalag Luft III he , Best & Henry ' Piglet ' Lamond tunnelled outside the perimeter fence and stole a rowing boat on the Oder river . Unfortunately they rowed on the wrong side of the river , and were captured . This time he & Best were sent to Colditz . Lamond remained at Stalag Luft III & later assisted in building the 3 tunnels for The Great Escape . Whilst at Colditz , Goldfinch & Best headed a team to build a glider that could be launched from the roof of the castle . Known as the " Colditz Cock " , it was approaching completion when the camp was relieved by the Allies on 16 April 1945 . The fate of the glider is not known but the castle was in the zone controlled by the Russians who did not co - operate with its reclamation . The only record of its existence was a photograph , probably taken by an American soldier . However Goldfinch had kept his drawings , which enabled a one - third scale model to be constructed . This was eventually launched from the castle roof in 1993 . Six years later a full - sized replica of the Colditz glider was commissioned by Channel 4 and was built by Southdown Aviation Ltd at Lasham Airfield . The glider was flown successfully by John Lee on its first attempt at RAF Odiham with Best , Goldfinch and about a dozen of the veterans who had worked on the original more than 55 years earlier proudly looking on . It is currently housed at the Imperial War Museum in London . Jack Best died later that year . The programme was shown in 2000 Channel 4 in the UK as part of a 3 - part ( 150 minute total ) " Escape from Colditz " documentary . The Channel 4 material was edited to 60 minutes and shown in the US in 2001 as " Nazi Prison Escape " on the NOVA television series . After the war . After the war Goldfinch settled with his wife Pauline and their daughter at Poole , Dorset , where he was borough engineer . On retiring as acting city engineer of Salisbury in 1974 , he devoted himself to his love of flying and making aircraft . He built a Luton Minor in the 1970s , which he flew regularly from Old Sarum Airfield until he was in his late eighties . Over his last eleven years Bill Goldfinch had worked for five days a week , with secondhand materials , on his version of a seaplane which had been developed for the US Navy in the 1920s . It was to have had its second taxiing trials the day after he died .