Bram van der Stok Bram van der Stok , MBE ( 30 October 1915 – 8 February 1993 ) , also referred to as Bob van der Stok , was the most decorated aviator in Dutch history , as well as one of the three men to escape to freedom in " the Great Escape " from German POW camp Stalag Luft III . Personal life . He spent his childhood between Sumatra , the Netherlands and the Dutch West Indies . After finishing his education at the " Lyceum Alpinum " in Switzerland he studied medicine at Leiden University where he became enamoured with rowing and ice hockey , and in 1936 he joined the Royal Netherlands Air Force where he flew a Fokker D . XXI , and continued his medical training at Utrecht University . When the Netherlands were attacked by German forces in 1940 , Van der Stok scored the first victory when he shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 109 while on patrol over De Kooy airfield . After the Netherlands ' capitulation , he made three unsuccessful attempts to escape to England , before finally reaching Scotland in June 1941 , after escaping from Rotterdam as a stowaway on board of the Swiss merchant ship Saint Cerque , together with Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema and two others . He was awarded the Dutch Bronze Cross for his actions by Queen Wilhelmina . Following a refresher course at 57 OTU , he was posted to 41 Squadron in December 1941 where he made further claims during March and April 1942 . Stalag Luft III . On 12 April 1942 , during ' Circus 122 ' Van der Stok was shot down while flying Spitfire Vb " BL595 " over France and parachuted into a waiting German patrol , who processed him . He was incarcerated in the newly built " Stalag Luft III " , where he made a total of three escape attempts . The first was foiled inadvertently by another POW who drew attention to the escaping Van der Stok while retrieving a stolen German cap from the roof of a hut , and the second was thwarted when German officials noticed that his forged pass was out - of - date . In what later became known as the " Great Escape " , he was the 18th of the total 76 prisoners that managed to escape from the camp . Out of these escapees , only three made it to neutral countries and freedom : Van der Stok , who crossed much of the European countryside before arriving in the safety of Spain , and two Norwegians , Per Bergsland and Jens Müller , who managed to escape to neutral Sweden . Van der Stok traveled from Breslau train station to Dresden where he was stopped at several checkpoints , convincing the Germans that he was not one of the escapees . He finally reached Utrecht through Oldenzaal and met up with a member of the Underground who prepared him for his bicycle trek to another safe house in Belgium . There he adopted a new Belgian persona and traveled by train through Brussels and Paris , before reaching Toulouse where he was grouped with two American lieutenants , two RAF pilots , a French officer and a Russian , all being led by their French guide who led them across the Pyrenees to Lleida in Spain . The British consulate took possession of the Allied escapees and over three months after his original escape , Van der Stok finally arrived in Gibraltar on 8 July and was flown to Bristol on 11 July . After his escape Van der Stok rejoined the RAF Spitfire 91 Squadron and took part in both Normandy and anti - V - 1 operations . The following year he joined 74 Squadron for a brief time before moving in March 1945 to command the Dutch - manned RAF 322 Squadron based in the Netherlands , where he learned that his two brothers had been killed in concentration camp s and his father had been blinded by the Gestapo . Escape & Evasion Report F / Lt . Bram van der Stok , interview 10 – 11 July 1944 . In this Report from The National ( RAF ) Archives one can , without any doubt , read that Bram van der Stok was captured by the Germans near St . Omer ( North of France ) on 12 April 1942 . At the end of his escape he left Gibraltar on 10 July 1944 and landed at Whitchurch Airport ( Bristol ) on 11 July 1944 . However in his book " War Pilot of Orange " Van der Stok wrote that he was captured 14 July 1942 , and landed after his escape on English soil on 20 May 1944 . These data are incorrect . After the war . He was awarded the Order of Orange Nassau from the Netherlands and two years after the war he was inducted as a Member of the Order of the British Empire . He was offered the command of the new Dutch air force , but declined and instead finished his medicine studies . He later moved to the U . S . with his wife Petie and their three children . There he worked as an OB - GYN in Syracuse , New York and as a GP in Ruidoso , New Mexico , though he later joined NASA ' s space lab research team in Huntsville , Alabama . In 1970 Van der Stok moved to Honolulu , where he practiced medicine , and in 1980 published " Oorlogsvlieger van Oranje " , later translated into English as " War Pilot of Orange " . He later joined the U . S . Coast Guard Auxiliary and took part in 162 rescues before his death in 1993 . In the 1963 film " The Great Escape " , he was composited into the character of Sedgwick , played by James Coburn .