Robert Leith - Macgregor Lieutenant Colonel Robert Leith - Macgregor MC DFC ( 23 August 1917 – 14 November 2008 ) was a British Army officer and Royal Air Force pilot . He fought in the Second World War , initially as an infantry officer in the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers , before training as a pilot and transferring to the Royal Air Force . He was shot down several times and eventually became a Prisoner of War . Post - war he returned to the army , serving again with the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers in the Korean War , and later commanding a battalion of that regiment . Early life and Second World War . The stepson of an admiral , Leith - Macgregor initially trained at the Nautical College , Pangbourne but could not deal with the five hours of mathematics a day , and after three years transferred to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst . On passing out he was commissioned into the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers as a second lieutenant on 25 August 1938 , and was posted to the 2nd Battalion . He served in Belgium in 1939 but became bored with serving as a soldier , and instead volunteered to be trained as an army liaison pilot , gaining an additional RAF commission as a pilot officer in the Royal Air Force on 11 April 1940 . After training on a de Havilland Tiger Moth he was taught to fly the Westland Lysander and posted to No . 241 Squadron RAF . He was transferred to No . 208 Squadron RAF to fly the Hawker Hurricane in the North African Campaign , and twice crashed . He was first shot down , but survived with no injuries despite his crashed aircraft being strafe d by three German fighters before he could escape . On the second occasion his engines failed and he was forced to crash - land ; it later transpired he had taxied 75 yards in an active minefield without detonating anything . He had retained his army commission and was promoted lieutenant on 1 January 1941 , and in the RAF , war substantive flying officer on 11 April 1941 . In June 1942 , he was attacked by four Messerschmitt Bf 109 s ; he destroyed one , but was himself shot down . Despite again being strafed by the remaining planes he survived unharmed , and returned to his base just in time to find his flight sergeant ( who had witnessed events ) organising a burial detail . Leith - Macgregor was immediately awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross . The citation was published in the " London Gazette " on 28 July 1942 : He was again shot down in August over El Alamein and was trapped inside the aircraft with the ammunition exploding . Nearby German soldiers broke through the canopy with an axe and helped him escape . After an attempt to escape , he was transferred to an Italian Prisoner of War camp where he was brutally interrogated and held in a cage measuring five feet by three feet . He was transferred to a camp in Gavi and after the Italian armistice sent to Stalag Luft III ; he did not escape in The Great Escape but was instead transferred yet again to a naval prisoner of war camp near Hamburg , where a sergeant from the Scots Guards cut the wire and let the prisoners escape . Korean War and later life . On 26 August 1945 , he relinquished his RAF commission to return to army duty as a lieutenant . He rejoined the Fusiliers , was promoted captain on 1 July 1946 , and served with the 1st Battalion in the Korean War . While there , he was promoted temporary major , and given command of the battalion ' s Y Company . For the leadership he displayed on 3 January 1951 , he was awarded the Military Cross for placing Y Company so well on a hill that , despite an attack by a massive Chinese force , the enemy were unable to dislodge them , and the company withdrew without a single man killed . Brigadier Brodie , commander of 29th Independent Brigade described it as " a performance of the highest order " when countersigning the recommendation . The award was announced in the " London Gazette " on 10 July 1951 . He received substantive promotion to major on 25 August 1951 . He then commanded a company at Eaton Hall Officer Cadet School followed by a spell as second in command of a battalion of the Nigeria Regiment and as training officer of the 7th battalion RNF ( the Territorial Army unit associated with the regiment ) . Promoted lieutenant colonel on 5 February 1960 , he commanded the 1st battalion before , aware he had no staff training , he retired on 5 December 1962 . In retirement he worked first as a Guinness representative , and later as a marketing director for Rank Hotels and the Park Lane Hotel .