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A guard tower is seen at the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau near Oswiecim January 26, 2015. Ceremonies to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the camp will take place on January 27, with some 300 former Auschwitz prisoners taking part in the commemoration event. The Germans built the Auschwitz camp in 1940 as a place of incarceration for the Poles. From 1942, it became the largest site of extermination of the Jews from Europe. In Auschwitz, the Nazi Germans killed at least 1.1 million people, mainly Jews, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and prisoners of other ethnicities. On January 27, 1945 the camp was liberated by the Red Army soldiers. Reuters/Laszlo Balogh

Airman Paul Royle, who was one of the two remaining survivors of World War II’s “The Great Escape,” died at a Hollywood hospital in Perth on Wednesday. He was one of the 76 men who escaped a Nazi prison camp in Poland called Stalag Luft III in 1944.

At the age of 101, he succumbed to death after he was hospitalised for surgery for a fractured hip. The former RAF pilot, along with other 75 men, made a 110m tunnel by disposing of soil dug from the tunnel through his trousers under plain sight of guards to escape from their captors in Poland.

Royle’s son Gordon said his death left former squadron leader Dick Churchill, from Devon in the UK, as “the last survivor” of the 1944 Great Escape, which is considered to be the most famous prison break .

He was also among the lucky 23 men who were not executed by a firing squad, acting on the orders of Adolf Hitler.

His son also spoke of his father’s extraordinary achievements and what a remarkable man he was. "Dad continued to live his life to the full. It was a fall that killed him in the end," he said. It has been reported that a memorial service is set to be conducted at Karrakatta Cemetery in Perth on Sep. 2.

In an interview with ABC , he shared his story of narrow escape. “You’d have to be very careful because the soil from the tunnel was a different colour from the soil on the surface mostly, and you would get a suitable place to put it where there was similar soil,” he said.

Before he passed away, he told ABC about his experience in the Nazi camp where everything was covered with snow and it became increasingly difficult to survive. As a result, there was need for an escape route.

His freedom was short-lived as 73 men were recaptured in a small village nearby and taken to a local jail in a German village within a few hours of their escape. "[It was a] dreadful place, a bit like Fremantle jail ... only worse," he added .

Mr Royle had spent almost five years as a prisoner of war before returning to Australia and working in the Kalgoorlie mining industry.

A movie named “The Great Escape” was also made based on this “prison break” incident, starring Steve McQueen , James Garner and Richard Attenborough and was filmed in Panavision. The details of the incidents were taken from Paul Brickhill 's 1950 book of the same name.

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