RWTX, the Steve McQueen caper was pure fiction. Never happened, not even close. My father was one of the organizers of The Great Escape at Stalag Luft III.

His closest buddies were the security and tunneling bosses, George Harsh, a very rich American who did 12 years on a Georgia chain gang, and Wally Floody, a Canadian hardrock miner.

Wally, a consultant on the film, said "Aw hell, if it (the motorcycle caper) makes a good story, let 'er go." For real drama, read Harsh's Lonesome Road, a wonderful writer, humanist and US hero.

When he botched a suicide attempt and wasn't doing well in US military hospital, Wally, my father and his other Canadian wartime flying buddies brought him to Sunnybrook in Toronto, the best in the country.

He died happily here with his Canadian "family."