Thomas Gresham Kirby-green
Squadron Leader · 39103 · United Kingdom
- Born
- 27 February 1918, Dowa, Nyasaland
- Died
- 29 March 1944, aged 26
- Fate
- Killed in action
Biography
Squadron Leader Thomas Gresham Kirby-Green was born on 27 February 1918 at Dowa in Nyasaland (now Malawi), into a family with long colonial ties to Tangier. A bomber pilot with No. 40 Squadron, he was shot down over Duisburg on the night of 16/17 October 1941 — the sole survivor of his Wellington’s crew — and taken prisoner.
At Stalag Luft III he became the escape organisation’s chief of security, the “Big S” who ran the system of “stooges” watching the German guards so that tunnelling could go on undetected. In the Great Escape of 24/25 March 1944 he got clear of the camp disguised as a foreign worker, travelling south by train with the Canadian Gordon Kidder. The pair were recaptured in Moravia and, on 29 March 1944, murdered by the Gestapo near Moravská Ostrava — two of the fifty killed on Hitler’s orders.
Kirby-Green is buried in the Old Garrison Cemetery at Poznań, Poland, and is also remembered on a memorial at Tangier. He was 26.
Sources: This page was compiled from publicly available historical sources, including Wikipedia — List of Allied airmen from the Great Escape and Wikipedia — Thomas Kirby-Green. The text is original and has been written from factual source material; no source text has been copied unless specifically quoted and attributed.
Burial / commemoration
- Cemetery
- Poznan Old Garrison Cemetery, Poland
Prisoner of war
-
Stalag Luft III
— Died in captivity
Escape security chief “Big S”. One of “the Fifty” murdered by the Gestapo after the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III, March 1944. 40 Sqn RAF.
Operations on this date. One raid in this archive was flown on the night of 29 March 1944: Lyons. (Cross-reference by date — not in itself confirmation this airman flew it.)
Timeline
-
27 February 1918
Born
Dowa, Nyasaland -
29 March 1944
Died
aged 26
Source: Wikipedia — Thomas Kirby-Green →