The death of “Mic” Shand leaves only five survivors of the 76 officers who escaped through a tunnel from Stalag Luft III in Silesia, 100 miles southeast of Berlin, on the night of March 24, 1944.

This “great escape”, as it became known, was an outstanding example of planning, organisation and determination intended to allow 200 Allied prisoners of war to get away. By an unlucky chance, a German sentry stumbled across the exit point beyond the wire as the 77th man emerged. All but three of those who got out were recaptured and, of those – on Hitler’s order – 50 were shot by the Gestapo.

Shand was a New Zealander and a Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot, who was later awarded the DFC while a flight commander of 485 Squadron RNZAF. He was shot down while leading a low-level sweep against opportunity targets on the Dutch coast on November 28, 1942.

Taken prisoner and incarcerated in the vast, purpose-built prison camp for captured Allied Air Force officers at Sagan, he became an enthusiastic member of the tunnelling team working on a complex plan to get out of an installation specifically sited and constructed to prevent escape. The camp huts were on stilts to prevent tunnelling and stood in a clearing in a vast pine forest, miles from anywhere. It was subdivided into separate compounds to facilitate close control.

The camp’s north compound escape committee, headed by Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, hit on the idea of sinking a vertical shaft through and then below the concrete base of a kitchen or washroom at the end of one of the huts. The escape committee also decided that the best chance of escape lay in constructing three tunnels simultaneously so, if one should be discovered, effort could be diverted to one or both of the others.

Two tunnels code-named “Tom” and “Dick” were to run some 280 feet to the forest edge beyond the wire to the west, while the longest tunnel “Harry” ran northwards. Work began in April 1943.

Digging had to be suspended on Harry, which demanded the largest work force, when a large group of prisoners was moved to a camp in Poland. When it was learnt in June that a new compound was to be built where Tom and Dick were due to emerge, all effort was switched to Tom, which had reached the greater distance, so the escape could be made before work on the new compound began. Priority had to be changed again when traces of sand found in the entry point hut led to discovery of Tom. So, on January 10, 1944, work resumed on Harry.

Nine weeks of highly organised work and concealment of huge quantities of extracted soil under the camp theatre led to the completion of Harry by March 14. Two hundred prisoners were carefully selected for the breakout at full moon ten days later. The first 30 were fluent German speakers, thought to have the best chance of making a “home run”. The next 70 had worked on the tunnel and the final 100 were names taken from a hat of 500 volunteers.

Shand had worked hard in the tunnelling and drew a number in the seventies of the escape sequence, just before his friend Squadron Leader Len Trent, who was number 79. The pair had no sophisticated disguise or plan but intended to travel rough – “hard-arse” in prisoner terms – in the direction of Switzerland.

The start time for the breakout was delayed, first by difficulty in moving the escape hatch at the far end of the tunnel and then the appalling discovery that the exit hole was 25 feet short of the forest edge and clearly visible in the snow. A snap decision to go was taken, however, as the perimeter sentries would be watching inwards; the real threat came from the prowler sentries patrolling outside the fence.

Shand emerged from the tunnel and was heading for the forest edge as Trent was crawling out when one of the two escapers, acting as controllers and watchers at the exit, saw a sentry walking slowly towards where they were lying. The sentry was actually leaving his beat only to urinate in the snow, but found himself standing over Trent in the act of emerging from the tunnel. At the same time, the surprised sentry’s attention was distracted by movement at the forest edge and, rather more to give the alarm than to kill, he fired a single shot over Shand’s head. The sentry then blew his alarm whistle, leaving Trent and the two exit controllers no alternative but to surrender. Shand ran on into the forest.

He continued on the run for four days in the bitter cold, walking through the dark hours and resting up by day. He ruefully acknowledged years later that neither he nor the majority of others who got out had any real hope of reaching England. The nights were freezing, and German police and home guard had been deployed on special alert to trap or track down the escapers.

As with many others who took part in the escape attempt, whether they actually got out or not, he felt he just had to do something to cause what chaos they could in Germany.

Shand was caught by the German police while trying to jump aboard a train. Initially held in a local prison with other recaptured airmen, he had no inkling of the procedure by which 50 of their number were selected to be shot in fulfilment of Hitler’s order. It appears that an element of humanity was exercised, in that very young officers and those who were married with young children were spared. Shand was one of 15 of those recaptured to be returned to Stalag Luft III. After interrogation by the Gestapo in Berlin, eight were sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp from where, almost unbelievably, three managed to escape.

Michael Moray Shand was born in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1915 and educated at Nelson College. After the war he returned with his English wife to New Zealand and spent the rest of his working life farming in the Wairarapa region of the North Island. His wife predeceased him, and he is survived by their son and daughter.

Flight Lieutenant Michael Shand, DFC, Battle of Britain pilot and survivor of the great escape from Stalag Luft III, was born on February 20, 1915. He died on December 22, 2007, aged 92