Douggie Moir was a tank troop leader with the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment in May 1940 and took part in the 30th Infantry Brigade’s defence of Calais against elements of Guderian’s XIX Panzer Corps, which had swept up from Abbeville and Boulogne. 30th Brigade had been landed at Calais specifically to hold the port, but the odds against them were overwhelming. Together with the greater part of the brigade, Moir was taken prisoner and spent the rest of the war attempting to escape and helping others to do so — but a home run eluded him.

At first he was confined in Stalag VIIC at Laufen close to the preAnschluss Austrian border. While being transported the 300 miles from there to Oflag VIB at Warburg, north-west of Kassel, he and a companion squeezed through a hatch in the cattle truck and jumped clear of the moving train. They were at large for several days but then recaptured and sent on to Warburg.

Oflag VIB was a camp specially constructed to hold prisoners of war, situated on an isolated plateau three miles from Warburg railway station. Although several tunnels were being secretly dug, Moir joined a group of prisoners planning a mass escape using hinged ladders, made from duck-boards and roof beams, for crossing over the perimeter wire. The escape was to be made at night after the power to the perimeter lights had been short-circuited and a diversion staged by a decoy breakout by other prisoners at the opposite side of the camp.

In this escape, which went down in prison-camp lore as the “Warburg Wire Job”, of the 60 prisoners who were to make the attempt, 41 got over the wire and three made home runs. Moir and two companions were at liberty for nine days and managed to cross the Danube, 200 miles to the south, in an attempt to reach Switzerland. They were recaptured south of the river, however, and sent to Oflag VIIB at nearby Eichstätt.

On arrival at there, they were not surprised to be sentenced to solitary confinement although this was in the local schloss. Determined to get away, Moir and two Canadian officers incarcerated with him climbed 90 feet down from a window on an improvised rope of bed sheets. On reaching the ground, however, they were immediately intercepted by a German patrol and slammed back into their cells. It was almost certainly this demonstration of his resolve to take every opportunity to escape that led to his transfer to Oflag IVC — Colditz castle in Saxony, reserved for persistent escapers and other troublemakers.

He reached Colditz on June 30, 1943, a point where — to the prisoners at least — no end to the war was in sight. Morale in the castle was generally high, nevertheless, and numerous escape attempts were always being planned or prepared. Moir learnt that anyone caught trying to escape would be punished by solitary confinement, occasionally in cells in the town jail if the castle cells were full. It was thought relatively easy to escape from the town cells, but Moir’s bid to get there resulted only in having to serve his close confinement in the castle.

Subsequently he devoted his energies to his skill as a lock-picker and helping others in their escape plans, including work on the glider being built for an escape bid but not completed before the arrival of the US Army at the gates of Colditz in April 1945.

Moir was mentioned in dispatches in recognition of his determination to escape and return to the war. Despite this, in his later years he sometimes expressed, quite unjustifiably, a feeling of guilt as a professional soldier for having spent the war as a prisoner.

Douglas Norman Moir was the son of a civil engineer working in Basra, Iraq. His mother had to travel to India for his birth in 1918 as local conditions at the time were considered too hazardous. He was sent to England for his education at Kelly College, Tavistock, and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, from where he was commissioned into the Royal Tank Corps, later the Royal Tank Regiment, in August 1938.

After 1945 and tactical and technical updating on armoured development during the war years, he made his mark as a squadron commander of 7th Royal Tanks involved in the difficult matter of keeping Hindus and Muslims from killing each other at the time of India’s partition in 1947. He was stationed in Amritsar (scene of the infamous shooting into an unarmed, confined crowd by British troops in 1919) and, although the situation was extremely tense, he found that as soon as any of his armoured cars appeared in a cloud of dust the threatening crowds would hastily disperse.

After he left India, his positive attitude allowed him to continue his career almost as if it had not been interrupted by his imprisonment. In 1958 he was selected to command the Royal Armoured Corps Junior Leaders Regiment formed to train the increased intake of boys with leadership potential. Although the camp housing the new regiment was incomplete and had the appearance of a disaster zone, it was finished on time and fine young soldiers were trained thanks to Moir’s drive and personality.

Subsequently he was the armoured warfare adviser to the Jordanian Army and the British Army liaison officer to the headquarters of the 1st Belgian Corps in Germany. In retirement he and his wife established an attractive holiday venture in a large, Italianate, one-time vicarage overlooking the Lydford Gorge in Devon

He married Phyllis Wells, to whom he had become engaged before leaving for France in 1940, in May 1945, only one month after his release from Colditz. She survives him with their two daughters.

Lieutenant-Colonel Douggie Moir, Colditz veteran, was born on August 24, 1918. He died on May 6, 2008, aged 89