Bill Ash escaping activities. He ended the war as a flight lieutenant. In August 2015, the BBC reported: "When Ash died aged 96 last year his obituaries noted that he was said to have been the model for Virgil Hilts, the lean, leather-jacketed airman played by Steve McQueen in the 1963 film "The Great Escape"". The character Hilts, nicknamed "The Cooler King" because of the time he spends in the prison camp's punishment block (which the prisoners call the "cooler") for his persistent escape attempts, steals a motorbike and tries to escape to Switzerland but is caught while using it to jump
The Great Escape (film) a proposal which is accepted by Bartlett on the grounds that vetoing every independent escape attempt would raise suspicion of the planned collective escape attempt. Hilts and Ives are caught and returned to the "cooler". Upon release from the cooler, Bartlett requests that Hilts use his next escape attempt as an opportunity to reconnoiter the area immediately surrounding the camp; Hilts turns down Bartlett's request but does assist the prisoners as a scrounger. Meanwhile, Hendley forms a friendship with German guard Werner, which he exploits to smuggle documents and other items of importance to the prisoners. Soon, Bartlett orders "Dick"