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) Eric Ashley-Pitt of the Royal Navy devises a method of spreading soil from the tunnels over the camp, under the guards' noses. Flight Lieutenant Griffith acts as "the tailor", creating civilian outfits from scavenged cloth. Forgery is handled by Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe. The prisoners work on three tunnels simultaneously, calling them "Tom", "Dick", and "Harry". USAAF Captain Virgil Hilts, the "Cooler King", irritates guards with frequent escape attempts and irreverence. Hilts and his Scottish friend, RAF Flying Officer Archibald "Archie" Ives, conceive an escape attempt through a short tunnel at a blind spot near the edge of the camp,