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) attempts to reach neutral Switzerland, Sweden, or Spain, almost all the POWs are recaptured or killed. Hendley and Blythe steal a small plane to fly over the Swiss border, but the engine fails, and they crash-land. Soldiers approach them, and Blythe, his eyesight damaged, stands and is shot. As he dies, he thanks Hendley for getting him out. When Bartlett is recognized in a railway station by Kuhn, Ashley-Pitt rushes Kuhn and shoots him, but is killed while attempting to flee. The resulting confusion allows Bartlett and MacDonald to slip away, but they are later caught as well. Hilts stretches