Biography for
Wally Floody More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

28 April 1918, Chatham, Ontario, Canada

Date of Death

25 September 1989, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (chronic lung disease)

Birth Name

Clark Wallace Floody

Nickname

Wally the Tunnel King

Mini Biography

Wally Floody was a Mining Tunnel Engineer in Ontario, Canada before joining the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940. Wally flew Spitfires in 401 Squadron until he was shot down and became a Prisoner of War on October 28th 1941. For four years, Wally had made many escape attempts and dug a number of tunnels before being sent to Stalag Luft III where his greatest escape took place. Wally designed and built three tunnels called "Tom", "Dick" and "Harry", both going 30ft below the ground, heading straight for the woods. Unfortunetly one of the tunnels was discovered and Wally got sent to a different POW Camp before the escape began. When the War was reaching the end, Wally was set free and and returned to Canada where he lived the rest of his life.

In 1963 Wally was hired as the Technical advisor for John Sturges's Motion Picture version of Paul Brickhill's Novel "The Great Escape". He returned to Germany where he worked full time for a whole year making sure the film was authentic to the actual escape. Wally Floody died of natural causes in 1998.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Tom MacNeill

Trivia

He was awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) after World War II in 1945 after building and designing the Tunnels from the Great Escape.