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Leslie James Edward Goldfinch

1916–2007

‘Bill’ Goldfinch had joined the Royal Engineers TA soon after leaving school in 1932 but in 1939 he enlisted in the RAF and began his training at Martlesham Heath. He was sent to Rhodesia and eventually completed his operational training in Egypt. Posted to 228 Squadron, flying Sunderlands, he took part in two epic sorties during the evacuation of Greece. After the grossly overloaded plane had transferred 70 airmen from Greece to Crete they were then ordered back to Greece, but, while attempting to land in the dark, hit a submerged object and sank,. Bill was one of four of the ten man crew who survived but was badly wounded and soon found himself in German hands. Eventually sent, with his new friend Jack Best, to Stalag Luft 1 they immediately started planning to escape and after dreaming of constructing a glider and then a gyroplane, they settled for a tunnel. After emerging from the tunnel they set off to the nearby airfield with the intention of stealing a plane but found them all securely locked. Recaptured when their attempt at rowing away drew attention, they were captured on the riverbank as they slept.

Now with a reputation as escapers Bill and Jack Best were sent to Colditz Castle, supposedly the most secure prisoner of war camp in Germany.

It was here that Bill Goldfinch instigated and planned the construction of a glider to fly two men from the castle roof over the walls. This amazing project is well documented in Pat Reid’s ‘The Colditz Story’ and is part of the film of the same name. Incredibly, Bill was helped in his design by the discovery of a book in the prison library on aircraft construction!

A workshop was established and concealed in the roof of the castle and, with Jack Best making the tools, a glider with a 33ft wingspan and a planned launching speed of 31mph was built without the knowledge of the Germans. Perhaps fortunately, the camp was liberated by the Americans before the flight could take place but, on the morning of the liberation, and to the astonishment of the Americans and their German guards, the glider was brought down and assembled in the courtyard. On his release Bill brought the drawings out with him although the glider had to be left behind.

After the war the glider was largely dismissed as a myth until a one third model was built from Bill’s drawings and was flown from the castle roof in 1993. Six years later Channel 4 commissioned a full size glider to be built from Bill’s drawings for the television series Escape from Colditz. When the glider was finally launched for a three minute flight , reaching 700ft at RAF Odiham, about a dozen of the veterans who had worked on the original more than 55 years earlier, proudly looked on.

Back in civilian life Bill settled with his wife Pauline and their daughter at Poole, Dorset where he was borough engineer. On retiring as acting city engineer of Salisbury in 1974, he devoted himself to his love of flying and making aircraft. He built a Luton Minor in the 1970s, which he flew regularly from Old Sarum flying club until he was in his late eighties. Over the last 11 years Bill had worked for five days a week, with secondhand materials, on his version of a seaplane which had been developed for the US Navy in the 1920s. It was to have had its second taxiing trials the day after he died.

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