Anthony Z Pengelly

Flight Lieutenant Anthony Zillwood Tremayne Pengelly (1920–2002).

Flight Lieutenant Anthony Zillwood Tremayne Pengelly was one of Canada’s most remarkable yet least-known Second World War airmen. Born in Truro, Nova Scotia, in 1920 and raised in Weston, Ontario, he travelled to Britain at the age of nineteen to enlist in the Royal Air Force. After earning his wings as a bomber pilot, he flew operations over occupied Europe during the opening months of the air war against Nazi Germany.

In November 1940, while returning from an operational mission, Pengelly’s aircraft was shot down over occupied Europe. Captured by German forces at just twenty years of age, he began what would become four and a half years as a prisoner of war. After being transferred through several camps, he was eventually imprisoned at Stalag Luft III, the Luftwaffe camp reserved for captured Allied airmen and later immortalized by The Great Escape.

Inside Stalag Luft III, Pengelly became one of the senior leaders of the Escape Committee’s clandestine forgery organization, known by the codename “Dean and Dawson,” a tongue-in-cheek reference to a well-known British travel agency. While engineers and miners secretly dug escape tunnels beneath the camp, Pengelly and his team created the forged identity papers that gave escapees their only chance of surviving once beyond the prison fences.

As head of one of the forgery sections, Pengelly supervised a remarkable underground workshop of artists, draftsmen, engravers and calligraphers who painstakingly reproduced German travel permits, identity cards, work papers, railway documents, official stamps and countless other credentials entirely by hand. Every detail had to withstand close inspection by German police and railway officials, as a single mistake could mean immediate arrest or execution.

To obtain authentic examples for copying, Pengelly carefully cultivated relationships with selected German guards using cigarettes, chocolate and other items from Red Cross parcels. Through patience and subtle persuasion, he occasionally convinced guards to loan genuine documents, stamps and timetables without fully realizing they were assisting the escape organization. Pengelly later described the method as “the psychology of binding a man with a thread”—drawing a person into ever greater cooperation through seemingly harmless favours. The forgery department’s own records were so carefully protected that Pengelly concealed them inside the pendulum housing of a cuckoo clock within his barracks.

By early 1944, the forgery factory had produced hundreds of forged documents for the mass escape then being planned through Tunnel “Harry.” Pengelly himself had earned Number 93 on the escape list, placing him among those selected to attempt freedom.

He voluntarily surrendered his place.

Recognizing that someone experienced had to remain behind to inspect every forged document before each escapee entered the tunnel, Pengelly chose duty over his own chance of liberty. Throughout the night of 24–25 March 1944, he stood at the entrance to Tunnel Harry, personally checking each man’s identity papers, travel permits and cover story before sending him into the darkness. It was a decision he later described as the greatest of his life. Although seventy-six prisoners escaped the camp before the operation was discovered, fifty were later murdered by the Gestapo on Adolf Hitler’s orders. Pengelly’s work gave every escapee the best possible chance of surviving outside the wire.

Liberated in 1945, Pengelly returned to Canada the following year with his new bride, Pauline. He built a distinguished career in business and marketing with Lever Brothers, General Foods, McKim Advertising and Warner-Lambert, eventually serving as President of the Association of Canadian Advertisers. In retirement, he and Pauline settled in Niagara-on-the-Lake, where he devoted countless hours to volunteer service with the Boy Scouts, United Way, the West Scarborough Boys Club and the Shaw Festival.

Anthony Zillwood Tremayne Pengelly died on 5 April 2002, leaving behind a legacy that remained largely unknown outside his family and fellow veterans. Although he never received a decoration for gallantry, his quiet leadership inside the forgery operation at Stalag Luft III was indispensable to one of the most daring escape attempts of the Second World War. His willingness to sacrifice his own opportunity for freedom so that others might escape stands as a lasting testament to courage, selflessness and unwavering duty.

His story remains a powerful reminder that history is shaped not only by those who fought on the battlefield, but also by those whose courage, skill, and selfless decisions made extraordinary acts possible.