One of two remaining survivors of World War II's most famous prison break, known as The Great Escape has died in a Perth hospital.

Paul Royle was 101 years old when he died on Sunday at Hollywood Hospital in Perth, following surgery for a fractured hip.

He was one of more than 70 men who broke out of a German prisoner of war camp in Poland called Stalag Luft III in 1944.

The daring escape was later immortalised in the film The Great Escape, starring Steve McQueen.

Mr Royle fell at the low-care facility Hollywood village in Nedlands where he was living.

His son Gordon Royle, a mathematics professor at the University of Western Australia, said his father was a remarkable man.

"Dad continued to live his life to the full. It was a fall that killed him in the end," he said.

A memorial service will be held at Karrakatta Cemetery on Wednesday.



A total of 76 men broke out of German prison camp Stalag Luft III on a bitterly cold March night in 1944, digging a 10-metre-deep tunnel underneath the camp.

While three Allied prisoners made it to freedom, the rest of the men were quickly recaptured and 50 were shot and killed on Adolf Hitler's orders.

Former RAF Flight Lieutenant Royle was one of the lucky ones, having been spared execution.

The only living member of the legendary prison break is 94-year-old British man Dick Churchill.

RAF Flight Lieutenant Royle made it through the tunnel but was recaptured in a small village nearby. ( ABC News )

Interviewed in 2014 to mark the 70th anniversary of The Great Escape, Mr Royle said then he still had vivid memories of emerging from the tunnel to a snowy landscape.

"It was very pleasant and all we saw was great heaps of snow and pine trees. There was snow everywhere, it was cold," he said.

After making it through the tunnel, Mr Royle waited for his companion and the pair walked through the night before finding a place to sleep for the day in the bushes.

His freedom was short-lived however, lasting only a few hours until he and his companion were recaptured in a small village nearby and taken to a local jail in a German village.

"[It was a] dreadful place, a bit like Fremantle jail ... only worse," he said.

He was later returned to the prison at the original camp he had escaped from, where he met Australian fighter pilot and writer Paul Brickhill, whose book The Great Escape told the story of the mass breakout.

Mr Royle spent nearly five years as a prisoner of war before returning to Australia and working in the Kalgoorlie mining industry.