| Rank | Flt. Lt. |
| Unit # | RCAF |
Born 28 April, 1918 at Chatham, ON. The son of William Edward Floody and brother of Catherine. The family moved from Chatham when Wally was one year old and settled in Toronto where William worked in the magazine publishing business.
A very active young boy he enjoyed camping on the Toronto Islands and spent part of each summer on his cousin’s farm in Clinton, Ontario. Like most Toronto children he looked forward to the annual Toronto fair, loving the Ferris wheel and roller coasters. He attended high school at Northern Vocational in the fall of 1932 and was very active and excelled in football and basketball he was six foot in his senior year.
In 1936 when he turned 18 his father got him a job selling advertisement for the Toronto Star. It was the outdoors that he wanted and the gold mines in Northern Ontario paid better and the mines sponsored sports teams as well. His first mining job was at the Preston East Dome Mines in Timmins, working as a ‘mucker” –shoveling the rock and mud into hand carts to be hauled up to the surface. He would wander between the mines and Toronto. Clark Wallace Floody, “The Tunnel King”. Wally Floody would be a Mining Tunnel Engineer in Ontario before the war. Actually he worked under ground as a “mucker” but learned a lot about tunnelling.
In 1938 he was back in the big city at the invitation of friends who had an extra ticket to that years Gray Cup game, the Toronto Argonauts beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 30 – 7 but more importantly he met a young woman named Betty Baxter. Within a few moths they were talking about marriage but Wally wanted to do one thing first, a trip around North America with his friend Chez.
Wally and Chez left in the spring of 1939 and got all the way to Mexico working odd jobs to support themselves that all changed when Canada declared war against Germany in the fall of 1939. There was no second thought, Wally quit his cowboy job on an Alberta ranch and headed back to Toronto with his mind made up to join the RCAF.
The BCATP (British Commonwealth Air Training Plan) was just being put together and Wally found himself on the waiting list. By the spring of 1940 he was still waiting but went ahead and married Betty 24 May, 1940 and they moved to Kirkland Lake, ON., where Wally could work in the mines. Ironically the RCAF were looking for single men and it took some persuading but on Thanksgiving weekend he was ordered to report to No.2 Manning Depot at Brandon, Manitoba.
In November he was posted to No.2 (ITS) Initial Training School in Regina, Saskatchewan, now his serious training would begin. From there he was posted to Service Flying Training (SFT) at Dunnville, Ontario and graduated from Pilot Training 17 May 1941, one of 46 in that class. Now a Pilot Officer, making $4.25 a day. He and Betty celebrated his graduation at the Park Plaza Hotel in Toronto before making the rounds of relatives in southern Ontario. Betty travelled to Halifax to see Wally off to his posting in England, he boarded ship on the 26th of May 1941 and Betty would not see him for four years.
After arriving in England Wally was posted to RCAF 401 Squadron, flying in Spitfires. In October of 1941 he squadron was moved to Biggin Hill in the South of England. It was while on a 27 October that twenty-four planes of 401 Sqd. flew a “rhubarb”, this time the Germans were waiting and in a very brief encounter with a Me. 109 fighter Wally was shot down. He successfully parachuted and was captured near St. Omer, France. It would not be until 3 November that he was reported as a POW.
His first confinement would be at Stalag Luft I in Barth. He would be there until March of 1942 when along with a few Americans they were shipped to Stalg Luft III at Sagan. By mid-summer 1942 there were many USAAF “kriegies” sland for Kriegsgafangener, German for POW.
The CDN 25/09/43 reported that ‘Walley’ had been promoted even though he was a POW. Curators Note: – Had he not been promoted he may have been transferred to a enlisted POW camp and would not have been the tunnel master.
There were many plans for escape but done amounted to much more than a cat and mouse game with the German guards. That was until 10/01/44 when Roger Bushell (Big X) arrived and put together an escape plane and organization.
As it would later be described as “The Great Escape”, Bushell plan was for three tunnels Tom, Dick and Harry. Wally was a key player in the X-operation
Over his 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 the three tunnels called “Tom”, “Dick” and “Harry”, both going 30ft below the ground, heading straight for the woods a distance of some 106 meters. Walley was often the lead digger and passed buckets of sandy gravel back to a brigade of men working in the tunnel. Wally became trapped several times in cave-ins and to be pulled out by his heels. Unfortunately one of the tunnels was discovered and Wally along with his friend George Harsh, Peter Fanshawe and ‘Wings’ Day were rounded up and sent to a different POW Camp (Balaria) before the escape began. As luck would have it this was what likely saved his life, had he been caught he would likely have been executed with the others. Clem Pearce a captive in Stalag III said “Walley was living Canadian history. He always kept on fighting and other men took inspiration from that whenever veterans got together, Walley was a centre of attention because of his fame as the Tunnel King.” CDN 26/09/89
The “Great Escape” did take place on 24 March, 1944 and 76 men escaped from Stalag Luft III. A search began immediately and involved some 70,000 Grenab troops. Only three of the escapees made it to freedom, 26 were caught, wounded or killed trying to escape, that paled when in the 2nd week of April, 1944 the Gestapo reported 50 were killed, actually they were murdered, six of them were Canadians. A memorial to the Fifty was held at Stalag Luft III 4/12/1945.
Wally’s war was not yet over. As the war was approaching a conclusion the Germans moved the POW’s away from the advancing Allies and began the “Long March” this would last until the 22nd of April, 1945 when the Russians captured Luckewald in Germany and the POW’s were free.
Wally arrived in Canada 1 July, 1945 “Dominion Day”. Wally and Betty had their first child Brian on the 30th of September 1946 and on the 2nd of October Wally was presented with the OBE. The award read in part:
Flight lieutenant Floody made a very through study of tunnelling work and devised many different methods and techniques. He became one of the leading organizers and indefatigable works in the tunnels themselves. Besides being arduous, his work was frequently dangerous.
Flight Lieutenant Floody was buried under heavy falls of sand… it was only due to extraordinary luck and presence of mind of his helpers that he was rescued alive… Time and time again, projects were started and discovered by the Germans, but, despite all dangers and difficulties, Flight Lieutant Floody persisted, showing a marked degree of courage and devotion to duty.
It may have been just good luck that the story of the Great Escape was made into a movie and a good deal of altering was required to satisfy the American movie going public. It is thanks to Wally Floody that this now ‘classic’ movie that is technically correct. Both Wally and Betty were honoured guests at the Canadian premiere in Toronto in July of 1963.
Wally was an active member in the RCAF Ex-Prisoner of War Association, the Canadian Cancer Societies daffodil fund raising sale in Toronto was Wally’s idea. He and Betty actively worked to better the state for POW’s including his digging partner George Harsh, who, after his wife died moved George from his house in New Jersey to their home in Toronto so he, in failing health could be cared for.
Wally Floody died 25 Sept, 1989 at the age of 71 years, in Toronto of lung disease, perhaps due to his tunnelling exploits? There is a lot about Wally in the “The Great Escape” by Anton Gill. Wally often said that “For me, every day of living is a bonus.”
Afa: “The Tunnel King” by Barbara Hehner.
It was reported in the Chatham Daily News 3/05/2006 that the Author of “The Tunnel King was speaking at the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 28 in Chatham as part of the 7th Annual Need to Read Festival.
Curators Note: I have read a number of books on POW incarceration during both Great Wars and Ms. Hehner’s book is by far the best on the “Great Escape”.JRH.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
| Sources | “The Tunnel King” by Barbara Hehner. |
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