Paweł "Peter" W.[1] Tobolski (21 March 1906 – not before 2 April 1944) was a Polish airman who fought in World War II, murdered after the "Great Escape" from the Stalag Luft III prisoner of war camp.[2]
He was a navigator with the rank of flying officer in No. 301 Polish Bomber Squadron, an expatriate unit that fought as part of the Royal Air Force against Nazi Germany.[3] He took part in two combat missions. In his second mission, a thousand-bomber raidagainst Bremen at night of 25/26 June 1942, his bomber Vickers Wellington no. Z1479 GR-A (the squadron commander's) was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery near Dornumergrode; and he was captured and imprisoned in Stalag Luft III.[3] He was one of 76 men who took part in the "Great Escape" on 25 March 1944; an event memorialised in the 1950 book The Great Escape and in the 1963 film of the same name. On the night of the escape he was dressed as a German soldier and his escape plan was to escort Harry “wings” Day to Berlin for interrogation. Being dressed as a German soldier required him to get his travel documents stamped by the local German barracks and thus spent a night in the barracks to get the required stamp. If he did not get the stamp he would have been treated as a German deserted soldier. He was eventually caught when his escape partner Harry “Wings” Day was betrayed by some French workers the two were in contact with.