Non-Celebrity Death that Bummed You Out the Most

[richlevy]

From here

I always find it interesting and sad when people like this die and pop up for one brief moment in the press. Mr. James sounds like an amazing guy.

Jimmy James, P.O.W. Plotter of Escapes, Is Dead at 92

By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
Published: January 31, 2008
Jimmy James, a British flier in World War II obsessed with escape plots during his five years in German captivity, most prominently the breakout portrayed in the movie “The Great Escape,” died Jan. 18 in Shrewsbury, England. Mr. James, who lived in Ludlow, England, was 92.

“I was just a guy who wanted to get home; I was no hero,” The Birmingham Post quoted Mr. James as saying. But his unrelenting will to be free brought him Britain’s Military Cross for gallantry in 1946.
Mr. James was “one of the last great links with a period of history that continues to exert a fierce grip on the popular imagination,” The Independent newspaper said upon his death.
The most storied escape occurred on the night of March 24, 1944, when 76 Allied prisoners, mostly airmen from Britain and the Commonwealth nations, tunneled out of Stalag Luft III. Mr. James and another prisoner had overseen the hiding of soil displaced by the tunnel digging, supervising its placement underneath seats in the camp’s theater, where the captives had put on shows. Mr. James was the 39th man to escape through the tunnel.