He was an unsung hero of the real life Great Escape - but turned down his chance of freedom to guide Allied bombers in to destroy a V2 weapons factory hidden near Stalag Luft 3. Flying officer Wilf Wise, of Esplanade Crescent, Scarborough, who died on Tuesday aged 85, hardly ever talked of his wartime exploits, even to his family.

He ended up in Stalag Luft 3, in Sagan, Poland, after the Wellington bomber he was piloting was shot down over the Dutch coast on the last operation of his tour. The sole survivor of the crash, he regained consciousness to find himself in the blazing wreckage and had to crawl along the struts to escape through a crack in the fuselage. Little did the German guards know that as they chatted at his bedside hospital, that he was listening to every word ready to pass any information back to London. He had been handpicked by British Intelligence for undercover work in the event of capture because of his fluent German, learned at Malton Grammar School.

His parents in Malton, Headley and Ida Wise, were told that if his letters from the camp did not contain a tick in the corner there were to be forwarded immediately to an address where his MI6 handlers could decode the innocent-sounding phrases. Meanwhile, Mr Wise was involved in building a tunnel beneath the camp latrines into a potato field outside the wire. Months before the mass escape - made famous by the Hollywood film the Great Escape - he led a successful breakout.

But he was spotted days later by a Prussian officer in a passing car. He hid in a haystack but had to give himself up when the Germans set it alight - and was nearly shot for "sabotaging" the haystack. But he still had the presence of mind to hide a compass disguised as a belt button in a piece of cheese.

Back in Stalag Luft 3, he was given the job of providing air to those digging the Great Escape tunnels, using a pump consisting of two tins with a homemade canvas bellows in between. Nephew Mike Fearn, of Riding Low Road, Sheffield, said: "He was given the option of going with them. But he was gathering his intelligence. "He had found out that there was a V2 factory in the woods near the camp. He included the key phrase which MI6 would recognise and the factory was later bombed. "All the prisoners cheered as they saw the 'planes go over."After the Great Escape, Mr Wise remained in Stalag Luft 3 until it was liberated by the Russians. But the Red Army was not interested in helping the POWs get back to their own lines. Mr Wise was given the job of escorting about 200 former prisoners through the sector, which by that time had been partly re-occupied by SS Panzer troops. He was so badly affected by gangrene he had to be wheeled along in a pram.

When he finally arrived at York Station he weighed only seven-an-a-half stone and was barely recognisable to his own family. But in peace time he settled down to running the family business, Headley Wise and Son corn merchants, and doing good works. He was a founder of Malton and Norton Lions Club, set up a service to supply fish and chips to Ryedale pensioners, helped to provide disabled people with work and accommodation, and was involved in talking books for the blind. Mr Wise was eventually awarded the MBE. Mr Fearn added: "He did not tell us anything about what he did in the war until 1986. I think he was still worried about the Official Secrets Act. When he found out he had cancer he would never tell us if he was in pain. He was a real hero."