Blasts from the Past: VE Day

The 8th May marks VE Day; in 2024, it is 79 years since the Second World War ended in Europe. Whenever I read about the school during the war, I am reminded of how young most of those who fought were. It is tragic that so many young men lost their lives. I think of the futures they did not have, and of the impact on those they left behind. Their stories never fail to move me.

One of the names on the school’s Second World War memorial is D. Plunkett. At the time that his name was carved into the stone, it was believed that Plunkett had died in 1944. In fact, he lived.

Flight lieutenant Desmond Lancelot Plunkett (OK 1929) qualified as a bomber pilot in 1941 and was posted to 218 Squadron at RAF Marham in Norfolk. Shortly after he began active service, the bomber plane he was co-piloting was shot down over occupied Holland. Plunkett was arrested and taken to POW camp Stalag Luft III. There, he and other prisoners formed an ‘escape committee’. (Their attempt to escape the camp by digging three tunnels under the prison formed the basis of the 1963 film The Great Escape.) On 23rd March 1944, Plunkett was one of 76 men who made their way through one of the tunnels; only three made it to safety. Plunkett and his escape partner, Czech airman Bedrich Dvorak, managed to board a train but were arrested at the Austrian border. Unlike most of those who were recaptured, he was not shot but was held in solitary confinement for seven months at Gestapo headquarters in Prague. He was eventually sent to Hradin Prison in Prague and then to Stalag Luft I on the Baltic Sea, from where he was repatriated after VE Day. His time in captivity was brutal but he survived.

Plunkett stayed in the RAF for two years after the war, and remained involved with flying for the rest of his career. In retirement, he took up beekeeping. He died in 2002 aged 86.

As ever, please do get in touch if you have stories to share or questions to ask: I can be contacted via email at archive@kcs.org.uk. 

Lucy Inglis | School Archivist