Steve McQueen? Arthur was ‘Cooler King’
ON THE subject of POWs it was noted Welsh flanker Arthur Rees who is widely thought to have been the original ‘Cooler King’, played by Steve McQueen in The Great
Escape when, being Hollywood, the character was changed from Welsh to American.
The diminutive Rees – a former London Welsh and Cheshire flanker and skipper – was piloting a Wellington bomber when shot down and crash landing in a lake in Norway and made himself a thorough nuisance at various POW camps before being sent to Stalag Luft 111 in Silesia.
Being short and Welsh it was assumed that he would have some sort of mining skills – although in fact he was a draper by training – and was put in charge of one of the tunnels planned for the mass breakout, the 330 foot long Harry, which in the event was the only one used.
Rees worked at the face of the tunnel most of the time, helping to shift 250 tons of soil before the breakout on the night of March 24-25, 1944.
Over 200 POWs were ready to flee but only 76 had exited the tunnel when the Germans realised what was occurring. Rees had to scuttle back along the tunnel to Hut 104 where, after being threatened with summary execution, he found himself in the cooler. Again.
Rees always played down his omission from the film and made light of any comparisons with himself and McQueen: “He is taller than I am, I’m heavier than he is, he’s American and I’m a Welshman, he rode a motorbike I don’t – the only things we’ve got in common is that we both seemed to annoy the Germans and ended up doing stretches in the cooler.”