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The diary contains pencil drawings of Gueuffen’s Block 109’s 24 rooms (drawn to scale) whose residents were instrumental in preparing for the “Great Escape.

A remarkable diary kept by a POW in the Great Escape camp which includes a tribute to the 50 men executed in its reprisals has come to light.

British RAF officer Joseph Gueuffen, of 609 Squadron, was shot down during a bombing raid over Germany and held captive at Stalag Luft III from late 1943 until the end of the war.

The Belgian born pilot was kept in Block 109, a barrack which played an integral part in the mass escape of prisoners on March 24, 1944.

The diary boasts a list of the officers executed by the Nazis following their recapture and a drawing of the permanent memorial for them by Belgian RAF pilot Bobby Laumans.