Thomas D. Calnan

Thomas Daniel Calnan was an English pilot and prisoner-of-war of World War II, who wrote a memoir of his time in German captivity entitled Free As A Running Fox.
Calnan was commissioned in the RAF on 19 December 1936.
Calnan was shot down while flying a Spitfire on a photo-reconnaissance mission over France in December 1941. He gives some brief background about himself and his flying career with the RAF's No. [1 Photographic Reconnaissance Unit RAF|No. 1 Photographic Reconnaissance Unit], but devotes most of the book to his escape attempts while a prisoner of the Germans. He was incarcerated at Stalag Luft III during the period of the "Great Escape."
He was promoted to the rank of Wing Commander on 1 January 1949, and retired on 14 February 1959. Calnan latterly lived in Zinal, Switzerland, where he died in September 1981 at the age of 65.