How German-born John Bailey ended up working as an interpreter at the prisoner of war hospital at Lydiard Park reads like something out of a 1950s Boy’s Own comic – full of derring do, lucky escapes and incredible acts of bravery. But John’s story was no work of fiction.

Johann Waldorf was born in Mayen, Germany in 1912, the son of Jacob and Margret Waldorf. Following Margret’s second marriage to Distinguished Conduct and Military Medal holder Frank Bailey, her son took the name of John Bailey.

During the summer of 1939 John was spending a few days holiday in Halle when German troops invaded Poland. He returned to Cologne but was too late to escape the country before Britain declared war on Germany.

Arrested by the Gestapo, John was interrogated by high-ranking official Reinhard Heyrich. He was subsequently sent to Germersheim, a prison camp on the Rhineland where he remained until March 1942. John was to serve internment in three other German prisons before being transferred to a camp in Antwerp.

It was during this train journey on May 27, 1944 that he managed to escape his guards. He was rescued by members of the Belgian resistance movement who hid him but the group was betrayed by a collaborator and after just 12 days of freedom John was recaptured and sentenced to death.

“This time I thought I was a gonner,” John told a journalist when he was interviewed by the Southern Daily Echo in 1945.

“But apparently it was necessary for my sentence to be confirmed by the German High Command and that proved to be my salvation.”

On September 4 1944 two soldiers from the 2nd Dorsets liberated John from his Belgian prison.

He spent a further 10 months in Antwerp recuperating after his long ordeal and at the same time working for the British military authorities as an interpreter.

John’s pre-war career aboard the Southern Railway cross-Channel steamers and in hotels in various European countries saw him become fluent in four languages. Following his return to Britain in 1945 John immediately joined the Royal Pioneer Corps.

At the end of 1945 John was posted to a prisoner of war camp at Prestatyn, North Wales, again working as an interpreter. It was there that he met his future wife Sylvia Rogers. The couple married a year later and, following a posting at Catterick, John was sent to the prisoner of war camp at Lydiard Park.

John was discharged from the Army in 1948 but he was not about to hang up his hat. He joined the Ministry of National Insurance, working in the Old Town Albert Street office and also taught German and Italian evening classes in Malmesbury, Swindon, Lyneham, Marlborough and Wootton Bassett. He died in 1986 aged 74.