In July 1937, he joined the recently formed Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and learnt to fly at weekends.

[1] He joined No 608 Squadron attached to Coastal Command flying Avro Ansons on anti-submarine and convoy escort operations.

After travelling some distance by train to Werwitz, he continued on foot, through deep snow, towards the German-Belgian frontier where he was re-captured five days later, suffering from extreme exhaustion and exposure.

However, as the tunnel broke surface, it became clear that it was slightly too short, and the exit hole had emerged directly in the patrol path of a German sentry.

Dowse had drawn escape number 21, and was disguised as a Danish foreign worker, equipped with the appropriate (forged) documents and clothing provided by his 'contact'.

[12] Dowse and Krol travelled mainly by foot towards the Polish border, but were recaptured just inside Germany on 6 April 1944.

At Sachsenhausen, Dowse found himself with three fellow survivors of the 'Great Escape': (Harry Day, Johnnie Dodge and Bertram James).

[18] Placed in the death cells back at Sachsenhausen, all the escapers who had been re-captured were spared execution mainly thanks to Day's efforts under interrogation.

In April 1945, after spending several months in solitary confinement Dowse, together with other prominent prisoners (Prominenten), was transferred to the Tyrol via concentration camps at Flossenburg and Dachau.

For a number of years in the 1950s, at the time of the communist insurgency, he worked in Malaya as a rubber plantation manager in the Penang Settlement.

[19] After the war, he also worked, possibly unwittingly, for a short time as a representative for Bernie Cornfeld's insurance fraud, "The Dover Plan", as well as other unsuccessful and/or dubious ventures.