Thomas Gresham Kirby-Green (27 February 1918 – 29 March 1944) was a British Royal Air Force officer, the pilot of a Vickers Wellington bomber, who was taken prisoner during the Second World War.

[1] After growing up in Africa, Kirby-Green was sent to boarding school in England at Dover College where he became a house prefect and a member of the rugby team.

On leaving school in 1935 he lived with his parents in Tangier and gained a private pilot's licence prior to joining the Royal Air Force.

[7] Near the end of 1940 he married Maria Dorothea Diane Hayman in south-west London and they set up home at Hamerton near Huntingdon.

[11] At 01:06 hours on the morning of 17 October 1941 he took off from RAF Alconbury on his 37th operation flying a Wellington Mark Ic bomber (serial number "Z8862", squadron codes BL-B) to bomb factories in Duisburg but Kirby-Green's aircraft was shot down.

[12] Percy Pickard flew down to break the news to his wife and said that he was sure that Kirby-Green would be a prisoner of war and then on 16 November 1941 William Joyce, Lord Haw Haw the American born Irish-British Nazi collaborator broadcasting from Berlin made specific reference to the capture of Squadron Leader Kirby-Green.

[13][14] As a prisoner of war Kirby-Green received exotic parcels from family in Tangier with fruits, nuts, gramophone records of Latin music and bright clothing.

The original escape plan teamed Gordon Kidder up with Dick Churchill to travel posing as Rumanian woodcutters, but after Churchill was removed to another camp, Kidder was paired with deeply sun-tanned Tom Kirby-Green,[18] who had been in charge of security for organizer Roger Bushells "escape committee"; they would instead pose as Spanish labourers.

[22][23] The pair cleared the tunnel exit before the alarm was sounded and made it to the local railway station, where they were almost exposed when questioned by a female member of the prison camp censor staff.

Urns returned to Stalag Luft III were marked with the date 29 March 1944 and the name of the town Mahrisch.

[39] Post-war Czech investigators identified the participants in the murders of Kirby-Green and Gordon Kidder at Hrabuvka,[40] part of Ostrava, and notified their British opposite numbers on 2 December 1945.