French officer who was first to escape Colditz dies

PARIS, June 8 (Reuters) General Alain Le Ray, a leading figure in France's wartime resistance and the first man to escape from the notorious Colditz prison camp has died at the age of 96, according a death notice in the daily Le Figaro.

Le Ray, then a lieutenant in the French army, was captured after the German invasion of France in 1940 and interned in Colditz castle, a high security prison camp near Leipzig in eastern Germany for particularly troublesome prisoners of war.

He escaped on April 11, 1941 and succeeded in making his way to Switzerland before returning to France to join the resistance in the alpine region of Vercors.

He was the first of only 18 allied officers to get away successfully from Colditz, which was the subject of a film and numerous memoirs, including one by Le Ray himself.

Le Ray, an accomplished mountaineer, became one of the leaders of the resistance in the Vercors region before resuming his conventional military career after the allied invasion of France, serving in both Indochina and Algeria.

Among several decorations for his military and resistance service, he received one of France's most prestigious awards, the Grand croix de la Legion d'honneur.

REUTERS PY KN0947