TULSA (AP) — The first time Harold Dunn met the famous general George Patton was when Patton was a major and Dunn was at training camp.

The next time he would see Patton in person was when Patton was a full four-star general and the Army was liberating Dunn and other prisoners of war.

“When he comes through the gate, the war was over,” Dunn said. “The war was over.”

It was the end of a grueling two years for Dunn, who was captured when his plane was shot down and he was taken to Stalag Luft III, the World War II POW camp that was the site of what became known as The Great Escape, where a group of POWs dug tunnels under the fence and broke free.

Dunn said he assisted in the excavation of the tunnels by filling pouches in his jacket made from the lining of that jacket and walking through the camp, scattering the dirt through the yard.

The escape was popularized in the 1963 film “The Great Escape,” which Dunn said was close to reality, but living for years under the harsh conditions was more extreme than could be portrayed on film.

Dunn, who is now 90 and lives in Sand Springs, said the memories of his time in the camps as a POW and his early days in the service are still vivid.

He signed up for the Army when he was 17 and became a member of the 140th Infantry in Missouri. He traveled around for maneuvers in different states and ended up at Camp Robinson in Little Rock, Ark.

One morning, he saw an old 1929-model biplane. He was able to talk the pilot into taking him up for a quick flight.

“We come back and people are running just like ants all over the place,” Dunn said. The pilot “yelled back, ‘Something’s happened.’ When we landed and I crawled out, I was in uniform. Here comes a taxi, rushed out to the plane and said, ‘The (Japanese) bombed Pearl Harbor.’”

That December morning in 1941 would forever change his life. He was sent to California for mobilization where he started pilot training and became a flight officer on B-17 bombers. He got his wings on Jan. 3, 1943.

About six months later, he was on his third mission in Europe.

Flying near the German border, fighters attacked the bomber head on, destroying the nose of the airplane and causing oxygen bottles to explode.

“The instrument panel was blown into my lap and flames burned the legs off my flight suit from the knees down,” Dunn said.

He grabbed his parachute and bailed out of the plane, watching it crash in flames as he floated to the ground.

Four hours later, a German soldier captured him. He was now a POW and would be for two years.

“I turned 21 about three days or four days before I was shot down,” Dunn said.

After extensive interrogations and train rides between camps, he ended up at Stalag Luft III in eastern Germany with about 10,000 other inmates.

By the time he got there, work on the three tunnels — nicknamed Tom, Dick and Harry — was already under way in the British side of the camp.

Dunn said he was mistaken for a British pilot and spent time over there. He was glad to help with the effort while there, but he was cautious.

Spreading the dirt was tedious. The topsoil was a different color than the sandy soil underneath.

“It had to be buried and covered,” he said about the dirt. “The guy carrying the sand could drop it, and the two guys there would bury it.”

They also hid it wherever else they could possibly hide massive amounts of dirt.

“All buildings were two feet off the ground,” he said. “For some reason or another that German building got to ground level.”

He was reassigned to the American compound before the escape occurred. More than 70 men escaped through one of the tunnels in 1944, and all but three were captured and 50 were executed.

In 1945, as Russian troops closed in on Stalag Luft III, he was transferred to Stalag VII-A in southern Germany, where he would eventually be liberated.

He went from there to Belgium a free man before going to the transition camp.

“We weren’t in good shape,” Dunn said. “I got me a pint of ice cream in Belgium, and boy was that good.”

After a rehabilitation stint at the American POW transition Camp Lucky Strike, he made it back to Boston where he boarded a long train ride back home — yet to little pomp.

“We got home, and that was it,” he said.

He did finally meet the woman who was sending him chocolate in Red Cross packages while he was a POW.

Jean Dunn said her sister and his sister had set up for Harold Dunn to come by and meet Jean’s sister for a date after he got back.

But plans changed a bit.

“So, it was in the summertime and he came to my house and wanted to go swimming,” Jean Dunn said. “He came to my house to pick up my sister. Well, my sister wasn’t home, so I went. He never dated my sister. I took over.”

That was 67 years ago. They now live in Sand Springs, where the evidence of his time as a POW remains.

“We’re never without food now,” Jean Dunn said as she opened a cabinet full of canned food. “POWs are all that way.”