BERTRAM JAMES, 92 Made "Great Escape"

Bertram "Jimmy" James, one of the few British prisoners to avoid being executed for joining in the "great escape" from a German prison camp in World War II, died Jan. 18 at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in central England after a brief illness.

Mr. James was a pilot on a Wellington bomber that was shot down near Rotterdam in the Netherlands on June 5, 1940. He was captured the next day.

Attempting to escape, he once remarked, "was our contribution to the war effort." He made 13 attempts from various prisons, according to military historian Howard Tuck. Despite his efforts, he spent five years as a prisoner of war.

Mr. James was sent to Stalag Luft III, near Zagan, Poland, in 1943.

On the night of March 24, 1944, Mr. James was the 39th man to escape. He and a Greek companion made it to a railway station, but were recaptured two days later. The escape was made famous in a book and film.

ARIF ALI, 46

News service official

Arif Ali, regional product director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa for the Associated Press, died of cancer Thursday in London. He was honored in 2007 with a Gramling Award, the news agency's top staff award for overseeing the creation and implementation of new AP services.

Over the past year, he shepherded the creation of the Arabic text service for the AP.

Mr. Ali helped run mammoth technical operations, such as the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, and the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.