A PRISONER of war who hid from the Nazis by pretending to be a Vatican priest has died aged 101.

Military Cross recipient Bill Wyatt settled in Sussex after the Second World War and had been living in an Uckfield care home before his death last month.

He won the honour after rescuing a pal from a burning tank while under heavy fire.

He was born in Egypt in March 1913 before being sent to England for boarding school and then Cambridge University.

After studying he went to Sandhurst and was then posted out to Africa in the early years of the war.

He was awarded the Military Cross for his actions on January 23, 1942, when he was in command of a troop of Crusader tanks against the Germans.

His gunner was killed in heavy fighting but despite the heat and flames, he managed to pull out his wounded wireless operator and carried him to safety.

He was under heavy fire but went back to rescue his driver who was badly burned and trapped inside.

Later on in the same year he fought at the Battle of Knightsbridge, when he was captured by Rommel’s troops.

The following day he was handed over to the Italians, who were surrounded by the Allies.

He was later moved to camps in Italy when in September 1943, he heard news of the Italian Armistice.

He managed to escape in transit between camps near Rome and a friendly Italian officer put him up in his flat.

When the Germans marched into Rome and started to round up locals before sending them away in cattle trucks, Mr Wyatt took shelter in a Catholic seminary.

With no papers, he stole the identity of an Irish priest who had died a year earlier and was even greeted and kissed on the head by Pope Pius XII.

After two months he learned of SS plans to raid the seminary and so made his way to the Vatican.

He watched German SS troops passing under his window but, remarkably, stayed hidden for six months until the Americans entered Rome in 1944.

Following the war he settled in Sussex and married Anne Alison Stewart, whom he survived by 14 years. They had four daughters and a son.

Danniqa Harman, who was one of his carers at Manor Gardens care home in Uckield, described him as a “wonderful, kind man”.

She said: “He was always telling his stories but never made a big deal of them. We would tell of how he saved people and then say ‘it’s no big deal.’

“I remember his 100th birthday, he was up and dancing. He was the life and the soul of the party – you would never guess his age.”