The name 'Michael Scott' is one that has been attributed to no less than two ODs. The first Michael Scot dates from before Durham School was fully established, and his experiments with gunpowder on the Scottish border branded him with the title of 'wizard' and granted him a position in hell with Dante's Inferno. It is a testament to the second Michael Sefton Sheppard Scott, who was a Caffinite from 1930 to 1934, that he led the more interesting life; namely, that as a Prisoner of War during World War II he made a total of eight attempts to escape from various camps. 

Michael Scott was born in 1917, the son of a mining engineer and colliery manager. He entered Durham School, and found himself struggling somewhat with academics, preferring sport and the OTC. He followed his father into mining by training in Horden Colliery. He joined the 8th battalion of the Durham Light Infantry before the war, but in May 1940 was captured in Graumont, Belgium, after he was ambushed carrying a letter to his battalion commander. He would later recall that he felt ashamed to be the only member of his battalion to be captured; however, after a few miles he was delighted to encounter his old school friend Bill Surtees (Caffinite 1926-1931). 

His first camp was Laufen VIIC, where he was fed only on a diet of bread and rotten potatoes. In early 1941 he was moved to Fort 8 in Posen, Poland, where his escaping career began. Scott helped devise a plan to pack a particularly slim POW into a box, and load him surreptitiously into one of the garbage trucks leaving the camp; miraculously, he was never discovered, and safely returned to England. In June of that year he was ferried on a train from Poland to another camp in Biberach, Germany. Forethought had seen him steal a bag of carpenter's tools from the station platform in Posen, and he spent the entire two day journey sawing through the carriage floor. He and three others dropped through the gap when the train was slowing up a hill; unfortunately, they were spotted and rounded up. 

After Biberach, Scott and his compatriots were moved to Oflag VII-D, located in the 13th century border fortress of Tittmoning Castle. When the castle was evacuated to move to a different camp, Scott bricked himself up into the chimney in Bavaria's Tittmuning Castle when the camp was being evacuated, only to be discovered when a German soldier looked down from the top. In Oflag VI-B, a camp in Westphalia, he was one of 43 officers involved in 'Operation Olympia' or 'the Warburg Wire Job'. This took place on the 30th August 1942, and began when one officer fused the perimeter floodlights. This allowed the rest of the prisoners to take four 12-foot scaling ladders made from bed slats and use them as a ramp to "leapfrog" the perimeter fence. Only three soldiers made it back to England, but it remains an audacious escape attempt. 

After all of this, Scott was moved to the allegedly "escape-proof" Eichstatt, but this only resulted in the greatest escape of his career, when on the night of the 3rd June 1943 he was one of 65 POWs to escape through a tunnel. The escape tunnel itself was an ingenious and extensive piece of engineering, extending from the washroom in Block 2 under the eight-foot wire fence to the exit outside the camp, 113 feet away. Everyone going through the tunnel carried a bag filled with food and other essentials; along the way they would be guided and encouraged by the other prisoners, showing "wonderful esprit de corps". Scott would later recall the moment he got out the other side, stating that "the fresh air would suddenly come roaring in. 

It was a sweet-smelling June night, there was no doubt, especially after having been in this rather stifling atmosphere." Of course, his adventure was not concluded; working in pairs, Scott and his fellow escapee travelled for two days towards Stuttgart, avoiding any patrols. At one point, they hid in a cornfield, only to be alarmed when a cutter began mowing through the far row. On the third day, however, they were captured by two old gamekeepers wielding guns ("They were quite nice old boys, actually") and a squad of a dozen Hitler Youth. 

Unfortunately, all 65 escapees were eventually captured, although they did occupy over 50,000 soldiers, home guard, and Hitler Youth in searching for them all week. Scott and his fellow escapees were then sent to the infamous Colditz Castle, and it seemed that that was Michael Scott's last escape- although he did help the last person to ever escape Colditz, William A. Millar, in January of 1944, after he found a suitable kitchen window that Millar could squeeze through.