After spending the night in some woods, Philpot took the train to Küstrin and then onto Danzig. After almost giving himself away by falling off his case and swearing in English, his false papers were good enough to survive checking by a police officer. Arriving in Danzig less than 24 hours after escaping from Stalag Luft III, Philpot started to look for a neutral ship to carry him across the Baltic Sea to Sweden. After an initial reconnaissance and looking for somewhere to sleep, he checked into a hotel even though this required him to share a room with another guest. The next day (Sunday), Philpot spent the day around the Swedish dock and in the evening managed to smuggle himself onto a Swedish ship called the "Aralizz". The crew of the "Aralizz" saw him and the captain asked him to leave as he was placing the crew at risk, but Philpot refused. Without the knowledge of the captain, the chief engineer and a seaman hid Philpot until Tuesday, when the ship sailed. Once the ship was at sea, Philpot again made his presence known to the captain, who took a different attitude now the ship was no longer in port. After the ship arrived in Sweden, Philpot was handed over to the Swedish police and taken to the British Legation in Stockholm on Thursday 4 November 1943—less than five days since the breakout. A week later, he was reunited with Codner and Williams, who had used a similar route via Stettin to escape. Williams, Codner and Philpot were the only three men to escape from the east compound at Stalag Luft III and regain their freedom (the so-called "home run"). Philpot returned to the United Kingdom on a BOAC flight just before Christmas to be reunited with his family. He did not return to operational flying and after debriefing by MI9 he was posted to the Air Ministry as a senior scientific officer. He was subsequently awarded the Military Cross on 16 May 1944. After being demobbed in 1946, Philpot resumed his career in the food industry, eventually becoming chief executive of Findus, the frozen food company. He later became managing director of Remploy. Philpot was Chairman of Robert Windsor Ltd in the late 1960s (A subsidiary of Union International based in Smithfield and run by the Vesty family). He also served as chairman of the RAF Escaping Society. In 1950 Philpot wrote an autobiography of his experience as a prisoner of war and escapee.