大象传媒

THE REST OF MY EVASION
We had all been instructed that if we accepted help then we had to do exactly what our helpers told us to do. This was because of the great risks that they ran. Before the Normandy invasion, there was a well organized escape line in Western Europe in which downed airmen were guided from Holland and Belgium to Paris and then southwards to the foothills of the Pyrenees; here they were handed over to a guide (in peacetime a smuggler) who led them by tracks across the mountains; once in Spain they were guided to Giberalter and thence home to the UK. Jumping ahead somewhat a total of 2803 British and Commonwealth airmen and many Americans were got home by this and other routes with the aid of an estimated 16000 helpers.
My Belgian friends now told me that this method of escape was no longer possible, the RAF had bombed the French railway system out of existence, many of the guides were in the "marquis"(anned French resistance groups) and what transport still existed had been requisitioned by the Germans to bring up reinforcements to oppose the Allies in the Normandy bridgehead.
The only thing to do was to stay put and wait for the allies to break out and advance; rather optimistically this was expected to happen in a few days. I therefore stayed in my first safe house for six weeks, never going out and passing my time reading and improving my French with the assistance of the young Belgian who was dodging forced labour in Germany and who was concealed in the same house. Food was short but a stream of helpers brought what they could to eke things out; a few eggs, half a loaf, lumps of fat or dripping and rarely a little meat from a bullock or a pig that had been secretly slaughtered or even a horse that had broken a leg. I ate as well as the Belgians; they shared what they had but the whole population was on short rations.

After six weeks my helpers got word that there was going to be a house to house search in the street where I was, so I was moved to another family this time a little way out in the country. Once again I rode a bike and followed the lady who had guided me on my first day in Belgium and on this accompanied by my young Belgian friend;. Our hosts on this occasion were a foreman electrician in a large cement factory and his wife. Their only son, a regular Belgian soldier was a pow in Germany but they did not hesitate to help.
I spent another six weeks here most of the time listening to the radio because the breakout from the Normandy bridgehead was now in full swing. Paris was liberated, a further allied invasion of France took place from the Mediterranean, the liberation of Brussels took place and we began to hear the noise of the guns. I had the experience of watching, through a hole in the curtains, a much disorganized German army retreating along the road in front of the house.
It was now September and the time when an effort was made to shorten the war by using the British airborne forces to capture the bridges across the Rhine at Arnhem. Arnhem was perhaps twenty miles to the east of where I was; sadly the bridges were not taken and our forces suffered grim causalities. However their misfortune opened up an opportunity for me. I recovered my uniform which had incidentally been meticulously cleaned, said goodbye to my kind hosts and walked south towards and area where I guessed British troops might be. In fact I walked through a vacuum as the German troops previously there had been moved over to Arnhem to help repel the airborne invasion. In three or four hours I came upon a British artillery battery just preparing to move forward. They inspected my "dog tags" (identity discs), listened to my story, gave me a drink and put me on my way to GHQ which by that time was in Brussels. I spent the night there, was interrogated by the intelligence staff the following morning, mainly to give careful details of those who had helped me so they could properly be thanked and decorated and in the evening was put on a plane for Croydon which at that time was the airport for London. The date was 28th September.
OCTOBER -- DECEMBER 1944
Before being sent on a month鈥檚 survivor鈥檚 leave I was given a medical which showed that I had lost a stone in weight while in Belgium. I was given double rations to put this right.
I was then interviewed and asked what I would like to do. Like most evaders who owed their liberty to the efforts of those whose one idea was to get them back on active service again, I said that what I wanted was to get back on operations again. My first tour, officially 30 trips, was deemed to be satisfied by 28 trips plus an evasion, so a second tour of 20 was appropriate. This took some time to arrange as I had to be fitted into a crew who's navigator had gone sick or been promoted; thus it was not until the end of December that I was posted to 223 Bomber Support Squadron at Oulton, Norfolk.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Anastasia Travers a volunteer with WM CSV Actiondesk on behalf of John Maunsell and has been added to the site with his permission. John Maunsell fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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