´óÏó´«Ã½

• Continued from chapter 6

Finally free, Jack then decided to ask permission of the Americans to go back to Chaumot to spend a few last days with the Merlettes. After another poignant leave-taking, he was formally handed back to the Americans, spending his last night in France at the Château-Landon American field hospital forty kilometres west of Sens, before being flown back to England, on Monday 28th August 1944.

Meanwhile, back in Wakefield, Jack’s home town, it had been almost four months since any news of him had been issued by the Air Ministry. Jack’s father, William, had received the ‘missing’ telegram on 8th May. This had been followed by a letter dated 12th May from the casualty branch. After imparting the bad news that Jack was missing in action, the letter had gone on to give ‘the good news’:

‘This does not necessarily mean that he is killed or wounded, and if he is a prisoner of war he should be able to communicate with you in due course. Meanwhile, enquiries are being made through the International Red Cross Committee, and as soon as any definite news is received you will be at once informed.

If any information regarding your son is received by you from any source you are requested to be kind enough to communicate it immediately to the Air Ministry.

The Air Council desire me to convey to you their sympathy in your present anxiety.’

Throughout the duration of the war, more than 60,000 similarly worded letters would find their way to anxious families of Bomber Command aircrew. Official statistics quote that
55,573 aircrew were killed together with a further 9,784 shot down and taken prisoner. Tragically, the vast majority of the recipients of such letters would have ultimately received confirmation that their loved ones were dead.

Not so Jack’s family. He was one of the lucky ones who got back alive, albeit seriously injured. The telegram, telling of Jack’s safe arrival back in the UK was sent to his father on Jack’s behalf on 31st August and it simply states:

‘Back in England. Hope to be home soon. Jack’

The official letter confirming that Jack was safe arrived some ten days later. This time, it was the Army Welfare Committee of Northern Command which was in charge of imparting the news, although it gave no information concerning the nature of Jack’s injuries, nor did it give any inkling of the protracted convalescence that Jack was to go through. In that letter to his father, dated 9th September 1944, the Army Welfare Officer for that region wrote:

‘I have had a letter from a person who has seen your boy; he says your son is quite well and getting about again. He will be going to Winwick Hospital near Warrington, Lancashire in a week or two for further treatment.

After that, I expect, he will be given a short sick leave so I don’t think it will be necessary for you to spend money going to Winwick to see him. I suppose you will be very relieved to hear the news.’

By today’s standards, the sentiments expressed in the letter are almost unbelievable! A family hasn’t seen or heard of their son for three months and an official suggests it’s not worth spending the money to travel seventy miles to visit him!! Welfare forties-style fortunately, bears little resemblance to that offered in modern times.

How long he was in Winwick Hospital is unknown. However, he was soon transferred to Sheffield, where he was admitted to the Wharncliffe War Emergency Hospital, on the site which was to become the Middlemoor Hospital.

Shortly after his arrival there, he received a medical appraisal undertaken under the auspices of the Medical Board. Although it is undated, one assumes that the conclusion recorded in the ‘Summary of the Board’ was communicated to him some time in late September 1944. Under ‘Orders given to the Officer or Airman’ is recorded the following:

‘To remain in hospital and to continue treatment.’

That treatment was recorded as being for gunshot wounds. X rays taken at the hospital showed that the bullet which had penetrated his skull, had damaged the left side of his brain where the speech centre is located. This explained his inability to speak spontaneously, or read out loud, both skills which had to be re-learnt in speech therapy sessions. Despite the protracted nature of his convalescence he never fully recovered his speech and could never write spontaneously again although he was able, eventually, to copy a written text. The brain damage had also caused an immediate partial paralysis of the right side of the body. This was a condition which started to heal itself during his stay in France but he was always left with incomplete sensations on his right side. He was classified as 100% war disabled and remained thus classified for the rest of his life.

The brain lesion that he had suffered also led to another complication — epileptic fits — a condition which was treated with barbiturate drugs. Unfortunately, during his stay in hospital he was to suffer an accident which would result in yet another disability. He fell through a plate glass door. The broken glass severed the tendons in his wrist as well as damaging his ulnar nerve. The accident caused a substantial loss of blood and his wrist and forearm had to be stitched. As a result of this, his left hand became permanently disabled. However, Jack did feel that as a direct consequence of this accident, particularly the loss of blood, his tendency to suffer epileptic fits was reduced. Nevertheless, he still had to take barbiturate drugs daily for the rest of his life.

He received his discharge papers from the RAF in May 1945. Although the accompanying letter and the statement of discharge — RAF form 1394 - was stamped by the Record Office on 14th April, the official date of discharge given on the form is 16th May, eight days after VE day. The cause of discharge is given as ‘failing to fulfil Royal Air Force physical requirements’.

Jack remained in Wharncliffe Hospital until the autumn of 1948, four years after his return from France, although he continued to be an outpatient until the summer of the subsequent year. At the time of his discharge as an in-patient, he was almost twenty-four. Fortunately, employers were obliged to re-employ disabled ex-servicemen so Jack was able to go back to work with the LNER (London North Eastern Railway).

It was fortunate in more ways than one, as it was in the Goods Office at the Dewsbury offices of LNER where he met his wife to be, Marjorie Brookes, in August 1948.

They were married on December 16th 1950 and had two children, Barbara born in 1953 and Janet in 1954.

But it wasn’t till his daughters were teenagers that Jack was in a position to be able to fulfil a long held desire — to somehow identify all those French people who had helped him and thank them in person. Despite being able to recollect all the traumas he’d been through in ‘44, and recall them as if he were watching a film, he was unable to remember the names of any of the people or places.

There were two exceptions: he could remember he’d been in the hospital at Sens, and taken back to that city by the Americans when they’d liberated Chaumot, and he could remember that in that village, ‘Mimi’ was the name of the daughter of the couple he’d stayed with.

It wasn’t much to go on but with the help of the French consul in Leeds, Jack was finally put in touch with the Merlette family in 1970. This was the family who had sheltered Jack for 3 weeks in August 1944, just before his repatriation.

In the summer of 1970, Jack and his wife Marjorie travelled to Chaumot to see the Merlettes once again. It was an emotional reunion which attracted the attention of the local newspaper.

Following a series of articles, more and more people came forward, saying they had helped him. Many of them stated that they had always wondered what had become of him and whether he had been able to resume a ‘normal’ life.

The culmination of the attempts to reunite Jack with all the people who’d helped him was a grand reunion, held on 19th September 1971 in St-Julien-du-Sault. The only view that Jack had previously had of the town was in the early hours of 30th July 1944, when, in the company of Clotilde de St Phalle and a local farmer, they’d waited on the top of the hill of Vauguillan overlooking the town, for M Condemine to arrive in his car. Now, he was in the Hostellerie des Bons Enfants, in the company of dozens of French people and their families, there to shake his hand and marvel at the miracle of their all being together again after a gap of 27 years. Happiness at being together again was also tinged with sadness, as Jack learnt of the deaths and injuries of the following people who had helped him:

Henri Mittay and René Peigné — assassinated, allegedly by French Militia on 24th May 1944.

André Dussault, killed at Jack’s side on 15th May 1944

Georges Pinet and Jean Delaporte — tortured and executed by the Germans on 1st July 1944, after being captured on 15th May

Gaston Charruet, arrested on 21st July 1944, dying during interrogation at some unknown date. His body was never returned to his family

Raymond Baudoin, captured by the Germans on 15th May 1944, but escaped execution due to being hospitalised with septicaemia following being machine-gunned in the legs. Suffered a subsequent leg amputation

Bernard Baudoin, Raymond’s brother, present in the woods with Jack and the rest of the ‘Bourgogne’ maquis group when it was attacked on 15th May. Escaped the German attack but was assassinated with two other maquis comrades at St Serotin on 1st July 1944. His body was never recovered.

Henri Frager, resistance chief, deported to Buchenwald Concentration Camp and executed 5th October 1944

Mme Vautier, nurse at Sens Hospital who risked her life giving medical treatment to Jack in the week following his escape from hospital. Arrested with her husband in July 1944, interrogated but finally released on Liberation the month afterwards.

Jack retired early through ill health in 1969 and died in hospital on March 7th 1978. He is survived by his widow, Marjorie, daughters Barbara and Janet, grandchildren, Andrew and Emily and great grand-daughter, Sophie, who was born in 2002, on 15th May — the date on which her great grandfather was shot by the Germans in the Bois de Chapitre.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Allan Price of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Janet Marsden and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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