Great Escapes (20 page)

Silently Florentino made his way down the mountainside to the railway track. The others watched as he looked up and down, then he raised his hand for them to come. After crossing the railway line, they hid whilst Florentino went ahead to scout the road. This was a wide expanse of open road with very little cover on either side. Then his hand was raised and one after another they limped across the road as fast as their tired legs would let them. On the other side of the road was a steep slope that they knew they had to climb up without stopping. Once over the top they raced down through trees and into a clearing, where a grinning Dédée and Florentino were waiting. They were safe.

The pace now relaxed and after another two hours of walking through the mountains they arrived at a mountain cabin owned by a Spanish family who were sympathetic to the cause. The party of men collapsed in front of a roaring fire and as one, fell asleep where they sat.

It was noon the following day before they were awakened by Dédée who was to take them to the next stopping place, San Sebastian. On the outskirts of the town they were taken to a large family house, where they were fed and able to rest. The following morning Dédée took the party to a crossroads just outside of town and told them that a car from the British Embassy in Madrid was on its way to pick them up. She then held out her hand and told them she was leaving to go back to bring some more allied airmen to safety. The men looked at her in awe, all mumbling totally inadequate thanks and then she was gone.

Thirty minutes later a large black Buick arrived and the men piled in and were whisked away to Madrid. There the Air Attaché settled them in and prepared forged papers that would get them over the border into Gibraltar. Angus McLean was given the identity of a Captain Collie of the Staffordshire Regiment, who had gone absent without leave and was being returned to his regiment to face a court martial. The embassy car took him to the border, and, looking convincingly crestfallen to the obvious delight of the Spanish border guards, he crossed over into Gibraltar. It was seventy-four days after his aircraft had been shot down.

He was flown back to England and back to the RCAF headquarters. Angus McLean was not allowed to fly on operational missions again because, in the event of him being shot down again, he knew too much about the escape lines and the people who ran them.

At the end of the war Angus McLean, now a Wing Commander, became a member of a team set up to try and find out what happened to some of the aircrew who had gone missing, but were never found. On a trip to Belgium, he was invited to attend the wedding of the youngest member of the Peeter family and it was whilst there that he learned of the imprisonment of Albert Pagie. Pagie had been arrested after the war by the Resistance and accused of collaborating with the enemy. Angus McLean immediately went to the authorities and put the record straight, saying that the only reason Albert Pagie had collaborated with the Germans was to draw attention away from the fact that he was hiding allied airmen aboard his houseboat. Albert Pagie was released almost immediately and everyone was made aware that the accusations against him were untrue.

As the Manchester bomber ‘M’ for Mother lifted off the runway at Woolfox Lodge, Rutland, the mid-upper turret gunner Sgt Albert (Bruno) Wright, a Canadian serving with the RAF, settled down for the mission to Brest. The targets were the three German pocket battleships, the
Prince Eugen, Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau,
all of which were undergoing emergency repairs in the French harbour of Brest. As the aircraft climbed higher the temperature inside the aircraft continued to drop rapidly and Bruno Wright struggled to maintain an even temperature with his electrically-heated Irvin suit. As they approached the coast of Brittany, the skipper’s voice came over the intercom warning everyone to keep their eyes peeled for night fighters.

In front of them the sky suddenly lit up with searchlights and anti-aircraft guns started to pepper the sky in front of them with exploding anti-aircraft shells and tracers. The pilot was having problems with one of the aircraft’s engines and was struggling to get the Manchester above 9,000ft. This was not a good bombing height for such a well-defended area like Brest, but determined not to abort the mission, he struggled on. As they approached ‘Death Valley’ (as the area had been nicknamed by bomber crews) the searchlights picked them up and the aircraft was bathed in a blinding white light.

Attempting to take evasive action by weaving the aircraft about, the bomb-aimer was having difficulty trying to keep it straight over the target. The aircraft suddenly rocked violently as one of the starboard engines was hit. The pilot immediately feathered the crippled engine whilst the bomb-aimer kept the aircraft steady. Then came the cry ‘Bombs gone’ and the aircraft seemed momentarily to surge upwards, then just as suddenly started to lose height – they had been hit again.

The skipper fought to gain height as he powered the aircraft away from the area, but to no avail. Then came the order to abandon the aircraft. Bruno Wright clambered down from his gun turret, clipped on his parachute and grabbed the handle of the escape hatch and pulled. It didn’t move and Wright stamped on the hatch until it flew off into the void. The rear gunner had now joined Wright and the two of them prepared to drop out of the hatch. The pilot’s voice suddenly came over the intercom declaring that they were too low to bale out and for them to prepare for a crash landing. The two men in the fuselage braced themselves for the crash, then heard the engines throttle back and the grinding sound of metal being twisted and shattered as the aircraft hit the ground. The Manchester bounced then bounced again, throwing the crew around inside the aircraft like rag dolls. As the aircraft shuddered to a stop, there was an eerie silence for a fraction of a second then a loud ‘whoosh’ as fuel spilled onto the hot engine and caught fire.

Struggling to his feet, Wright grabbed hold of the handle of a side-door escape hatch but it had been twisted in the crash. It was also red hot and seared his hands as he did so. Kicking open another side door, Wright turned to see the rear gunner still lying on the floor of the fuselage, his leg broken. Grabbing the man by the arm he pulled him through the door and dragged him away from the raging inferno that now engulfed the wreckage.

As the two men watched the fire engulf the entire aircraft, they realised that they were probably the only survivors. Bruno Wright made his colleague as comfortable as he could, and told him he was going to try and escape. He couldn’t take the other man with him for obvious reasons, but asked him to try and get a message back to his wife to tell her that he was alive and well.

With the ammunition and oxygen bottles exploding all around them, it wouldn’t be too long before the Germans arrived and the rear gunner would be taken away. Rolling up his parachute and harness, Wright tossed them into the fire and then set off across the fields. After covering about a mile, he stopped beside a stone wall and took stock of his situation. Inhaling the fumes of burning petrol had affected his lungs and he was having difficulty in breathing after so much exertion.

Taking out his escape kit, Wright examined the contents: chewing gum, Horlick’s tablets, rubber water bottle, fishing line, compass and a silk map. After resting for fifteen minutes, he checked his compass and set off in the direction of the Atlantic. He decided to stick to the road as long as he could, mainly because it was easier than walking across fields and hopefully there would be signposts.

As darkness fell, it started to rain, so he looked for shelter. As he walked to the top of the hill, he saw the grey of the Atlantic before him. He also saw a German sentry with his rifle slung over his shoulder, scanning the horizon with a pair of binoculars. Quickly moving into a small, dense copse, he decided to settle down for the night. Fortunately he had kept his Irvin suit on, so was able to keep reasonably warm despite the drizzle. Unable to sleep properly, he dozed on and off until the dawn, and then took stock of his situation once again.

The dawn brought no solution to his problems. Although he was reasonably close to the shore, he was also very close to the German guard and so decided to stay where he was until dark before making his next move. He considered stealing one of the small sailing boats that were drawn up on the shore, but he had no experience of sailing and taking a boat out into the hostile Atlantic would have been tantamount to suicide.

Heading back the way he had come, he made his way along the road. A couple of times he dived into the hedgerow when the sound of an engine appeared. But then he ran into a group of cyclists in the dusk, who, on seeing his RAF uniform, greeted him with smiles and pats on the back. Although he could not speak French, he had a smattering of sentences he had learned, they quickly made him understand that he should get rid of his uniform.

Leaving the group, he walked farther down the road and came to a farmhouse. In the courtyard he saw an old man fixing the harness on a horse. Attracting the man’s attention he said, ‘Je
suis un Anglais avion’.

The old man turned and muttered something in reply and then turned away again. He repeated the sentence, but then out of the corner of his eye he saw a younger woman come out of the barn. She grasped him by the arm and pulled him into the barn. Moments later they were joined by a younger man carrying an English–French dictionary.

With the help of the dictionary and sign language he explained that his aircraft had crashed and that he was on the run. They in turn told him that they would help him, but he must stay out of sight. The young woman, who appeared to be the wife of the young man, disappeared and returned with a large bowl of milk, some bread and cheese. Bruno Wright quickly devoured the food and the woman then dressed his burnt hands as best she could, relieving the pain somewhat. Wright lay back in the straw to rest and the next thing he knew was that the young man was gently shaking him.

He was carrying a bundle of clothes and indicated to Wright that he was to change into the clothes and give him his uniform. Wright changed and handed the clothes over to him. The man then bundled them up, tied a large stone to them and dropped the bundle down the well. The one thing Wright did keep back was the little gold caterpillar that he used as a tie clip. It was given to everyone who had baled out of an aircraft and returned home and made him a member of the Caterpillar Club. Bruno Wright had been given this after a previous mission had gone wrong and he had baled out over England.

The French farmer’s wife then led him to a hayloft where he could sleep. The man told him that he would contact some members of the Resistance that he knew and arrange for help in the morning. Wright snuggled down in the hay and within minutes was fast asleep.

The following morning, the sounds of the farmyard woke him up, and minutes later the young woman appeared carrying a bowl of coffee and some bread liberally covered in butter. She told him that Germans had been at the house twice during the night looking for two airmen. Then he heard the sound of a light aircraft slowly buzzing over the area, which he thought was probably a
Fieseler Storch
reconnaissance aircraft.

As he lay back in the straw, the memories of the previous day came flooding back and the burns to his hands started to throb. He knew he would have to stay in the barn until nightfall before he dared venture outside and only then with the permission of the farmer. Wright also thought about the risk this family was taking because if German soldiers decided to search the premises and found him hiding then there was no doubt in his mind that they would be taken away and shot.

Late that same afternoon the farmer brought some more food and milk and told him that he was to be moved to Brest, where the underground Resistance fighters could take care of him and make preparations to get him away. The following morning two men with a horse and cart arrived to take him to Brest. He was to pose as an Italian farm labourer who spoke no French. Bruno Wright turned to the farmer and his wife to express his thanks, when she suddenly threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on both cheeks. Shaking the farmer’s hand, he then pulled a roll of French money from his pocket, but after seeing the expressions on their faces, he pushed it back. Unpinning the gold caterpillar from behind his lapel Bruno Wright gave it to the farmer’s wife. The smile on her face when she took it said it all – this was a gift from the heart, not from the pocket.

Climbing aboard the cart the three men set off towards Brest. On reaching the town, Wright could not help noticing the number of anti-aircraft installations. He also noticed the number of spent shell cases indicating that they had had a busy night. He also saw, too, that there was very little bomb damage to the town, for which he was grateful because the French townspeople did not deserve to be punished for what the Germans had inflicted upon them.

The cart stopped on the side of the road and an old man and a young boy beckoned to him to get off. He turned to say thank you to them, but they had already moved off. The town was full of German soldiers and all the time he was walking he tried not to make eye contact with them. He followed the man and boy from a discreet distance until they entered a small garage down a side street. Once inside, the boy introduced himself as Jean-Jacques Le Scour and the older man was his uncle, Monsieur Masson.

They showed him into a back room that housed a number of rabbits and in the corner was a big pile of hay. Jean-Jacques explained in his schoolboy English that he was to sleep here but he wasn’t to go outside during the day. Some minutes later two women, Madame Masson and Madame Le Scour, Jean-Jacques’ mother, came in with a basket of food. From their attitude they were delighted to see him and be able to help, even though they were risking their lives in doing so.

The next morning a very attractive woman in her mid-thirties visited him. Elegantly dressed she gave her name as Mlle X, a British spy who was about to leave for England by submarine that very evening. Unfortunately Wright did not have the necessary documents that would allow him to travel and in any case, he was told later, she was carrying important information and having an escaping airman with her would be a burden.