Great Escapes (5 page)

Then during one trip over the Pyrenees when Florentino was returning from Spain after delivering some important documents, he was ambushed by German soldiers and badly wounded. He managed to hide the documents before they captured him and he was taken away for interrogation. Questioned by the Gestapo he said nothing; however, fortunately they thought that he was just a Basque smuggler and handed him over to the Spanish Guardia. So bad were his injuries that he was sent to a civilian hospital in Bayonne. Tante Go, on hearing of his capture and subsequent hospitalisation, took the opportunity to rescue him and he was spirited away and hidden for the remainder of the war.

As the war neared its end
MI
9 became more and more concerned with the number of Comète Line operatives being betrayed and summarily executed. They knew of the existence of a traitor amongst the members of the Line, but found it increasingly difficult to pinpoint who it was. Then information came with a name – Jacques Desoubris, also known as Jean Masson.

Michou had been working with a Parisian dentist by the name of Martine Noel and had met Jean Masson at a meeting in a restaurant with her. The meeting was about the moving of a number of allied airmen, who had been secreted at various addresses in Paris, including Martine’s apartment. Some days later, Michou contacted Martine by telephone, which was answered by a woman who called Michou by her real name, Micheline, saying that Martine was not there but would be there soon and could Micheline come over. Very wary of what was going on, as no one in Paris knew her real name, she decided to go to Martine’s surgery. On arriving, she was warned by the concierge that the Gestapo had been there and everyone had been arrested. Word then spread around that a series of raids had been carried out on addresses in Paris and a number of allied airmen and their helpers had been arrested.

Michou heard that Martine had been taken to the Fresnes prison and so decided to pay her a visit. On arrival at the prison, so shocked were the guards to see a visitor that they locked her up. Michou protested that she had just come to see her friend. Locked in a cell, Michou called out for Martine. The prison had been built in a circular design, much like a spoked wheel, with all the cells around the perimeter. Calling out for Martine, Michou heard her friend reply. She then asked who had betrayed her and the others; the reply came back
‘C’est Pierre. Pierre Boulain’.

Then fortune smiled upon Michou when the governor of the prison, who was French, interviewed her and then released her, saying that he would not be responsible for sending such a young girl into prison. Her appearance once again was belying her age.

At first it was difficult to believe that Pierre Boulain was the traitor as he had come highly recommended, and had been instrumental in transferring airmen to Paris and then down the Line to the Pyrenees. There were however a couple of things that always concerned fellow members: the ease with which he could obtain fool-proof forged identification cards and passes at short notice, and his ability always to be able to cross borders undetected. Masson continued to work with the Comète Line, unaware that he was being watched. At one meeting he was asked to take 500,000 francs to Belgium to pay for the setting up of refuges for allied airmen. Information came their way confirming his dealings with the Gestapo, and the organisation knew that Masson had no intention of taking the money to Belgium, but intended to pocket the money and betray the courier. In the meantime the Line had contacted the French Resistance, informing them that they had a traitor in their organisation and that they wanted him dealt with. The following evening, after another meeting with a member of the Line, a member of the Resistance’s assassination squad placed Jean Masson under observation. Then, as Masson was walking near his home, a car pulled alongside and a single shot fired. Jean Masson crumpled to the ground dead and rolled into the gutter – many in the Resistance would have said a fitting end.

The Gestapo reacted immediately and started a massive hunt for the killer of Jean Masson. It was this reaction by the Germans that confirmed beyond all doubt that the Comète Line’s suspicions were correct, as it was obvious that Masson was working for the Gestapo and that they regarded him as being a very important part of their infiltration plan into the escape lines.

However, British Intelligence was not convinced that it was Jean Masson that had been killed, as more and more members of the Comète Line were being captured along with evading airmen. Then US counter-intelligence officers were made aware of an SD agent who was working within the escape line. He was delivering airmen and their handlers to a hotel in Paris where the Gestapo arrested them. His description was circulated and matched that of a man who lived on the
Rue de Douai,
but who had moved out some months earlier. This was the street where Jean Masson had been said to be living some
weeks
earlier.

The Intelligence Officers finally got a photograph of the man, and the one person who could identify him was Michou, as she had seen him at close quarters. An American Intelligence Officer sent for her and showed her a photograph of the man they suspected. She immediately recognised him as the traitor Jean Masson. It appeared that as the American army approached Paris to liberate it, Masson had approached the Americans offering to work for them as an agent. With Michou’s positive identification, Jean Masson was immediately arrested and imprisoned. He was later taken to Lille and tried before a French court and executed.

Who the man the French Resistance executed was, no one knows, but one theory was that it was a colleague of Masson’s, a man by the name of Prosper Desitter, who was also a known collaborator.

Many of the other unknown, faceless members of the escape lines just returned to their normal jobs after the war, happy with the fact that they were able to do something to help towards the defeat of Germany.

The Comète Line rescued a significant number of allied airmen and a smaller number of soldiers. Without the bravery and resourcefulness of a large number of people, the chances are that almost none of these men would have ever escaped. Of those that helped to run the Line, 23 were executed, 133 died in concentration camps and an undisclosed number survived imprisonment in concentration camps or just simply disappeared. The debt that is owed to these people can never be repaid.

At the end of the war Kattalin Aguirre was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour and held the Medaille Militaire, both the French and the Belgian Croix de Guerre, the French and Belgium Medailles de la Resistance and King George VI’s Medal for Freedom. She died in 1992. Andrée de Jongh (Dedée) was awarded the George Medal by the British and the United States Medal of Freedom by the Americans, amongst numerous other awards for bravery from other countries.

Unlike the Comète Line, the Pat O’Leary Line was more of an organisation than a structure. The majority of its members knew and trusted each other, which made it easier for the Germans to penetrate. This was because each member of the Pat O’Leary Line was known to every other member. So in the event of one of them being captured and made to talk, he or she could identify and name the other members. The Comète Line on the other hand was fragmented and each person’s identity was on a need-to-know basis.

The name ‘Pat O’Leary’ was the name given to a Belgian Doctor whose real title was Médecin-Capitane Albert-Marie Edmond Guérisse. He had served with a cavalry regiment during the eighteen days that Belgium fought before it capitulated. Disgusted with the Belgian government, he joined the crew of a converted French merchantman, HMS
Fidelity,
which was operating clandestine missions in the Mediterranean. He joined the ship under the
nom de plume
of a Canadian friend, Patrick Albert O’Leary, and was commissioned as a Lieutenant Commander. The all-French crew were given Royal Navy ranks and assumed names, because of their undercover work.

After a number of successful undercover missions, O’Leary was assigned to take two SOE (Special Operations Executive) agents ashore at Collioure near the Etang de Canet. After depositing the men on the beach, O’Leary was starting to return when a sudden squall overturned his small boat. He managed to swim ashore, but was arrested later by French coastguards and sent to St Hippolyte du Fort near Nîmes. He heard later that HMS
Fidelity
had been torpedoed and all hands had been lost.

After spending some weeks in the prison, he escaped with the help of Ian Garrow, a captain in the Seaforth Highlanders. Garrow was running an escape line from Marseilles for escaping and evading soldiers and airmen.

Marseilles had been a magnet for any allied soldier or airman on the run, and it was here that Ian Garrow, with the help of some of the residents, set up an escape route over the Pyrenees into Spain. One of the helpers was Revd Donald Caskie who ran the Seaman’s Mission in Marseilles.

Ian Garrow had already made his way through France after Dunkirk, and had established a chain of contacts that would help pass allied servicemen down the Line. Establishing safe houses in Marseilles itself was one of the main priorities and some of the most ideal places were the numerous brothels that inhabited the waterfront and dock areas. There were other ordinary hiding places for the men, among them the apartments of a local doctor, Georges Rodocanachi and his wife Fanny, and a wealthy businessman, Louis Nouveau and his wife Renée.

When an evader or escapee arrived in Marseilles, he was taken to a local waterfront bar,
‘La Petit Poucet’,
where he was thoroughly interrogated and his credentials were checked before moving him on to a safe house. This was necessary to make sure that the serviceman was who he said he was, as it was becoming common practice for Luftwaffe Intelligence to try and infiltrate the resistance groups with English-speaking agents in the guise of escaping airmen. The penalty for being discovered as an infiltrator was just as ruthless as that of the Gestapo – death.

Pat O’Leary wanted to join with Garrow, but permission had to be obtained from London for this to happen. When this had been obtained the two men set to work establishing a network. Firstly they had to set up a communication system. The group had been communicating with Donald Darling, an
MI
9 agent stationed in Lisbon, but he had since moved to Gibraltar and the only way to contact him was by using Basque guides with messages secreted in toothpaste tubes.

Another problem of some concern was the behaviour of a Sergeant Harold Cole. According to Cole he had been at Dunkirk but had been left behind. He had then joined up with the Resistance and was working with them as a courier taking escapees down the Line. Ian Garrow thought very highly of Cole, but O’Leary had an instinct for people and mistrusted him.

Then O’Leary found out that Cole had been having a wild party in Marseilles when he should have been in Lille. He suspected that Cole was using the Line’s funds for his own gratification, although when questioned about it Cole casually dismissed it as ‘a one-off party’. O’Leary went to Lille to visit an agent, Francois Dupré, to whom Cole was supposed to have handed over some money for the Line, but Dupré had received nothing. More disturbing news came in from some contacts on the Line, saying that Cole had been passing himself off as a Captain Colson of British Intelligence.

O’Leary returned to Marseilles to find that Ian Garrow had been arrested by the French Vichy police. Cole was picked up by members of the Resistance and questioned. At first he denied doing anything wrong, but when confronted by Francois Dupré, he confessed to having used the Line’s money to fund his high lifestyle. He was locked in a bathroom whilst it was discussed what to do with him. The Resistance wanted to shoot him there and then, but it was decided to send him back to Britain to face charges of embezzlement. In the meantime Cole had escaped and word was sent down the Line that Cole was not to be trusted. Two weeks later the Line heard that the
Abwehr
(German Military Intelligence) had ‘arrested’ Cole and it was discovered later he had been working for them as a double agent. This came to light when a letter, written by the Abbot of a monastery, was smuggled out of a prison. In the letter he stated that Cole had betrayed him when he had turned up with five escapees – two Belgian pilots, one English soldier, one RAF officer and a Polish pilot. Although the others spoke some French, the Polish pilot spoke neither French nor German. It turned out later, after they had been arrested, that the Polish pilot was in fact the head of the Lille branch of the
Geheime Feldpolizei.

With Ian Garrow under arrest, Pat O’Leary took over control of the escape line. Back in England, James Langley, who himself had travelled down Ian Garrow’s escape line and who was now working with
MI
9, was struggling to find Pat O’Leary a wireless operator. A volunteer was found and Langley decided to take him with him when he went to meet Pat O’Leary in Gibraltar to discuss the Line and the traitor Cole.

Just as he was to leave for Gibraltar, Langley was contacted by Scotland Yard regarding Cole. They had a warrant out for his arrest as a ‘conman’ and they had heard that he was working for
MI
9. He had absconded with the funds from the Sergeants’ Mess in his regiment and had disappeared into France. On meeting with Langley, O’Leary showed him the Abbot’s letter regarding Cole’s treachery to which Langley immediately sanctioned the killing of Cole when he was found. Cole, it appeared later, was also on the run from the
Abwehr,
as he had double-crossed them.

The Resistance also ordered that Cole be killed at the first opportunity, but it wasn’t until 1945 that the French police caught up with him and killed him whilst trying to ‘arrest’ him on other matters.

The number of escapees and evaders was growing by the day creating a backlog, and other methods of extracting them were constantly being sought. One of these was the creation of a special unit known as the CWF (Coast Watching Flotilla). This was not a new idea; a similar idea had been used by the Polish to collect the large number of Poles who had been in France when the country capitulated. It was being run by a section of
MI
6 under the control of Captain Slocum who ran the Operational Section of the Secret Intelligence Service. The new CWF was put under the control of the captain commanding the 8th Submarine Flotilla in Gibraltar, which allowed the flotilla’s depot ship of the dockyard to carry out any maintenance or repairs required. Some of these craft were painted to look like Spanish or Portuguese fishing boats, so if spotted from the air by enemy aircraft they appeared to be neutral.