The Bomber Boys (16 page)

Peter bought his ticket with no problem, found a seat on the train and considered his options. Continuing to Paris was a possibility that greatly intrigued him. When would he ever have another opportunity to visit the City of Light? Also, as large as Paris was, there had to be a large resistance movement there. His chances of making contact and being smuggled back to England could be better there.

On the other hand, he could not rule out the possibility he would never make contact with the French resistance.
What then?
Paris was only a hundred miles or so from the coast, with England just across the channel, but how could he get there on his own?

If instead, he went south through Marseilles and then traveled east to Perpignan, he would be within walking distance of the Spanish border. Spain, though cozy with the German government, was officially a neutral country. The route would be a long one, nearly five hundred miles. But Peter had seen Marseilles listed on the railroad schedule posted in the Nancy train station. He could take the train there, perhaps even as far as Perpignan, saving his energy for the final hike into Spanish territory.

Besides its length, there was one other obstacle on the southern route, and Peter was not sure how daunting it would be. He could not risk a look at his handkerchief map while on the crowded train, but he remembered that the map indicated a line
of mountains running along the French and Spanish border. The range was named the Pyrenees. The map provided no information on how high or how rugged these mountains were, but if he chose to head for Spain, there would be no avoiding the Pyrenees.

By the time his train pulled into the Dijon station early the next morning, Peter had made his decision. He would try for Spain. After the rest of the passengers had departed, he sneaked a quick peek at his map. Lyons would be his next destination—Lyons, Avignon, Marseilles and Perpignan, then on foot to Spain. Tucking the map away, the American airman went in search of something to eat, feeling better than ever about his chances now that he had a solid plan.

Peter had no way of knowing that the escape route he had chosen was one of the most traveled escape lines used by the French underground movement. Because of its popularity, it was also one of the most dangerous. The route was inhabited by fearful civilians, French resistance patriots, turncoat collaborators, Vichy spies and German Gestapo agents. From outside appearances, there was often little indication who was who.

 

 

 

There were two types of activity that the French resistance forces engaged in along the Dijon to Marseilles-Perpignan route. One side of the resistance forces concentrated on sabotaging the German army that was occupying their country. The assassination of German officers and the destruction of enemy personnel and equipment became the French saboteurs’ primary mission. Supplied with weapons, explosives and training from Britain’s Special Operations Executive, these French resistance members were a constant and deadly threat to the German occupation troops.

If caught, the resistance fighters paid the ultimate price, and when they were not caught, often French civilians were made to pay. Frustrated by their inability to stop the assassinations and bombings, the German high command took brutal countermeasures. If a German officer was killed, dozens of local residents could be sentenced to death by firing squad.

The second mission of the French underground forces was to aid Allied airmen who had been shot down and the few soldiers who had escaped from German imprisonment. The escape-line resistance fighters also received training and aid from a British intelligence organization named MI9. The risks taken and the secrecy surrounding this side of the French resistance was perhaps even greater than those involving the saboteurs.

In many instances, the various underground agents who escorted the “evaders” along the escape lines did not even know each other. They might drop off an airman at a café, where he would be picked up by a different agent for the next leg of his journey. In this manner, if one agent was captured and tortured, he could not betray anyone beyond his own cell.

The Germans made great efforts to infiltrate the escape-line organizations, and when they were successful, the French resistance members were often never heard from again. During the war, hundreds of these patriots would give their lives while helping thousands of Allied airmen and soldiers make it back to safety in England.

Most Frenchmen were not part of the resistance movement, nor were they Vichy collaborators. They were simply trying to survive the war. With the threat of removal to a concentration camp or even death for himself and possibly his entire family, the average French citizen’s emotions ranged from nervousness to outright terror. Peter had seen it in the eyes of the man with the suitcase. He would see it again.

Peter had observed that in order to buy almost any kind of food in France, one needed a government coupon. One of the few exceptions to the rule seemed to be simple bouillon soup, so that is what he ordered in a Dijon restaurant. Afterward, he strolled through the narrow streets of old Dijon’s outdoor markets and managed to swipe an apple. As hungry as he was, he did not dare to take more.

Dijon was larger than Nancy, and Peter thought it even more beautiful. During the fifteenth century, the state of Burgundy had been one of the most influential in all of Europe. Dijon had been Burgundy’s capital and had attracted many of the best artists and architects. With time to kill before his train left for Lyons, the young American airman became a tourist again, wandering the city, enjoying its cathedral and the magnificent Palais des Ducs.

An uneventful train ride south to Lyons only enhanced Peter’s good mood. Things were going well now. He had encountered no German soldiers since his free beer in Nancy, and as he walked out of the Lyons train station and confidently down the street, his mind was on reaching Spain, England and eventually Brooklyn. He was daydreaming when he passed along a street bordered on the left by a high brick wall. It was a jarring shock when the German soldier stepped into his path. With a rifle in one hand, the soldier threw his other hand out in an unmistakable signal for Peter to halt.

Peter’s heart accelerated with a quickness he could never have imagined before.
If he asks me anything, I’m caught,
Peter thought. But the soldier did not speak. He just stood staring at him, as Peter’s heart pounded. Then turning to his right, the soldier motioned to some unseen person behind the wall. Seconds later a large German army truck rolled into the street and was followed by a second. Once the trucks had passed, the German soldier nodded for Peter to continue on his way. Peter managed
a smile and forced himself to keep a casual pace as he passed by. It was several minutes before his heart rate fell back to normal.

During the train stop in Avignon, Peter elected to stay on board. It was early in the afternoon when the train rolled into Marseilles. As he walked off the platform and into the station, the line of departing passengers came to a halt. Up ahead a German officer, accompanied by several soldiers, was checking identification papers. Peter had no choice but to slowly retreat.

Back on the platform he looked around for other avenues of exit but quickly spotted soldiers stationed at each end of the rail yard. However, he also spotted a half dozen railroad workers walking past. With lunch pails in their hands, they were heading out of the yard. Peter did not waste any time thinking over the wisdom of his decision—he just hopped down from the platform and fell in step with the workers.

The men noticed him but pretended not to. He tried to match the pace and manner of their strides. By the time they reached the German soldiers, Peter was right in the middle of the workers. Accustomed to seeing the railroad men every day, the Germans paid them little attention. So it was that Peter passed safely into the seaport city of Marseilles.

Marseilles was big and busy, its harbor full of open-air markets. Peter was able to purchase food and even a couple of souvenirs—a pipe and a small knife. With the Germans checking papers at the railroad station, he decided to wait until the following day before catching the train to Perpignan.

When he cautiously entered the station the next day, Peter was relieved to see there was no activity involving the German military. Everyone seemed to be coming and going as they pleased. He was well aware that that did not mean the station was free of surveillance by Vichy spies and German agents. He vowed silently to keep his guard up. He had been lucky so far
and did not intend to blow it with only one French city left between him and the Spanish border.

Getting to Perpignan presented a small problem to Peter—he had no idea how to pronounce it. Finally he decided to write the word on a small piece of paper. When he got to the ticket booth, he shoved the paper across the counter along with a one-hundred-franc note. The man in the booth handed him a ticket to Perpignan and his change, without comment.

On the train, Peter pulled his beret down over his eyes and was soon asleep. The warmth of sunshine on his right cheek awakened him an hour or so later. He immediately was overcome with a feeling that something was wrong. The sun was on the wrong side of the train.

He had a ticket to Perpignan to the south. The morning sun should have been on the left side of the train. Sunshine coming from the right side could only mean that he was heading north. Soon his fears were confirmed when the train pulled into Avignon station. Peter looked at his ticket. “Perpignan” was stamped across the top. He was still trying to understand what had gone wrong and how to fix it when the conductor asked for his ticket. When he handed the ticket back, the conductor said something in French and pointed out the window at another train on an adjacent track.

Unable to ask for clarification, Peter switched trains and was soon heading south to Perpignan. On the way he figured out what had happened. Apparently there was no direct train service between Marseilles and Perpignan. Traveling between those two cities required a traveler to head north and make the southern connection in Avignon. Had the conductor not happened by while the train was still at Avignon station, Peter would have ended up back in Lyons. He had been graced with good luck for his entire journey so far, and he could only hope it held up.

Peter got to Perpignan late in the evening and slipped beneath
the station’s passenger platform, where he spent the night. No time for sightseeing this time. Early the next day, hungry but rested, he began his hike to the Spanish border. From looking at the map, he judged the distance to be only thirty to forty miles. Of course, it was all uphill, but even in his weakened condition, he made good time through the foothills, spurred on by the excitement of being so close to freedom.

He had made up his mind to surrender himself to the authorities in the tiny principality of Andorra, which was to the southwest, nestled into a Pyrenean valley between France and Spain. Andorra maintained a long tradition of neutrality that was not stained by any ties to Germany. Peter was counting on fair treatment there.

His enthusiastic pace came to an end as he topped the crest of a hill and got his first look at the majestic Pyrenees Mountains. These were not the gentle sandstone mountains of the Connecticut River Valley that he had grown up with—not even the larger ranges of New York’s Hudson River Valley, where he had hiked as a Boy Scout. The Pyrenees were impos ingly high peaks, snowcapped and jagged. They seemed to go on forever.

What Peter was looking at was just a portion of the great mountain range, which covered twenty-one thousand square miles from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. At least forty of the Pyrenees’ peaks topped ten thousand feet, with the highest reaching an altitude of more than eleven thousand feet.

“I’ll never make it,” Peter said softly and sat down in the middle of the road. He had not eaten since Marseilles, two days before. In fact, everything he had eaten since he had been shot down had not amounted to much. His feet were so swollen, he could not get his shoes off. He finally had to cut them off with his hunting knife. He had no idea how he would ever get them back on.

For a while, there alone on a road in the foothills of the Pyrenees, the young American’s mind simply ceased to function rationally. Hopelessness, desperation, hunger and exhaustion took over. But only for a while. Finally, he looked back down the road to Perpignan and thought of all he had been through since bailing out of the B-17—all the close calls, lucky breaks, answered prayers and the pure determination that had brought him into the shadow of these mountains. If he could not make it to Andorra, he would turn south to where the eastern end of the Pyrenees hugged the sea. These mountains, while rugged, were not as elevated as their cousins to the west. Spain was just on the other side of their peaks. There was no going back.

 

 

 

Peter rested long enough for some of the swelling in his feet to lessen. His shoes were a disaster but they would have to do for a little while longer. Each step was painful as the road led him higher and higher into the Pyrenees.

A little later, as he hobbled along, Peter heard a noise behind him and turned to see a puzzling sight. It was a man with two bicycles. He was riding one of the bikes and steering with his left hand, while holding the handlebars of the second bicycle with his right hand. Traveling uphill in this manner, the cyclist was barely making better time than Peter.

As the stranger approached, Peter pointed to the second bike and then to himself.
“Oui. Oui!”
the man said. Peter climbed on the bicycle and the two travelers headed up the road, each making better time than before. They rode for about three miles in silence and then the Frenchman asked,
“Français?”

“No,” Peter said. He was reluctant to take any additional chances with the locals. He was so close to being beyond the reach of the Germans, but he was still starving and not really
sure how to proceed once he reached Spain. He could still use the help of the French resistance. Perhaps the cyclist would be his last opportunity.