Great Escapes (7 page)

One of the main people behind the success of the organisation was Lucien Dumais. He took it upon himself to ensure that everything was in place and that everyone knew the role they had to play. Even though Labrosse’s main job was that of the radio operator, with the responsibility for picking safe houses for his radio operations and exchanging coded messages with Room 900 in London, he still found time to help Dumais operate the organisation.

The spot picked for the repatriation of the escapees was on the beach at Anse Cochat. When Lucien Dumais went to inspect the beach he met Francois LeCornec, the leader of the Resistance cell at Plouha. The two men discussed the Bonaparte plan in great detail and Dumais found the group very well organised and well aware of what was expected of them. They already had plans in place to hide the airmen and help with the evacuation. The beach itself was located about 1.5 miles from Plouha. Isolated and difficult to reach, it was perfect for such an operation. Taking the airmen from Paris to Plouha was going to take a great deal of planning. They couldn’t take all the men in one go, as it would attract attention, so it was decided that the airmen would not be brought to Brittany until three days before the evacuation was to take place. They would take the train from Paris that led to Plouha, but they would get off at the small town of Guingamp.

The reason Guingamp had been chosen was because the leader of the Resistance, Mathurin Branchoux, had among his men Francois Kerambrun, a local man who drove a small delivery truck for the Germans. He was allowed to use his truck for private business during off-duty hours and had been given special passes that allowed him to go almost anywhere. He was also well known to the Germans in the area and almost never stopped and searched. So it was decided that he would collect the airmen from the station and drive them to hiding places at Plouha just before the operation. The day before they were due to be picked up, the airmen would go to the ‘Maison d’Alphonse’, a house close to the beach. This house belonged to Jean Gicquel, a member of the Resistance, and was located just 1 mile from the rendezvous beach.

In Paris, the numbers of escapees and evaders was growing, so it was decided that they would have to move some of them quickly. The network was in place and organised, and so Labrosse contacted
MI
9 to request an evacuation. The first operation was organised for late December, but bad weather and heavy seas made this impossible, so it wasn’t until 29 January 1944 that the first evacuation took place.

Shortly before the appointed date, airmen were brought from Paris to Saint-Brieuc and then taken to half a dozen houses in and around Plouha. A few minutes after the BBC announcer had given his cheery greeting,
‘Bonjour tout le monde à la maison d’Alphonse’
, French guides, together with the airmen, came out of the houses and slipped in small groups through the woods behind the village on their way to the ‘House of Alphonse’. Getting the airmen all together, Lucien Dumais told them that they were just a mile from the evacuation point and many lives had been risked to bring them this far. He then explained that it was extremely dangerous and many enemy sentries and patrols were in the area. They had to maintain absolute silence at all times and do exactly as they were told.

He further explained to them the need to watch out for small pieces of white cloth on the ground as they covered mines. If a situation arose and it became necessary to kill, they were expected to help, using knives, hands or anything else they could, but to be quick and above all quiet. Their lives, and those of their helpers, depended on it.

Led by guides, the group slipped out into the darkness. Shortly before midnight, they reached the path leading to the beach. Clutching, sliding and tumbling, they scrambled as quietly as they could down to a cove. From a position higher up the cliff, one of the Resistance men began flashing the letter ‘B’ in Morse code with a masked torch, repeating the signal every couple of minutes. For what seemed like ages, nothing happened. In the cove below, the men waited nervously, then suddenly, the dark shapes of four boats rowed by sailors appeared. An officer, with cocked pistol in hand, jumped out of the lead boat, stepped forward and gave the password:
‘Dinan’. ‘Saint-Brieuc’
, came the reply. ‘OK’, said the officer, ‘Get on board, fast.’

A few seconds later, and after a last handshake, the boats were leaving with their ‘packages for Britain’. Twenty minutes later the silhouette of a boat suddenly appeared out of the darkness, the MGB 503 made no sound as it stood out of range of the German searchlights. Then as the men scrambled aboard, the reassuring rumble of the engines as they were started brought the boat to life. With the last man aboard and the rowing boats safely stored, the powerful gunboat eased its way out to sea and back to Britain.

It had taken just thirty minutes from the time the seventeen airmen and two French Resistance workers, who were both wanted by the Germans, were taken off the beach and placed aboard the MGB. With the ‘packages’ safely away, the Resistance workers made their way silently back to the ‘House of Alphonse’. There they waited until 6 a.m., when the Germans lifted the curfew and they could return to their homes.

Over the next few months Dumais and Labrosse, together with their French and Belgium counterparts, organised the evacuation of 118 airmen. In July 1944 the use of MGBs to evacuate airmen and agents came to an end. In total Shelburn was responsible for the rescue by sea of 128 airmen and 7 agents, a total of 135 men and women. In addition to those evacuated by sea, Dumais and Labrosse arranged for 92 men to be evacuated over the Pyrenees and into Spain. A total of 307 airmen owed their lives to Shelburn and its key operation, ‘Bonaparte’.

Dumais and Labrosse stayed in France after Shelburn was shut down and helped organise and equip a Maquis near Plouha. Late in July 1944, the Maquis joined up with a group of Breton Resistance fighters and attacked a German convoy of over 200 men heading for the Normandy front, at Plélo, killing 54 and taking 136 prisoners.

After the liberation Dumais stayed at Saint-Brieuc for a couple of months under the name of ‘Captain Harrison’, and helped track down the collaborators and agents the Germans had left behind.

The Shelburn Line, although it did not operate for very long, was the most successful of all the escape networks on the European continent, as it never lost a single ‘package’. The only casualty was the ‘House of Alphonse’, which was burned down by the Germans who suspected it to be a Resistance hideout.

On the same Lysander aircraft that brought Raymond Labrosse and Lucien Dumais into France to set up the Shelburn Line, a Belgian pilot by the name of Capitaine Dominique Edgard Potier and five escaping airmen were returned to England.

Edgard Potier was a Belgian Air Force pilot who had escaped to England when his country had been invaded and offered his services to the Royal Air Force. They considered him too old for combat flying duties and rejected him. Potier then approached
MI
9 and volunteered to go to France and help with the escape lines. Airey Neave accepted him immediately because of his ability to speak fluent French and English, which made him an ideal agent to be dropped into either occupied France or Belgium.

On 15 July 1943 Edgard Potier was parachuted into Florenville close to the Belgian Ardennes, to help set up an escape route called the the Possum Line. Potier (codenamed Martin), together with a French-Canadian radio operator by the name of Conrad Lafleur (Charles), were to arrange for the evacuation of allied airmen brought to them by the Belgian section of the Comète Line. The allied airmen were to be evacuated by Lysander or by MGBs from Brittany.

During the next four months a number of allied airmen were whisked away under the noses of the Germans, then in November Potier and Lafleur were recalled and returned to England. The following month, together with another wireless operator, Albert LeMaitre (London) and a former Comète Line courier, Baron Jean de Blommaert (Rutland), Potier parachuted back into Belgium, landing near Fismes.

Later the same month, Conrad Lafleur returned to Belgium together with a highly experienced courier, Raymonde Beure, who also acted as his watcher. Despite all the usual precautions the Gestapo homed in on the pair of them whilst they were transmitting from a house in Reims. After a gun battle in which some of the Germans were either killed or wounded, the two agents managed to escape, but Raymonde Beure left her purse behind in the confusion. In her purse were a number of addresses and photographs, including one of her fiancé, Raymond Jeunet, and a hotel key.

Jeunet had been expecting his fiancée to call him, but because of the incident with the Gestapo, she had not. Being a very jealous man, he was convinced that she was having an affair with Conrad Lafleur and so left his home in Fismes and went looking for her. On arriving in Reims, he was spotted by the Gestapo, who now had his photograph, and promptly arrested. In his possession he had a photograph of his fiancée Raymonde, which they took from him. They then took him to all the hotels in Reims showing the receptionists the photograph of Raymonde Beure until it was recognised by the proprietor of the hotel Jean d’Arc. The proprietor quickly admitted that the girl had rented two rooms at the hotel at which point the Gestapo raided the first of the rooms. The first was empty, but the second contained Edgard Potier who was immediately arrested.

After weeks of torture by the Gestapo, and close to breaking point, Edgard Potier managed to throw himself from a third-storey window onto the concrete below, so as not to be forced to betray his comrades. He was rushed to hospital but died three hours later without regaining consciousness.

The Possum Line, having been discovered, was disbanded and the agents assigned to other groups and tasks. Despite its short operational length, Possum Line still managed to aid allied airmen to escape and return to continue the fight against the Nazis.

There were a number of other smaller escape lines and organisations, such as the network ‘Jade-Fitzroy’ set up by a young Frenchman by the name of Claude Lamirault, who worked with the Possum Line. Then there was the ‘Hector Network’ created by Colonel Alfred Heurteaux, a former First World War pilot, and the ‘Brutus Network’ organised by Captaine Pierre Fourcad, which operated in the Lyon district. There is no doubt that there were many more, and although their names may have been lost in the fullness of time, their contribution and bravery will never be forgotten.

The following is a compilation of escape stories carried out by allied soldiers and airmen during the Second World War.

One of the first attempts by British prisoners was made on 2 May 1941 from Colditz when two British officers, Lts Peter Allan of the Cameroon Highlanders and John Hyde-Thompson of the Durham Light Infantry, attempted to smuggle themselves out of the camp in two old straw mattresses that were being dumped. The two mattresses were taken from the loft by prisoners and taken into the yard. One of the mattresses was placed on a handcart, whilst the other was left lying on the stone courtyard. Seeing that the mattress on the ground looked unusually lumpy, one of the guards stepped on the mattress. Feeling something hard beneath his foot, he tore open the mattress cover to find Lt Hyde-Thompson inside. Immediately guards surrounded the luckless soldier and escorted him to the guardroom. In the confusion that followed, the handcart, with Lt Allan still inside the other mattress, was wheeled out of the gates.

Once outside the camp and in the countryside, Peter Allan waited until the mattress was tipped off the cart onto a rubbish dump, then lay there until dark and made his escape. Travelling mostly by night, Peter Allan, who spoke almost fluent German, made his way through Bohemia and Moravia (formerly part of Czechoslovakia) until he reached Austria. He walked almost the entire way to Vienna, although at one point he scrounged a lift in Bohemia for almost 100 miles, in an SS Staff car, until he reached the American Embassy in Vienna. America was not in the war at this time, and the Consul, who was unsure that he genuinely was an escaped British officer, refused to help him and turned him away. The problem that faced the American Consul was that they were aware that the Gestapo used English-speaking provocateurs to try and get the Consul to help them. Then, if they did so, the Gestapo would have an excuse to shut down the Consul, claiming that they were abusing their diplomatic privileges by aiding enemies of Germany.

Totally depressed by this setback and extremely tired and weak from hunger, Peter Allan realised that sooner or later he was going to be caught, and gave himself up to the local police after being stopped and questioned. He was immediately handed over to the military and returned to Colditz Castle. Had he gone to the Swedish Embassy, there is no doubt that they would have taken him in and helped him escape.

Back in Colditz Castle, escape committees had been formed and a friendly rivalry established with the other nationalities as to who would get the first escapee away. Like many other prisoner of war camps, the influx of inmates brought together not only soldiers and airmen, but also men who had civilian trades such as engineers, locksmiths, tailors, artists, linguists and even criminals. Amongst the criminal fraternity were thieves, forgers and the like, who had lived most of their lives outside the law and could easily adapt to finding ways to ‘acquire’ materials and information that would be a great asset to the escape committees.

The first person to successfully escape from Colditz was a French officer by the name of Lt Alain Le Ray, who hid in a park during a game of soccer and slipped away under the cover of darkness. On reaching France, he joined the Resistance for the remainder of the war. The first British officer to make it home was Airey Neave. He and a Dutch officer by the name of Anthony Lutyen dressed in painted German officer’s uniforms with cardboard insignias attached, clambered down through a trapdoor beneath a stage, made a hole in the ceiling into a storeroom, then went down the stairs and through the guardroom. Anthony Lutyen, who spoke fluent German, chatted non-stop as the pair sauntered out of the guardroom, past the sentries, and walked on to freedom. After returning to England, via Switzerland, Airey Neave became an important part of
MI
9, and the story of his escape is described in a later chapter of this book.