Wellington HZ355 from 429 Squadron

Excellent transcription, I like the part of the chocolate. Poor Italians. The Germans despised them because they considered them as traitors whereas they were patriots who had the guts to say they refused the fascist rule. It would have been much easier to say nothing and/or surrender to the allies for those who were military, but some of them fought the Germans and when they were caught it meant hell for them.

 

Cont.
They just didn’t want any part of us. So we went back to the Chetnics side and we decided that we are not going to go anywhere here so we try and go through Austria and get into France. Maybe we can get some help in France. An occupied country is better than one that isn’t occupied. Well we come back into Hungary and when we were there, we now normally the Germans checked all the through trains very carefully but the locals, they didn’t bother the workmen’s trains. But they had a prison break, a civilian prison break, not Military, somewhere in the area of Hungary, they were checking everything, trying to get these civilian prisoners back. They scooped us up in the process. So they put us in this British Work Party and these guys were locked down inside of barracks, about 25 or 30 of them, I guess. And when we got in there, they said “Boy are we glad to see you.” “You got to tell them what’s going on here.” “Well what’s going on?” Well it turns out, this work party….Now the Geneva Convention says you will not use POW’s in direct, to support directly your war effort. That by the way is the reason why when they used German and Italian POW’s in GI mess halls in Texas and in Arizona that was a violation. They weren’t suppose to do that. Well they had a freight car with some shells in it, artillery shells. They wanted these British to unload the freight car. The British refused. Now they had a Corporal in charge and he had a Lance Corporal, which is one stripe. Corporal had got 2. A Lance Corporal’s got 1, he’s like a PFC in the American Service and so they told this guy to order your men to unload the car. “No, that’s a violation of the Geneva Convention and we don’t do that.” “Well you will do that.” “No.” “If you don’t do that, we will shoot you.” So he said, “No.” And they shot him. Killed him. His body was laying out there in the compound when we got there. That brought the Lance Corporal up. The Lance Corporal, they said, “Now you saw what happened to the Corporal.” “We gave him an order and he refused it.” “So we were within our rights to kill him.” This is what I am getting, second hand from these Englishmen. I would like to think I got that kind of courage but I’m not so darn sure but this Lance Jack said “Sorry.” They fired into his shoulder. He had a wound in his shoulder. It didn’t kill him. And they put them all back inside the barracks. That’s what we found when we got there. That’s what they wanted us to tell who ever we contacted when we went on down the line. We knew we were going to be staying there. Anyway about 4 or 5 days later they got us and took us out of there. And whatever eventually happened to these guys I don’t know. I have often thought about that Lance Corporal. What a courageous individual to be able to spit in these people’s eye and say, “Sorry.” (Interviewer – How did you get 200 miles? Who helped you along the way?) We were riding these workmen’s trains. These workmen trains, cars and this guy I was with, his German was pretty good. He was asking and he bought the tickets and that’s how we got down there. Anyway, that was that one and of course they took us to Chemnitz, Stalag 4F. We stayed there 5 or 6 days. Then they run us back to Muhlberg. That was our main camp. Well it takes a while to get things set up for the next attempt. (Interviewer – What time of the year were these 3?) Well (Interviewer – That winter time on the one.) Yeah that was the winter time. Well it was probably mid March I guess when we got grabbed and hauled back. But the Yugoslavia, that was in late summer. The Carpathian Mountains are all granite. They are tough on footwear. These Chetnics gave us boots, our own were coming apart. That was the boots that I had picked up, the American Army boots in Dulag Luft. (Interviewer – When they brought you back, did they give you a bad time?) Oh yeah, they…the German’s had a system, I never knew anybody that went all the way through but the first time you were suppose to get 7 days bread and water. Well seven days in the cooler, in the clink. For some reason and I don’t know why, they held me 30 days that first time. The second time you are suppose to get 30 days. The third time you’re suppose to go to a punishment work party. The fourth time you go to a Concentration Camp and the fifth time you’re executed. Now that is the theory. I never knew anybody that was executed under that system. In fact I never knew anybody that, well I went to Buchenwald and I knew 2 or 3 other people that managed to get into things like that but as far as the execution is concerned I never knew anybody that did get the chop on that. But that was the theory. And the reason we knew that because we had a fella named Stan Eardsley. Stan’s German was just about complete. He had been a Gem salesman all over the continent before the war. He knew his way up one way and down the other in Europe. And Stan was in the Kommandant’s office one day, I don’t remember why, I don’t know if I ever knew why but he was sitting there reading these things in the Kommandant’s desk upside down. So you know that his German is pretty good. He’s reading these things and this list of punishments was one of these things. He told us about them when he came back.


I was checking the area of the camps and went over a map with my Uncle and we are guessing that the area for the incident with the British Corporal would be around Stalag 18A Wolfsberg, Austria or north of there. I found information on a POW Pte. Eric Black who was killed by a German guard, Leople Bruckner, and another POW Private E. J. McDonald who was shot but not killed. Both shootings happened on April 15, 1944 on a Work Party associated with Stalag 18A. The Stalag 18A had many work party camps all over and in Yugoslavia. Don't know, but perhaps. Time is about right and area.

Jo Ann

 

amazing reading again Jo Ann and a hell of a job for the transcription. Thank you for sharing this with us on the forum.
I will try to pinpoint he exact place at Stalag 18A. This would be north of Yougaslavia and near a Tito controlled area. Besides there was a railroad nearby, so lots of hints.
I would draw a line starting at Muhlberg and going south via the Czech republic and Hungary and see where it logically gets to such an area. Then see if this fits with a 18A zone.

 

I need more map pins and red yarn

 

try a smaller scale first, it will give you general directions and three points would be a good start

 

Info:

My Uncle and the Czech POW were in Wien (Vienna), Austria about 1 day before their capture. They were headed towards France, travelling by rail. Captured in Austria.

 

My Uncle remembers going through Melk, Austria after the city Wien. So they were on a northern route through Austria. I will check more on that area for Camps too.

My Uncle said that the French POW’s took care of the cooler in Stalag 4B. The German NCO of the cooler was very lax and let the men in there have the Red Cross packages and extra blankets which they were not suppose to have. When an inspection by the Kommandant would happen, the German NCO would yell and they would hide their Red Cross packages in the coal boxes and hand over the blankets to the French POW’s to hide. They were able to walk around in there but had to scoot back in their cells when the Kommandant came around.

He said that the only building at the camp that was heated by steam was the cooler and many men who were sick, would deliberately make a minor infractions, such as not saluting, to get sent in there to get warm, rest and some extra food from the Red Cross packages. He said the cooler itself was not bad at all when that German NCO was in charge.

My Uncle got the picture of Czech POW Sgt Augustin Sestak of 311 Squadron and he is 90% positive that it's him. Waiting for feed back.

Found an Awesome website for 429 Squadron:
429 sqn RCAF Research

Turns out the man running the website set it up for his Uncle that was lost on the Krefeld operation. The Pilot Ernest Star flew as a 2nd Pilot on my Uncle's crew just a month before. Working on getting them together to talk!!!

It has so much information!!!! A map showing the June 22, 1943 Krefeld Operation. It gives me a total perspective on the Air Combact. I can't even imagine what it must have been like to live below that going on let alone in the sky!

I have ordered about 6 books within the last few days!!!

Happy Halloween :clown:

Jo Ann

 

Salute is really for everything on the thread!!

I only just found this link today and it wasn't because I was already on the Forum!

I was watching a non stop series of Canadian Military History programming on SCN (Saskatchewan Community Network) and saw one by the War Amps about the Boys of Kelvin High in Winnipeg - 50 of them were killed in Bomber Command. Anyhow it had quite a bit on it about various aspects of Bomber Command including Art Kinnis and Ed Carter-Edwards who were both amongst the 168 RAF who ended up in Buchenwald. I started researching and found myself here. I've not read the first portion or done a search yet of the Forum to see what else you have on this re Stalag Luft 3 and then Buchenwald.

Veterans Affairs Canada has a website link The Lucky Ones - Allied Airmen and Buchenwald - Veterans Affairs Canada with a transcript of an interview with Ed Carter-Edwards. There were two books - The Lucky Ones Allied AIrment and Buchenwald and 168 Jump into Hell about their experiences. They said people were very disbelieving initially that military prisoners would have been imprisoned in Buchenwald.

There is another book I learned about while Googling called Missing in Action: An RCAF Navigator's Story

Missing in Action: An RCAF Navigator's Story
By John D. Harvie
Published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 1995
ISBN 0773513507, 9780773513501
243 pages

Described as: Shot down by Germans over occupied France, Royal Canadian Air Force navigator John Harvie was the only member of his Bomber Command crew to survive the crash. After hiding at a French farmhouse for several days, he started back to England with the help of the French Resistance, but his journey ended abruptly when a spy handed him over to the Gestapo. Harvie spent a month in solitary confinement in Paris and then was transported by boxcar to Buchenwald. He describes the appalling conditions, the indignities, and the extreme hardship he and his fellow prisoners endured there. Later he was transferred to Stalag Luft III POW camp where, with food from the Red Cross and the comradeship of fellow prisoners, his body and spirit were restored. As the Russian army advanced into Germany, Harvie and the other POWs undertook the long march from eastern Germany to a camp near Bremen and then to Lubeck, near the Danish border, where he remained until the Allied forces broke through and he was liberated by the British army.

The link above goes to a preview of the book and is at the page about Ed Carter-Edwards and on the same page talks about the Danish police at Buchenwald.

http://www.wlajournal.com/moab/ This is a link to a listing of books that are personal memoires of POWs in Europe and North Africa. Perhaps some will have additional information of use to you Jo Ann.

Skipper mentioned that I might have some Canadian websites for you. At the moment they seem to be massed together with non-Canadian sites, however if you have a look through the various links I have at this thread
http://www.ww2f.com/information-req...wwii-related-research-i-e-family-history.html there are quite a few listed as being for Canadian research and if you go to one of my last posts on page 2 there is an extensive list that is in alphabetical order in which you can often tell which will get you to information about Canadian items. In addition if you look at the sticky on the Genealogy Forum you will see one that has information for searching for relatives records and I have information for getting personnel records for Canadian servicemen. If you have not already done so, do a request to the National Archives by having your Uncle make a request for his records. There will be no delay for him to do so.

I am totally fascinated with your Uncle's story and if there is anything I can do to assist you, let me know!

 

Good to have you here Michelle, we were waiting for you.

I have Harvie's book in my Library. It's a great story. I even have a copy of the engraving he made in Fresnes prison. However this man was in the August 1944 train , so both men would not have been together. The story is very interesting though. I studied the story of his crash . The crashsite is only an hour away from my home.

 

Hello Michelle,

Nice to touch base with you. I look forward to spending some time now that things are slowing a bit on my research and I can read and search more. I'm still in the process of transcribing his interview....kinda jumped around a bit while looking into certain aspects.

My Uncle lost many things in a fire. His records are a bit singed and have water damage so I think we will send for new ones.


I read this article yesterday:

WW II vet held in Nazi slave camp breaks silence: 'Let it be known' - CNN.com


I think there was a lot more of these guys.


I look forward to your input and suggestions. I'm sure I will have tons of quesions for you!!!



Skipper,

I got the Stalag 4B Muhlberg archive information but no mention of "Britton." I will be talking with my uncle today so I will check some more on this. Names are Fittock and Jones. I will read over the copyright info and see what I can say about it.

So far from London Archive...nothing on my unlce but a lot on DeZitter from what I was told.

I got a few books, Bomber Command War Diaries, and this will help getting his OPS along with the 429 Squadron website. His Log Book is gone.

My uncle is talking more about Buchenwald, a bit at a time. He is thinking about things and asking questions. He stayed with many Russians. He wanted to know if they were taken to work camps. He said that they would be taken often and he thought that they went to a work party. He knew deep inside what happened but hard for him. I filled him in on what happened and how it was done. He was quite silent for a period of time. He liked those guys.

Jo Ann

 

Skipper,

Forgot to mention....

My Uncle is reading over the info I sent....right now on the Resistance in Belgium. He also want to learn about the Ship in Brest that shot the flak. In his ops that day they flew at 600 ft. to drop the mines. Close one on that. I read the thread on it and went to the website. He is quite interested in it.

Jo Ann

 

Do you mean the Prinz Eugen? If this is the one there is a great thread about this ship and crew. Just tye Prinz Eugne in the search section and you"ll find it.

I'm not sure but I think there were many Russian work parties at Dora. So many questions, I will try to dig that too

 

I thought you might want to see my 37mm Flak shell

http://www.ww2f.com/militaria/23668-whats-your-newest-militaria-purchases-16.html#post335831

 

Nice Trinkets!

I have a US Canteen dated 1945.

Not much to find out here in San Diego....just some live artillery shells around here in the canyons. Areas close by used for bombing exercises back in WW2.

 

I will be posting the continued interview of my uncle. There will be some duplicate information from previous posts but it is better for me to keep it all in order. Also where there is "Note" is my research and/or information from him after the interview. This includes information from other researchers/historians that have provided information through archives located mainly in Belgium.

The next morning they gave me a bicycle and another guy on a bike, a Belgium. (Note: He was housed in Eisden by A. Lenssen.) We had 2 tin pails hooked over the handle bars of the bike. One on his and one on mine. So he said “Follow me and do what I do.” I said “Ok.” So I followed him at a respectful distance behind him. We rode up to the edge of the woods and he parked his bike and I dropped mine down and picked up the tin pail. Now he says “Be picking berries.” There were other people besides us, so he says, “Follow me.” So of course I’m picking berries. I pick one and eat one. We are working our way through the woods. Over on the far corner of the woods, there was a house. They took me in the house. He went in and I followed. When we got in the house, this is the place where they identified me, to find out whether or not I was who I said I was. Germans were putting plants all around the place, so they had to know. Well they asked me, set me down at a table and this guy sat across from me and he asked me questions. And there was him, I and this guide that I had with me and 2 other people in the room. He asked me, he said, “Where does a Bomb Aimer ride in a Wellington?” Well I thought maybe he knew something about it but I hadn’t told anybody I was on a Wellington but then there was a lot of them around. So I skated by on that one, “He rides as a second Pilot.” Correct, he does. They don’t carry co-pilots, so the bomb aimer who would normally be in the nose, rides in that seat on the right side. Oh, he asked me 2 or 3 other questions. He asked me about an RAF form 1250. That’s the ID card. It’s actually a little booklet. He asked “What is George?” Now when he said that I thought he said what is a Droge? Droge is a sleeve target that you fire at when you are in Gunnery training. And I said that. Well things went a little quiet there so I had come up with the wrong answer. So the guy asked me what I said and I repeated it. And he said “That’s George?” And that’s when I got it, what he was saying. He had an accent. He wanted to know what “George” was. George is the Auto-pilot, you know, let George do it. That was the right answer. He asked what the other thing that I had mentioned, I said a Droge. “We’ll ask the next man that.” So I compounded the problem for the guy behind me. We left there back through the woods, picking berries. Picked up our bicycles and peddled off and we peddled down the road and off to a road running off to the right to a house that was at the end of the road. Now that was the only house on that road and it was, the road ran right up to the front of the house. Well this turned out to be a part of the Belgium aristocracy and he said, “We eat here.” So we went in and we had Rhubarb Curd. We also had raw bacon. This guy was talking to me and he said, he took me out on the front porch and he said, “You see that thing right there?” And it looked like an electrical sub-station, a whole bunch of wires. He says, “How does it happen that the RAF doesn’t bomb that?” Well I said, I don’t know, actually.” They didn’t let me in on things like that. “I have no idea.” He said, “That is a Kammhuber station.” Now the Germans had 2 types of very primitive radar. The British was miles ahead of them on radar. The Kammhuber was a long distance radar up to about 500 miles, I guess. And I think the code word, it was short term, I think it was Luxemburg for them. That was a short term and maybe a mile. This was one of the Kammhuber stations. Well I told the old guy, I said “We would, if we were going to bomb that we would come up with an identifiable point there, the target as an identifiable point here and we would line those points up and then we would bomb. We would make a Dead Reckoning course, do our run through the middle.” He says “Now I see, yes, OK.” Well he said “Let’s see what we can find.” He went to a bureau. He had a big chest of drawers type thing. He opened one of the drawers, pulled out the Belgium General Staff map, one to 25,000th. Imagine this guy having this equipment. Turns out that he had been a General in the Army. In later years, I met people that knew who he was. Of course, I was suppose to report all this back to England when I got back. I never got back, so I couldn’t report it. He said, “Ok.” He said, “Now here’s the Kammhuber station.” He said “You need some place to run in on that station.” “Yes.” Well there was an area where 2 small streams came together. But they were big enough that they would reflect and see them from the air. That was here (pointing). There was an outcropping of rock here (pointing) on the side of a hill. The Kammhuber station and a small village here (pointing) maybe 4 or 5 buildings at a crossroad. Well there’s your DR run right there. Anyway, I was suppose to report this. Well then it was the first time we got in to a car. When we got ready to leave there, they said “From here, you go by car.” “Ok.” The guy with the bicycle, he disappeared, and the cans of berries by the way. This guy arrived with a car. (Note: The guide is Jean Mobers. He is with the section of the Secret Army of Hasselt, Hoornaert-Drix. He was arrested June 22, 1943 and executed on April 19, 1944 for assisting the Allies through Comete.) I think it was a Citroën. Probably, that’s what they mostly drive in Europe at that time and place. When I got in the car, now they drive to the right on the continent, so it’s a left hand drive car like ours. Well, I get in the right hand seat, the glove compartment right in front of me. He reaches over, opens the glove compartment and pulls this pistol out and drops it in my lap and says, “That’s your Browning.” Now it turns out that the generic name for a pistol in Belgium is Browning. That was originally a Belgium company. It isn’t anymore, it’s American now. And a very good weapon. That’s what he told me, he says “If a German stops us and starts to question us, shoot. We went to a place called Diepenbeek, the name of this little town and that was a rail road, the rail road tracks run through there. There was a grade crossing right there. This house sat right there on that corner. It was kind of like a bay window that ran out this way (hands open), a bunch of windows in it and this is in the upstairs and you could look through this bay window up and down the tracks both ways. These people worked for the rail road. There were a bunch of levers, switches in there and so on. I ran into an RAF man by the name of Smith, Smitty. I was with him. He was an RAF Radio Operator who had been shot down in Holland. Way up in the Northern part of Holland and made his way through the Underground all the way across Holland and down into Belgium. He’s working his way out same as I was. (Note: RAF F/S J.M.J. “Smitty” Smith was from Squadron 218.) Well we stayed together, well till we were captured. And then I never saw him again. I don’t know what eventually happened to him. We stayed there for, until about 4 o’clock in the afternoon maybe 5 o’clock. (Note: There is a strong possibility that he stayed at the home of Henri Collars.) We left there and went by car, a different guy, not the same guy that brought us in there, to the city of Hasselt. Now the city of Hasselt is the capitol of Limburg Province in Belgium. Limburg Province is partly in Belgium, partly in Holland and partly in Germany. You got Belgium coming up this way (hands showing), Germany coming here (hands) and a little tail of Holland coming down this way (hands). That Province is across all 3 countries. You know Limburger cheese, that’s where it comes from and when those people want to eat it, they have it over on the window sill and they go over there and spread their bread and eat it. We stayed 8 days at this house in Hasselt (Note: This is the home of the Florent and Olympe (Doby) Biernaux. After the war, Olympe sent a letter along with a picture of him with the family taken in the back garden. The family was arrested on August 5, 1944 and their son Raymond had perished in Neuengamme on March 3, 1945 at age 20. Florent Biernaux was able to escape the Ghost Train on September 3, 1944. Olympe Doby Biernaux was sent to Ravensbruk after being tortured in St. Gilles. She was released on May 3, 1945.) And they told us when we got there, Smitty and I, they said, “Ok now, here is a deck of cards,” they gave us a deck of cards. But on the continent there are 5 suits in a deck of cards. Of course we only have 4. So they told us if you’re playing cards, using 4 suits, make sure you mix all the cards together before you leave, if you have to leave in a hurry. They also told us, if we take our coats off, our sports coats, to put them over the back of the chair. If you get up to move to another chair, move your coat. So your coat is always right there within your grasp. And then they said if you have to go…. Oh we were not allowed to walk close to the window. We had to go around so no one could see us from the outside. And they said if you have to go we will tell you, go and don’t hesitate, out the back door down through the back garden and there was a wire fence, all these square wire things. All broken down with holes in it and everything and an alley right outside there. They said go through the fence, turn left at the end of the alley is the Albert Canal. There will be fishing poles at the Albert canal, sit down behind one of the fish poles. Somebody will come for you. OK. Well that’s what happened. Just before this, they had showed me a picture of people they had in other houses and 2 of the people were my Bomb Aimer and the Wireless OP. Of course they said, ‘Now you will be joining these men. Well a couple of days later, they came around and said “We’re sorry but the Germans had captured those men and you won’t be joining them. (Note: Horton and Nicholson were captured in Hasselt at Lucien Collin’s home on June 18, 1943. Lucien Collin was executed on June 30, 1944 for his assistance to the Allies through Comete.) Well then it was a couple of days after that, they said “Go, Go, Go.” We got up, smeared the cards together, grabbed our coats and out the back door and to the left and down behind the fish poles. We sat there for probably 2 hours behind the fish poles.

 

Just this morning I emailed www.flyingpencil.be and got a reply on the Wellington HZ355. It is in Dutch but appears to confirm that the aircraft wreckage has not located been located and Pilot Richard Campbell Ellison has not ever been found. By reports the Navigator, William Bailey, landed in Ophoven and he is estimating that the aircraft crashed 3 to 4 miles south west of where he landed. He was later told that the aircraft exploded upon the ground and destroyed a farm.

 

Didn’t catch any fish. I’m not even sure there was bait on the hook or that there were any hooks for that matter. So pretty soon here comes the guy. He walked up and down several times behind us and then he touched each one of us just as he went by and we got up and followed him back to the same house. Same way back through the garden. Well we stayed 8 days there while we were there. We were suppose to go to Liege from there. Liege is in a different Province and the line went close to a town called Tongeren. Well they worked on Smitty first, we had to go into this town, Tongeren and buy 2 tickets to Liege. Well of course the British are good at hacking the language and he just didn’t have anything like a French. He couldn’t do it. So they finally worked on my High School French and I had to buy the tickets. Well we got to this little Rail road station and I walked up and I said “Deer Tongeren.” The girl counts me out 2 tickets. They had given me some money and I gave her the money and away we went. When we got down to Liege, we were on our own from Tongeren to Liege. So when we got down there, they told us we would be met. We picked up this guy at the train station in Liege and we got on a street car but we had to wait at a street car stop. (Note: The guide is Jacque Constant Bertels.) Smitty and I and this guide are standing there and there must have been 25 German soldiers, came and stood around. They were waiting for the tram car too. And when the tram car came in we all got on it. They never said anything to us and we didn’t either. We went; they did something that they weren’t suppose to do. We were not suppose to know the name of the street for a house that we stayed in. We were also not suppose to know the number of the house. Well when we got to Liege, we were walking down this street and I look up and there’s a street sign, Rue Fabry. Cloth Street. It’s so called because the guild Hall for the weavers was in there, way back when. (Note: Possibly “Fabrique” instead which would be for Factory in French.) And then we got to the house, we went up and in the front door. On the post 32. That was a violation. They didn’t want us to see that. No problem with it but I do know where in Liege that house would be, 32 Rue Fabry. They were a family by the name of Etienne. (Note: At this time it is unknown who this family, Etienne, is. It is documented that he was with Jean Colemont during his time in Liege. In archives it is recorded that his stay in Liege was with a group called “Louis Colette.” This group was recruited in the network ZERO by Jean Colemont and the group was funded by ZERO and BAYARD. ZERO and BAYARD are both Intelligence networks. As of February 1, 2009, new information is coming in on a possible Etienne family that worked with Joseph Drion and the groups Franck-Deprez and Alen.) That was another violation. They weren’t suppose to tell us what the names of these people were. They had a daughter, she was a doll. She was beautiful. There’s got to be a love story in here (smiles). She was an actress at a Walloon Theatre in Liege. At that time they were casting a play called “Marius.” She would walk over and have some of this Limburger cheese and I would sit there and say “Poor Marius” because they had a love scene and she’s belching this Limburger cheese. They had some little chicks, little chickens and one of the little chicks had a broken leg. And we got ready to leave, she gave me several of her pictures, and on the back of it she drew a chicken with a broken leg. I had those pictures till I went to the salt mine. I lost them there. We use to sit there and listen to the RAF bombing raids going on. They frequently would come right over us in Liege, going on into Germany. And of course, there’s a lot of anti-aircraft fire going on and we would sit there and listen to all of this. We stayed 8 days there. I don’t know why I stayed 8 days at 3 different places but I did. This episode where they captured the 2 members of my crew back in Hasselt at that time, sometimes the Germans were pretty smart. Instead of tracking the Underground back, throwing all these people in Jail, they set up their own Underground and attached it to the real Underground. And somewhere unknown to themselves, the Belgium’s would pass us over to a unknown German agent. They didn’t know that. And of course that’s what happened to me in Liege.
Her name was Yvette, Yvette Etienne, terrible what happened to her. Just before the end of the war, not very long when the Germans got kicked out of Belgium, the British kicked them out. A guy came to me in the prison camp and he said “I have been instructed to inform you that Mademoiselle Yvette Etienne has been executed by the Germans. That’s it. How he knew I was in that camp, who had him do that was another mystery.
So anyway, like I said we stayed there, the maid… now they had a newspaper that came out all over Europe called The Liberation and this thing was printed in about 8 or 9 different countries. (Note: It is determined that several underground newspapers were printed during this time period. He does not know for sure which one it was.) The maid was the editor of the paper for that district of Belgium and Holland. The Germans had combined the two in the sort of Military purposes. She was the editor of that paper and the press was underneath the garage out in the back and the floor of the garage was a bunch of planks and in Europe they use to use these grease pits in their garages. They use to do their own greasing. Down in the grease pit is where the press was for this newspaper. Oh the, of course Yvette was involved in the underground and so was her parents. And anyway as I say, we stayed 8 days there. Then they came around to me and said “Well the underground has been compromised.” “We don’t know exactly what is going on.” Now back in England they told us, “You will take the quickest way out.” “We want you back and the quickest way out, that’s the way you come home.” Well they told me that this man had presented himself as being part of the underground and that he… They said “Now you have 2 choices”, this is Smitty and myself, they said “You have 2 choices. You can either go out through Namur and Charleroi and it might take you up to 6 months to get back to England that way. But we are reasonably sure, we think that is a more secure route. But this man promises you in England in 30 days.” So we had no choice, we had our orders, 30 days it was. Well you know you believe what you want to believe and I know now where we went wrong. We went wrong when we left Liege with this guy in the car to drive across Belgium to Brussels. (Note: The guide to Brussels was Jean-Marcel Nootens. It was set up by “Monique Grandjean,” Therese Reason who did not realize that the route was actually a “False house.”) And we stayed 8 days in Brussels by the way. That was the third place we stayed the 8 days. Anyway, we drove right by a airdrome at Namur and I know this was a dummy airdrome. The Germans use to do this. They would build these dummy airdromes and you know they would fox the RAF on them. Well the RAF come over and drop wooden bombs on the dummy airdromes. I thought that was pretty good. Phony bombs on a phony airdrome. I know that because I saw those bombs laying there all over the place.

 

Some more fascinating stories! It will take some time for me to digest all these. Thank you for sharing and good to have you back on this fine thread.

 

Skipper,

I got to see the slide show for Joe Moser. My fav is the B/W with his hand on his face (very moving). Book on back order...I have to wait!

 

We get to Brussels and things were different in Brussels. Now up to then we had been VIP after all we were the only people facing the Germans at that time. The Americans hadn’t really had a good start yet. They were in Italy but they were still hung up, way back down. They had Sicily. In fact Sicily fell, no Lampedusa fell. The island of Lampedusa, which is right off of Italy. That fell the day I was shot down and marked the end of the Africa campaign. So they still had to take Sicily and Italy. Of course that all came about later. As we drove across, we went along, no body handed me a pistol or anything like they did before. When we got down into Brussels, we went to this house in Brussels and we had to pull KP. Now there was about 10 or 12 of us at this house and we are sitting there peeling potatoes. Now they didn’t have us doing anything like that. We were held in esteem at that stage of the game. So they came around one day and took us down to a photographer. Took our pictures for fake papers. Suppose to be going to Paris. We had letters from some of the people that had gone before us and sent back to this house from Paris, telling all about how nice it was and they were going to catch a train to Bordeaux the following day and so on. (Note: When he arrived at this house in Brussels (369 Avenue Slegers in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert.), the female Jewish doctor and the man that said he was a British agent were already there. He said that both told their story very openly while in the house. The house in Brussels was run by a man named Prosper De Zitter. De Zitter was a Belgian who was working for the Gestapo who ran several “False Houses.” He received money from the Gestapo for arranging the arrest of the Allied Airmen and the men and women of the Resistance Through research, Comete Kinship Historian and archives it was determined that the guide to Paris from Brussels false safe house was Charles Jenart who went by the alias of Richard Regnier. He was Unter VMann of Arthur Surin aka “Fourneau” who had joined the De Zitter gang in the spring of 1943. The Jewish female Doctor that was with the group was Hélène Berkowitch-Goldsmith (Goudsmits). Both her and her husband were doctors in Brussels and active helping Jews to flee to Spain and Switzerland with the “ Front de l'Indépendance.” She was not executed in Fresnes but after a few days she was sent to the prison of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). From there she was sent to Saint-Gilles in Brussels and onto Breendonck, a small concentration camp and from there deported to the concentration Camp, Ravensbruck. She was liberated April 1945 by the Swedish Red Cross during the exchange with Himmler and Bernadotte. After the war in 1948 she was a witness during De Zitter’s trial and that of his girlfriend, Giralt. The driver from Liege to Brussels is not 100% but a close 98.9% that it was Jean-Marcel Nootens. He was also the man that took care of the photographs for the false papers and identification. The man stating that he was a British Agent that parachuted into Belgium was, again 98.9%, Achille Hottia, war name as “Marmoset.” After he was captured in Paris, he was sent back to Brussels and condemned to death on September 1, 1943. On September 30, 1943 he was executed at the Tir National and buried in an anonymous tomb, number 85. The London Archives has information on him.) As I say, we were already in the hands of the Germans and didn’t know it. We stayed overnight in Paris, we went out to dinner that night; I remember the meal cost 14,000 francs. I happened to be there when he paid the bill, this guide. Of course I didn’t know what 14,000 francs was worth. Seemed like a lot to me. We stayed overnight in a little boarding house, that’s where we ate, on the Ile de la Cite. That’s where Notre Dame Cathedral is. That’s on an island on the river. Well there are several buildings there, streets and what not. And that’s where we stayed right there. (Note: He came into Paris to Gare d’ Nord station.) Rode on a Tram for approximately ½ hour. Walked to Ile de la Cite crossing over a bridge and walking in front of Notre Dame where the big round windows and garden was. They walked about 3 or 4 blocks to the restaurant. They ate in a room that was already set up for the large party away from the public area. When they left the restaurant, they crossed over the same way over the bridge. And back to the boarding house. In the morning when they were walking to another train station they were by a large building and could see through an iron fence, several lanes of tracks that had ended in the train yard. Once arrested and placed on the Bus, it took about 20 minutes to reach Fresnes prison. At Fresnes prison he remembers standing inside an oval part of the building that was attached on the front of the building.) Well the next morning we were supposed to be going to, well back it up a little bit. When we came across the Belgium French border near a town called Compiègne. If you know your WW1 history that’s where the rail road car was when they signed the Armistice in 1918, in Compiègne. The Germans after the fall of France, the Germans hauled that train back into Germany and it was in Berlin and it was destroyed in one of the air raids. Anyway when we got to the border at the train station, everybody else got off the train except the people in our compartment. The guide, Smitty, myself, a Belgium Jewish Doctor, she was a medical Doctor and she was a Jew. It’s quite a story with her. Her son had been hit and killed by a German vehicle. Her husband was a prisoner in Germany and she got word that he had died of a heart attack. She declared her own personal war against the Germans. She was a very attractive woman. And she would get some German Officer out, and get him in a compromising situation and drive a knife in him and take off. Well of course, the Germans tried her absentia and they sentenced her to death. Of course they didn’t have her. Well she was going out through the underground. The only people, the only locals that could go out through the underground were people like her that were sentenced to death or, and this was the other civilian that was with us. This Belgium man that was a British agent, and he would go out through the underground, go back to England and do whatever he had to do in England. Come back in the bomber stream, bail out somewhere over Belgium, do whatever he had to do there and then go back out through the underground. This was his 4th trip he told us. He also was… Now they executed the two of them the following day after they captured us, they made us watch and they machine gunned the two of them. Smitty and I, now this woman had a large bag about so long and so wide (hands out) and it had a handle on each side. So Smitty had a hold of one side of her bag and I had a hold of the other when we were captured. I don’t know what happened to the bag. That’s what happened to them.