Raf Evaders

Download or read book RAF Evaders written by Oliver Clutton-Brock and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2009-02-19 with total page 959 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stories of the British airmen shot down over Western Europe who evaded capture by the Germans and made their way to Allied territory during World War II. During the five years from May 1940 to May 1945 several thousand Allied airmen, forced to abandon their aircraft behind enemy lines, evaded capture and reached freedom, by land, sea and air. The territory held by the Germans was immense—from Norway and Denmark in the north, through Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg to the south of France—and initially there was no organization to help the men on the run. The first one to assist the evaders and escapers (“E & E” as the Americans called them) was the PAT line, along the Mediterranean coast to Perpignan and down the Spanish border; named after a naval officer Pat O’Leary, from 1942 it became the PAO line. Next was the Comet line, from Brussels to the Pyrenees. Thousands of brave people were to be involved for whom, if caught, the penalty was death. Theirs is a stirring and awe-inspiring story. Respected historian Oliver Clutton-Brock has researched in depth this secret world of evasion, uncovering some treachery and many hitherto unpublished details, operations and photos. It is a tremendous reference work, written in his own colorful style with numerous anecdotes, which fills a gap of knowledge formerly unavailable to historians, professional or amateur. Packed the information, key figure biographies and listings—2, 094 evaders identified—this is a valuable testimony to the courage of all those involved.

Download or read book RAF Evaders written by Oliver Clutton-Brock and published by Bounty Books. This book was released on 2011-11-18 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Packed with information, key figure biogs and listings - 2,198 evaders identified - this is a valuable testimony to the courage of all those involved. Respected historian Oliver Clutton-Brock has researched in depth this secret world of evasion, uncovering some treachery and many hitherto unpublished details, operations and photos. It is a tremendous reference work, written in his own colourful style with numerous anecdotes, which fills a gap of knowledge formerly unavailable to historians - professional or amateur.

Download or read book Air Forces Escape & Evasion Society written by Air Forces Escape and Evasion Society and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 1992 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the brave American men who flew and were shot down in Europe during World War II, but were able to escape imprisonment due to the efforts of those who aided them. A source of information on the European underground resistance groups of World War II. The book contains rare photographs, maps, and war documents.

Download or read book Silent Heroes written by Sherri Greene Ottis and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-07-11 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early years of World War II, it was an amazing feat for an Allied airman shot down over occupied Europe to make it back to England. By 1943, however, pilots and crewmembers, supplied with "escape kits," knew they had a 50 percent chance of evading capture and returning home. An estimated 12,000 French civilians helped make this possible. More than 5,000 airmen, many of them American, successfully traveled along escape lines organized much like those of the U.S. Underground Railroad, using secret codes and stopping in safe houses. If caught, they risked internment in a POW camp. But the French, Belgian, and Dutch civilians who aided them risked torture and even death. Sherri Ottis writes candidly about the pilots and crewmen who walked out of occupied Europe, as well as the British intelligence agency in charge of Escape and Evasion. But her main focus is on the helpers, those patriots who have been all but ignored in English-language books and journals. To research their stories, Ottis hiked the Pyrenees and interviewed many of the survivors. She tells of the extreme difficulty they had in avoiding Nazi infiltration by double agents; of their creativity in hiding evaders in their homes, sometimes in the midst of unexpected searches; of their generosity in sharing their meager food supplies during wartime; and of their unflagging spirit and courage in the face of a war fought on a very personal level.

Download or read book Return to Belgium written by Bernard O'Connor and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2009-11 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the German occupation of Belgium and the evacuation from Dunkirk, many wounded soldiers were left behind and captured. Those who escaped and downed Allied pilots and crews were helped to get back to Britain by some remarkable men and women in the Comète escape line. As well as telling the story of Andrée de Jongh, one of its founders, using recently released documents from the National Archives, this book provides details about Elaine Madden, Frédérique Dupuich, Olga Jackson and an anonymous blonde, women who had got out of Belgium and yet volunteered to be flown back from RAF Tempsford: 'Churchill's Most Secret Airfield' and parachuted into occupied Belgium with vital missions to undertake prior to liberation.

Download or read book Shot Down and on the Run written by Graham Pitchfork and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2003-10 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling book tells some of the epic stories of the thousands of shot-down airmen, including many Canadians, who got out from behind enemy lines across all theatres of the Second World War. Based on special first-hand interviews and new research into official debriefing documents held at Britain's National Archives, many of these accounts have never been published before. This book explores the pivotal role of military intelligence that masterminded the training, support, and organization of escape and evasion; it also features rare photographs of the evaders and their helpers.

Download or read book The Hidden Army - MI9's Secret Force and the Untold Story of D-Day written by Matt Richards and published by Kings Road Publishing. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost seventy-five years ago, MI9 dreamt up the most audacious escape and evasion plan of World War Two. Formulated by Airey Neave, one of the first men ever to escape from Colditz, this plan was one of subterfuge, concealment and deception on a scale never seen before. With numerous downed RAF and Allied pilots on the run in Europe and with the fabled Comete Escape Line having been infiltrated by double agents, Neave's plan was to hide these men right under the very noses of the Nazis rather than risk repatriation. Choosing a forest in the heart of France, right next to one of the German Army's largest ammunition bases, Neave, Belgian agents and the French Resistance would secretly transport and hide Allied pilots and soldiers within feet of the enemy. Nobody thought it would work, but such was the success of the secret camp that a whole community of over one hundred and fifty Allied escapers lived within the forest for three months in the run-up to D-Day. Despite numerous close shaves, they were never discovered and this outrageous plan, brilliant in its simplicity, saw the Allied evaders make their home in the forest, cooking and hunting to survive - and even setting up a golf course in the forest using branches for clubs - without discovery. This operation remained absolutely secret, to the point that the inhabitants of the villages surrounding the forest were unaware, until the end, of the existence of that allied force so close to them. Told through interviews with evaders, members of the Resistance and the children charged with smuggling food into the forest, this book tells the compelling story of one of the most audacious operations in World War Two. A story that has, until today, remained as secret as the Hidden Army of Freteval.