NZ.402214 Flight Lieutenant F.Reece,
500 Squadron, Coastal Command. 29.9.41.
Concord, Green Island, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Emergency landing in the sea next to the beach of St Efflam, Côtes-du-Nord (Côtes-d'Armor). Free during six weeks, a contact was taken at the address here above with a French organization thanks to Mrs Le Due.
From St Efflam, we were led towards an old castle and we received assistance from an old lady, her son and her daughter. We were not informed about their names. I remember that it was next to a farm, approximately 17 miles East from Southern Morlaix. Always no names revealed. I remained in the farm of an old couple and my two sergeants remained in a farm nearby owned by a widow.
There we had the visit of a professor who was fluently speaking English. He stayed over a short period and was apparently an important person. Another tall man with the skin matte, visited us to take photos for our passports that another man supplied to us. Our following destination was the station of Guingamp, in a small car. The driver was a woman of about fifty years, rather strong, who had driven us from the castle to the farm. We were welcomed by a man aged 30 to 35 and that we called Mister Georges. He was a medium-sized man. He bought tickets and guided us on our route towards Rennes where we were going to change trains to arrive finally to Nantes. There we were taken in an apartment at a 3rd floor, occupied by a 35-year-old woman, her son aged approximately 7, and her sister of 22/23 years old. There was also another 14-year-old boy and others unknown persons. The husband of the woman was in the Unoccupied Zone.
We were not fluent in the French language even after 6 weeks, and our conversations were limited. In Nantes, we were waiting for our journey to the South to be organized. After approximatively one week, things began to change drastically. A German Commanding officer was murdered in the area (1). We had been able to remain hidden for a while but were finally discovered on November 10th. We ignored how it had occured. We were led to Angers. During ten days, we were isolated in a solitary jail, with only one interview ; during this interview, the woman of the apartment in Nantes entered the room and pronounced only the following sentence " yes, these are the men". We were asked nothing concerning her. We were asked some questions but not much attention was paid to us except to tell us that we were considered as spies (our uniforms were thrown shortly after our landing).
On November 21st, we were transported by bus in Versailles for the prison of Fresnes. There were two buses, the first one was transporting women and I recognized some of them who had helped me. Mrs Le Due waved her hand and did not hide that she knew us, " the three English men of the following bus ". The second bus was transporting men and the only person I recognized was the professor who was fluent in English and who ignored us.
To the prison of Fresnes, we were isolated. We spent 3 and a half months lost to boredom, in the cold and with a few food. Later in February, we were separately sent to Paris to be questioned. We had our own version to answer the questions. They were the following ones: "who were the people who helped you ?, do you recognize this man on the photo ?, did he help you ?" etc. … We remained evasive and claimed that we had forgotten, that we were nore sure.
It worked because a little time after, we were transferred to the camp Dulay Luft. There, we stayed 3 and a half days in prison. I was very sick during this period. I had got the dysentery and the flu. We had arrived at the camp Dulag Luft on the 1st or 2nd March, 1942. We told our story to S/Ldr. Elliot, senior British officer who could only answer us that he would speak about it with the commanding officer of the camp. I then left Dulag Luft for Stalag Luft 3 aroud the 10th April 1941. My two sergeants left a bit later towards camps NCO and then I lost any contact with them.
Once in Stalag Luft 3, I was no longer isolated as an escapee and I worked in a small group on the construction of a tunnel. We were not efficient in the Eastern camp and we changed for the northern camp. Here the work of the escapees was organized with the last leader of the regiment Roger Bushell alias Big X under W/Cdr. Day and Lt.Cmd.Fanshaw i/c dispersal.
I worked since the beginning with this organization at first as "Pilot on duty", then as distributor in pharmacy and finally as tunneller. I missed the opportunity of the random draw for the escape when the tunnel was finally built on March 24th, 1944. Then the work of escape was limited. I was transferred to Tramstadt Ost and finally to Lubeck where we were released on May 2nd, 1945.
(1) October 20th, 1941, the officer in charge of the occupation troops in the Loire-Inferieure (today Loire-Atlantique), the Oberstleutnant Karl Hotz, was shot in Nantes by Resistance fighters. In reprisals, the German occupation authorities, on October 22nd, 1941, shot 48 hostage prisoners at Châteaubriant, Nantes and Paris. Source wikipedia.
Translation of the mails from English to French : Laurence Thomas. January 25th, 2013
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