I've been persuaded to add to this great thread a tale or two about the activities of the Comet Line.
For those of you who are unaware, the Comet Line was an evasion network set up in 1941 by Andrée De Jongh, a 24 yr old Belgian woman and financed by Britain - thanks to Michael Cresswell (a British diplomat). Its aim was to repatriate shot-down Allied aircrew.
Andrée De Jongh and Michael Cresswell (British Embassy, Madrid)
This picture tells the graphic story of Bomber Command's losses:
The white crosses present the percentage Killed in Action; the red crosses those injured; the yellow boxes those taken POW and the solitary blue box - the evaders. 125,000 airmen served in Bomber Command, and for every 100 airmen - 55 were killed on operations or died as result of wounds, three injured (in varying levels of severity) on operations or active service, 12 taken prisoner of war (some wounded) and 27 survived a tour of operations. Only 2 would evade capture after being shot down.
As the war progressed and the 8th Air Force joined the action, the numbers of aircrew 'on the loose' in Nazi-occupied mainland Europe swelled dramatically.
It was a story of 'ifs'..
If the aircrew survived their aircraft being attacked by fighters or subjected to flak,
if they were able to exit the aircraft,
if they survived the parachute landing - often at night - without breaking a limb,
if they weren't captured immediately,
if they were able to make contact with someone sympathetic to the Allied cause and
if they were passed on to Comet, then they stood a reasonable chance of making a 'home run'.
The route chosen by Comet for the evaders, led from Brussels to Paris. Then Paris to Bayonne in the Pays Basque by train. After lodging in various safe houses, the small groups of evaders would be led by Comet guides over the Pyrenees
at night to a safe farm in Francoist Spain - from where they'd be collected by diplomatic car and driven first to Madrid and then Gibraltar for onward passage home.
.png)
More to come..