The Shelburne Escape Line: Secret Rescues of Allied Aviators by the French Underground, the British Royal Navy and London’s MI-9

241 Pages·2015·11.58 MB·English

by  Hemingway-Douglass

Radio Londres
BBC shortwave French language service
1900 hours, January 28, 1944: “Bonjour tout le monde à la maison
d’Alphonse”
(“Good evening to everyone at the House of Alphonse.”) For two
French-Canadian agents working with the French Resistance in
Brittany, this apparently innocuous greeting was very welcome. It
meant that MI-9 had given the go-ahead for the first of their long-
planned pickup operations. A Royal Navy Motor Gun Boat was
steaming at full speed towards the Breton coast for a clandestine
rendezvous later that night. Downed Allied aviators, hidden in local
“safe houses,” would be led under cover of darkness, to a secluded
beach. The airmen didn’t know it yet, but if all went well—if they got
past the German patrols on the cliffs above, if no-one alerted the
Gestapo—they would be back in England by the time the sun came up
…

First published in 2014 by Cave Art Press, Anacortes,
WA 98221, Washington, United States
Reprinted in this format in 2015 by
PEN & SWORD AVIATION
An imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley, South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
Copyright © Réanne Hemingway-Douglass 2014, 2015
ISBN: 978 1 47383 778 2
EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47386 107 7
PRC ISBN: 978 1 47386 106 0
The right of Réanne Hemingway-Douglass to be identified as
Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
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To the memory of Elwood (Woody) Blondfield
And to all those French people who risked their lives in
support of the Allied cause.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE — THE SHELBURNE ESCAPE LINE
1 MI-9 and the Breton Plan: February – September 1943
2 Setting Up the Shelburne Line: November 1943 - January 1944
3 The Green Light: Opération Bonaparte I: January 28, 1944
4 Moonless Sorties: MGB 503 – “The Cross-Channel Train”
5 Opération Bonaparte II: February 26-27, 1944
6 Opérations Bonaparte III, IV, V: March 1944
7 Le Débarquement (The Invasion): June 1944
8 Opérations Crozier I, II and III: July - August 1944
PART TWO — FURTHER ACCOUNTS
9 Spirit of the Resistance: Gordon Carter
10 A Milk Run Mission: Chick Blakley
11 Through the Eyes of a Sixteen-Year-Old: Robert Janin
12 “Don’t Come Home!” Marie-Thérèse (Marité) Le Meur Jouvent
13 Mission 44: Lt. Ken Sorgenfrei
14 Rough Last Days Over Germany 1945: Woody Blondfield
GLOSSARY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PHOTO CREDITS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LIST OF MAPS
French Escape Lines—WWII
Occupied France, November 1940-May 1945
Brittany Region/Forbidden Coastal Zone
Agents and Safe Houses – Plouha Area
MGB 503 Approach and Anchorage
Gordon Carter’s Routes
Chick Blakley’s Route
Robert Janin’s Route
Mission 44 (Ken Sorgenfrei)
Sorgenfrei’s escape route through the French Alps
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book, which has been an ongoing and important project for the past seven
years, would have become a lifetime hobby had it not been for the
encouragement and the help of many friends and family. In particular, I must
give my husband, Don Douglass, credit for his constant goading over the years,
for his help in interviewing, and for his contributions to this book.
Merci beaucoup to all of my French friends in Brittany and Savoie, many of
whom feature in this book. Thank you, also, to Pierre Montaz, who led me along
the tortuous route taken by Resistance members who hid Ken Sorgenfrei and his
crew from the Germans.
Thanks are due also to those who helped with my initial research: Geoff
Warren of Comox B.C., who set me on the path to Canadian resources, Nancy
Costello Scovill for providing me with photographs from her father’s albums;
and Beverly Patton Wand, who shared her father’s personal papers and photos
and provided me with a copy of Joseph (Job) Mainguy’s handwritten account of
the Réseau Shelburne.
I am grateful to the archivists, staff and volunteers at the many museums
Don and I visited: in Canada, the Comox Air Force Museum; in France, the
Memorial de Caen, the Musée de la Resistance et de la Deportation in Picardie,
the Musée de Dunkerque and the Musée de la Resistance Nationale in
Champigny, in Britain, the Imperial War Museums in Duxford and London
(special thanks to Stephen Walton and Ian Proctor, respectively).
To those friends and family who—as the manuscript finally began to see
light—waded through first, second and then third versions of the manuscript,
making cogent comments or correcting technical terms, I give a rousing thanks:
Terry Browne, Bill Carlisle; Sean Collins, Bruce Evertz; Dian Fitzgerald; Sally
Foster; Jean Gillingwators, Paul Giles; Mel Kowal; John Leone; Roderick Nash;
Jill Princehouse; Sarah Stoner; Sarah van Praag; Earl Valentine; Katherine
Wells, and Kathryn Wilkens. I am indebted to my brother, Thomas L.
Hemingway, Brigadier General, USAF (Ret) for his part in researching MI-9 and
the early Resistance Lines, and to Major General John Altenburg US Army
(Ret); Lt. Colonel John La Raia, USAF (Ret); and Brigadier General John
Hurley, USAF (Ret) for their invaluable help in correcting military details, and
for their other contributions to this book; and to Bebe Blondfield for answering
last minute questions before we went to press, despite the sad passing of her
beloved Woody.
And to the team, without whom this book would ever have seen the light, I
can never say enough to thank you for “bailing” me out: my editor, Arlene
Cook; Rae Kozloff, my research partner and proofer; Ken Morrison for his
graphics and Tony and Karla Locke for their layout skills. Un grand merci à
Tous. (A huge thank you to All.)
P A R T I
THE SHELBURNE ESCAPE LINE