Bourn · Berlin · Voort · Gibraltar
Flight routes
Two routes run through this story: the aircraft's, over a few hours, and the crew's — on foot, by bicycle, tram and train, over months.
Schematic map — indicative positions, not a navigation chart.
The flight of JB 367
Bourn — North Sea — Dutch coast — Hannover — Berlin, and then south-west for home across Aachen and Liège. Exactly there, on the last stretch over occupied territory, it went wrong. The remaining miles to the English coast were never flown.
The escape lines
Pepper was hidden at Ter Hove castle in Widooie with the de Schaetzen family and then entered the resistance network via Liège; he was back in England in February 1944. Billows, saved by Lucien Theelen's group around Holy Cross church in Liège, travelled via Brussels, Paris, Bayonne, the Pyrenees, Madrid and Gibraltar — under the code “Mama-Papa-Lily-Maloo”.
Hesselden and Williams followed comparable lines and were home in January 1944. Sansam and Jackson were captured and, via Dulag Luft, ended up in Stalag IV B at Mühlberg; they escaped together in the summer of 1944, were recaptured, and were liberated by Russian troops in 1945.
“Of the seven men aboard, four returned to England via Spain and Gibraltar, two became prisoners of war, and one stayed behind in Haspengouw.”
Helpers along the escape line
Sources and links
- Wikipedia — Battle of Berlin (RAF campaign)
The air campaign the night of 18–19 November 1943 belonged to.
- Wikipedia — Comet line
The escape line that took airmen over the Pyrenees into Spain.
- Wikipedia — RAF Bourn
The airfield JB 367 left at 17:30.
Atmospheric illustration, not a historical photograph.