The escape

Comète was the largest Allied escape network of the resistance. Between 1941 and 1944 it moved more than eight hundred shot-down airmen from occupied Belgium and northern France, via Paris and the Pyrenees, to neutral Spain and on to Gibraltar. The line was founded by the young Belgian Andrée De Jongh — “Petit Cyclone” — and counted hundreds of helpers: farmers, doctors, priests, railway workers and ordinary families who risked their lives for an airman they had never met.

Pepper stumbled at dawn into the gate of farmer Michel Paulissen at Widooie and was hidden for a week at Ter Hove castle with the de Schaetzen family. From there “Michou” — one of the greatest heroes of the Comète line, later awarded the George Medal — took him from Liège to Brussels. Hesselden, wounded in the knee, was cared for by Ghislaine Toussaint for twelve days in Liège. Williams, bruised in the landing, was taken in at Celles by farmer Jules Debens. Billows, hit in the hand, was guided by bicycle and tram from Bommershoven to the Hosdin family beside Holy Cross church in Liège — the first of 83 airmen saved by Lucien Theelen's group.

From Brussels the route ran across the Belgian-French border — Dr. Colson smuggled airmen hidden in his car as far as Bavay — and then by train to Paris, where an “intelligence officer” interrogated each escaper closely. At Saint-Jean-de-Luz they were handed over to a Spanish guide. At night they crossed the Pyrenees on foot, along goat tracks, without food or water, sometimes fired on by German patrols. Those who survived the crossing reached San Sebastian, where the British ambassador's Rolls-Royce took them to Madrid.

From Madrid the four crew members travelled to Gibraltar and were flown home to England in military aircraft. Hesselden arrived on 17 January 1944, Williams on 24 January, Pepper in February. Billows' coded message to the resistance was “Mama-Papa-Lily-Maloo” — the names of the Hosdin family in Liège. His forged pass for the French coastal exclusion zone is preserved in the book. Sansam and Jackson did not come home via Comète: they were captured and, via Dulag Luft, ended up in Stalag IV B at Mühlberg.