Four Months with the French Resistance-Dancing at the Caterpillar Club!

-manuscript compiled by-

James L. Hargrove(Son of Captain Walter Hargrove, USAF retired)

E-mail: jhargrov@fcs.uga.eduDay Telephone: 542-4678

475 Snapfinger Drive,Athens, GA 30605

Preface

Less is known about the role of the French Resistance in WWII than ought to be the case. This is partly because escaping airmen signed an oath of secrecy before completing their Escape & Evasion (E&E) reports. They swore not to reveal names of people who helped them, methods of evasion, routes, or other facts that could endanger their helpers, and these men kept their promises. Thanks to the 303rd BGA web site, Mr. Ian Le Sueur from Jersey in the Channel Islands and Mr. Laurent Viton of Goderville, France, contacted me last year to ask for information about Lt. Walter Hargrove and S/Sgt. Frank Kimotek. Mr. Le Sueur provided extensive information about the key roles of the families of Col. Michel Scheidhauer and Dr. and Mme. de la Marnierre in the Resistance in Brest, France. These families helped rescue at least 40 Allied airmen and French Resistance workers who were being sought by the Gestapo. The Col.’s son, Bernard, joined the RAF and his Spitfire #EN830 was shot down over Jersey. With 80 other captured RAF airmen in the famed prison camp, Stalag Luft III, he escaped through tunnels “Tom, Dick and Harry”. This fatal adventure became the basis for the movie, “The Great Escape,” starring Steve McQueen. Fifty of the 74 escapees were recaptured and executed by the Gestapo in a massive reprisal. Only 3 escaped to England.

Mr. Viton also sent information about these families, and about the crash site of the Augerhead (#42-29635, MACR470) at Eu/Brunville. He provided maps and records of the actual escape routes taken by some of the crewmen, notably S/Sgt Frank Kimotek and 2nd Lt. Walter Hargrove. This originated with the work of Mr. Claude Hélias, who is conducting research on USAF and RAF crash sites. Mr. Viton also knew that a top German ace, Oberfeldwebel Adolf Glunz, had been credited with the downing, and suggested that I request E&E reports #134 (Kimotek) and #293 (Hargrove). I thank both of these men for helping complete a detailed record of my father’s escape. Interested readers may obtain copies of Escape and Evasion reports by writing to the National Archives and Records Administration, http://www.archives.gov/. In 1944, all this material was secret and no resistance workers’ names were given in the official E&E reports. They were shown in the hand-written transcripts but were deleted to protect the identity of people who were helping the Allied Forces. Thanks to Mr. Viton and Mr. Le Sueur, some of the brave families who helped Allied crewmen escape can be thanked. Their information helps correct the partial report of Lt. Hargrove’s escape published in the Hell’s Angels Newsletter (2). Illustrations in this manuscript were prepared from material in the public domain. Copyrights belong to their holders.**********************************************************************

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In 1943, 2nd Lt. Walter Hargrove celebrated the American Fourth of July “holiday” with 1st Lt. Ripley Joy’s crew aboard the B17 Hell’s Angels. It was part of the 303rd Bombardment Group’s 48th mission over Nazi-occupied Europe from Molesworth aerodrome near London. The battle-tested Flying Fortress had already flown over 25 missions. It was piloted to LeMans, France, by Lt. Joy, the only member of Capt. Irl Baldwin’s original crew still assigned to the aircraft. 2nd Lt. Hargrove had no idea that in six months, he would be spending Christmas in France as a guest of brave and distinguished families of the French Resistance, which was also called the Army of the Interior. He would be back in England before New Year’s Day.

Remembering his first mission, Lt. Hargrove wrote: “Our crew’s baptism to combat was swift and rude. We had bombed the Gnome-Rhone Aircraft works in LeMans, France, and happened to be attacked by a group of FW-190's equipped with 40 mm cannon as they were on their way to Africa as tank destroyers. I can still see a B-17 ahead of us which had the whole left side of the plane opened up like a can of beans, and seeing the pilot sitting in his seat as they went down. We did see 5 parachutes; assume the other 5 crew members were killed. This was our fireworks for 4 July 1943.”

Lt. Joy completed his 25th mission on a raid over Hamburg, Germany on July 25th, and Co-pilot Monahan was promoted to Pilot on a second raid over Hamburg the next day. The fighting was rough, and there were no fighter escorts after the B17 squadrons cleared the coast. Monahan’s crew flew 6 missions on Hell’s Angels, one on Shangrila-Lil, and one on Charley Horse prior to their fateful 13th mission. On Aug. 31, the crew was assigned to Augerhead. Two crew substitutions were made, and a photographer, S/Sgt. Barton Pryor, was the 11th man aboard. According to Lt. Col. Harry Gobrecht, Hell’s Angels took part in the mission but aborted.

The crews from the 358th squadron did not know or care that the Luftwaffe group called the “Abbeville Boys” had just celebrated their first and only award of the Knight’s Cross to a non-commissioned officer. Then stationed with Jagdgeschwader (JG) 26 at Beauvais airfield between Paris and Amiens, Obfw. Adolf Glunz had been credited with 40 kills on Aug. 29. He was seeing plenty of action because the 303rd was targeting Nazi airfields a year ahead of the D-Day invasion. At 1800 hours on Aug. 31, the Germans reported the approach of heavy bombers, and two Jafü (Jagdfuehrer) squadrons scrambled to intercept the planes. “Addi” Glunz was looking for kill number 41.

Lt. Hargrove recalled, “When we arrived over Paris, we received a recall because heavy clouds obscured the target. As we neared the coast, we decided to bomb the marshalling yard at Amiens airfield. During our run, the number 4 engine sped up to 3000 rpm and we were unable to feather it. We kept on our run and dropped our bombs. Returning toward England we were fighting a 60-knot head wind when we were attacked by five ME109's and FW190's at 30,000 feet. Amiens was the home of Hermann Goering’s prize fighter group; they were good. The planes were painted either yellow on the engine cowling or checkerboard. We shot down two of them, but our number 1 engine was knocked out and we had two small fires in the rear of the plane. By then we had lost a second engine and had been hit in the tail, the radio room had a fire and Walt Gasser, acting engineer, had received a neck and head wound. At 22,000 feet we were ordered to bail out.”

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With oil pouring from the number 4 engine and the plane still under attack, Sgt. Kimotek cleared the door to the waist compartment and manned a machine gun when not helping others to parachute. After the wounded tailgunner, Sgt. David Miller, bailed out, the navigator, bombardier, photographer and ball turret gunner followed. One dazed man was sitting by an open parachute saying, “Look what I’ve done.” With 20 mm rounds exploding around them, Sgt. Kimotek helped his comrade put on the harness, folded the chute in his arms, and told him he might as well jump. The chute opened. The sergeant reported hearing Lt. Monahan on the interphone saying that he was going to try to make the coast. Kimotek delayed his jump, and later reported seeing 6 chutes in the air below and above him. Pilot Bill Monahan may have been the last man out. Thus were 11 new members welcomed into the Caterpillar Club when they “hit the silk” from an aircraft shot down in combat.

Augerhead was the only B17 reported missing that day. At about 7:30 pm, a French policeman (gendarmerie) reported the crash of a 4-engine bomber in the hamlet called Brunville near Eu and Le Treport on the coast of France. Three parachutes had been seen nearby and German soldiers quickly moved into the area. Tail Gunner S/Sgt David Miller had been critically injured during the attack. His body was found near Abbeville 20 miles from the crash site, but he was later reburied in Normandy. The rest of the crew landed along a westerly line between Amiens and Eu. German records credited Adolf Glunz with kill number 41.

None of the aviators spoke French or German, but each knew he would have to find assistance in order to evade capture. As Ian LeSueur explained, most French citizens tried to go on with their lives after the German occupation, and some actively collaborated with the enemy. The true patriots who began to resist the occupation knew that they and their families would be tortured and killed if they were caught. S/Sgt Jim Comer escaped from the crash, but his helpers were captured by the Gestapo and executed in front of him. Comer was imprisoned in Rouen. Later, a policeman who sheltered Lt. Hargrove was reported to the Gestapo by a neighbor and killed.

S/Sgt. Frank Kimotek was quickly helped by villagers who met him in a woods, but he lost them and his identification pictures when German soldiers gave chase. He was called a “Boche” (impolite term for a German) and turned away from one house, but finally was fed by a man in a wooded area and transferred to the Resistance where a woman arranged a train ride to Paris (E&E#134). In October, he was sent to the port of Crozon on the NW coast, where he escaped with 18 other US, British, and Canadian airmen on a fishing boat called the Suzanne Renee. 2nd Lt. William Maher (E&E#118), S/Sgt Pryor (E&E#377), and 2nd Lt. Hargrove (E&E#293), escaped by separate routes. The rest of the crew were captured but survived the war in POW camps.

Lt. Hargrove, the bombardier, had found it awkward to operate his machine gun with his survival kit in his pants cargo pocket, so he removed it early in the mission. He regretted leaving the kit in the plane, especially because he was wounded in the right arm and leg just before he jumped. He lost track of the Augerhead and the other crewmen when his parachute entered a cloud bank at about 6,000 feet. When he came out of the clouds, he was over a town but the wind was pushing his parachute into a wooded area. He landed safely in a tree and left his Mae West, aviator boots, and chute hanging in the foliage. Hearing sounds, he made his way into larger woods and crawled into a briar patch to spend the night.

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Thinking that the enemy would not be searching in that direction, Lt. Hargrove decided to head NE towards Germany. Believing that there were too many Germans in the area, he did not seek aid. Hargrove made his way past German troops and French farmers by traveling at night, living on green applies and raw vegetables. By daybreak of Sept. 4th, he was dehydrated due to lack of Halozone tablets to purify drinking water. Coming out on a road, he saw a sign that read Abbeville, 40 km/Ballincourt, 31 km. “I now knew exactly where I was, and where I was going,” He wrote in the E&E report. He headed for the smaller town, knowing that Abbeville was heavily occupied. Coming to a small barn on the outskirts, he entered and waited for someone to come out of the farmhouse. The first person he saw was a young boy with a hay fork, perhaps 15, who asked him, “English?” “No, American.” The boy went off to find his father, and Lt. Hargrove was soon invited to clean up, dress his wounds, and have a meal. The next day, a doctor arrived who removed a shell fragment and bandaged the wounded arm. A young woman came in who spoke to him with the aid of a French-English dictionary. She arranged for him to receive civilian clothes and ill-fitting boots.

Lt. Hargrove was moved to another house with an older man where a strange event took place that was deleted in the typed E&E report: “I stayed for 2 days. Food was brought in. Then the Gestapo agent (Becker) from Auxi came with a friend in a car to get me.” Lt. Hargrove’s memoirs read:

About 2-3 pm a car with two men arrived and after verification, I got in the rear seat of their car. The passenger looked and dressed like a Frenchman who did not dress for style. The driver I noted was wearing riding boots, breeches, and a nice leather jacket and had a pair of expensive looking binoculars hanging from the dash.

We saw some American B-26 twin engine bombers flying over. They stopped the car and got out for a look, by motion, invited me to get out and look for myself. We then drove until we came to where some men (25-30) were working on the road. The driver got out and in a very loud voice cursed them out. The language he used was German (my brother was married to a German woman and I spent a lot of time at the parents' home where German was spoken). Then we drove on and stopped and went into a nice building; it turned out to be a bar. The lady who greeted us opened a bottle of champagne which we drank. I can still see our driver stirring his champagne with a pencil. We then left there and drove into a town where we disembarked and entered a nice home. There were a lady - apparently the driver's wife - and two teenage girls preparing supper which consisted of steak, oven-fried potatoes, bread, butter and wine.

During supper there was a knock on the door and the driver went to the door, whoever was at the door received a severe chewing out. Then came a couple more men. One motioned for me to follow him, which I did. We went into a back bedroom. He introduced himself as Johnson. He spoke perfect American English and claimed to have been a correspondent with the Chicago Tribune, in Paris. When the Germans arrived, he left. Assigned to Crete. The. Germans arrived there and he made it to Egypt where, tired of being run out of places, he joined the RAF, flying out of England. He was shot down while flying a Spitfire. He spoke fluent German and wound up driving for the other gentleman who was a German General. Johnson said he had talked with the gun crew who shot him down.

He then asked, "Do you know whose house you are in?" and proceeded to tell me my host's name was Becker and that he was head of the Gestapo for that area. That Becker came

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from one of the small countries that border Germany, that he had cause to not like the Germans, and felt he was doing whatever he could to defeat them. We then broke up and I was escorted to a small dress shop run by a woman about 50 and her mother. I was to stay there at least a week. (By now I had guessed we were in the town of Auxi Le Chateau). I had an upstairs room which was right on the sidewalk. I didn't pull the curtains in order to see better. The next day I was called down to breakfast. Someone had brought some ham and eggs. I tried to get these two ladies to eat some also, but, no, all they said was, "Por vous". I drank a lot of imitation coffee, it was barley roasted until it was dark brown and then brewed. It wasn't bad.

****The Resistance prepared false identification papers using the photographs that each airman carried for this purpose. The ID said he was a deaf-mute. Then Lt. Hargrove left Auxi Le Chateau for Paris by train to meet a contact named Raoul. Other passengers on the train included German soldiers as well as French citizens. He recounted walking 40 blocks in bad shoes to visit S/Sgt. Kimotek, who asked him if he needed anything. “Better shoes!” was the answer. The Resistance moved him to Joigny and then to Vannes on Sept. 30th. He and another airman named Wilson rode bicycles from Vannes to Baden, where they were met by a teen-aged girl named Catherine. She took them to an older lady (“the Countess”) with a rowboat who rowed them offshore to an island. One of the Resistance workers on the island was called Commodore Deforges, who possibly had commanded the French battleship Paris before WWII. Lt. Hargrove contracted hepatitis on the island and felt miserable despite the camaraderie.

Leaving Baden, the airmen were moved to various houses and eventually were sent to Quimper and then to the Crozon peninsula where an escape attempt was made. Twenty-two men attempted to squeeze into the hold of a 35 foot fishing boat called the Suzanne Renee, but only 19 fit. Unknown to Lt. Hargrove, one of the lucky 19 was S/Sgt. Kimotek! He may not have felt too lucky when a storm bottled up the harbor and the group was forced to stay in the fishy hold for days. The skipper, Jean-Marie Balcon, and his two-man crew left on Oct. 23 and reached England the next day. The others walked to the nearby town of Crozon and stayed with a baker until a railroad trip back to Quimper was arranged. Lt. Hargrove and an airman named William Rice (92 BG, 407 BS) were sent to stay with a family in a chateau for the rest of November. A contact named Paul arrived in late November to take them to Col. Michel Scheidhauer’s apartment in Brest, which is located in Brittany (Bretagne) on the Bay of Biscay.

Col. Scheidhauer, usually called William, had been born in 1877 and was a veteran of the Boxer Rebellion in China and of WWI. He and his wife Jeanne had retired in Brest in 1935, but he was called back into uniform when WWII began. He was captured in the 1940 occupation but was soon released. He and his family began to participate in Resistance networks whose purpose was to help Allied Airmen escape from France. Ironically, his son Bernard had escaped from France by boat soon after the invasion and made his way to England, where he reported to Camberlay to begin pilot training. Bernard’s Spitfire was damaged in a sortie over Normandy on November 18, 1943, and he landed in a cow pasture on Jersey. He was captured and sent to Stalag Luft III, a notorious German prison camp. Thus, at the same time when his father and mother were sheltering evading airmen in their home, their son was planning to escape through a tunnel the POW’s were digging. On the moonless night of March 24th, 1944, a group of 80 prisoners made their way out of a tunnel and into a forest. Sadly, Bernard and his companion were recaptured by

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the Gestapo and executed in retribution for the escape. Fifty of the 80 men were killed, and only 3 found their way to safety.

The Colonel and his wife lived in an apartment near the quay at the corner of Rue Neptune and Voltaire. They sometimes sheltered 6 airmen in the cramped space. Because the toilets were outside on the landings, it was very difficult to conceal the coming and going of so many airmen. This was a time when every man over 18 was subject to conscription into the German army or labor camps, and it had become difficult to explain the presence of so many handsome young “deaf-mutes”. Soon the Colonel discussed the situation with his friends, Dr. and Mme. de la Marnierre. Their high school-age daughters, Maryse and her 3 sisters, thought it was a wonderful opportunity to practice the jitterbug, and soon both families were fearlessly welcoming airmen. Safe houses were also arranged through the Scheidhauer’s married daughters, Christiane and Ghislaine. Records show that these two families sheltered dozens of airmen and resistance workers during 1943-44.

Maryse later asked her father why he had put his family at such risk. He replied, “How else would I have found dancing partners for my beautiful daughters?” The young ladies played word games with the airmen, fixed snacks, and occasionally held dance parties. One dance was interrupted when the doorbell rang, and the record player was quickly turned off. “It was a Kraut!” Maryse exclaimed. He was looking for another apartment and nothing came of it. However, the young ladies did much more than prevent boredom. They would guard against German spies by interrogating each new man about current slang and popular songs. The ribald, “Roll me over (in the clover)” was quite popular. Imagine the logistics of providing not only for your family in the middle of a war, but also finding provisions for several grown men. Resistance workers sought food from any source that would not give away their secrecy.

Maryse recalled that many of the airmen and Resistance workers were taken to a shallow bay 20 km north of Brest near the town of Lanillis and fishing village l’Aber-wrac’h. The men were dropped off with a guide who led them through shallows to the island called (Ile) Tariec, where they would be met with rowboats and taken to meet submarines or motor gunboats.

When Lt. Hargrove arrived at the Scheidhauer’s, several Frenchmen and an English Air Crew were in hiding with the family. After the war, he wrote:

The eldest daughter’s husband had been conscripted and taken to Germany to do forced labor. The younger daughter, Ghislaine, had been taught to handle weapons and explosives, and we gathered that she had helped eliminate a German collaborator. Ghislaine spoke English well and did not mind talking about her escapades. The two women had several young children and knew the risks they were taking. Often, the children would be sent as guides for evaders or messengers to other Resistance workers.

On a rather nasty winter’s night four evadees were taken by car to Lanillis where we would try to escape from occupied France. We had one guide. It was about 10 pm, dark, and the wind was howling. We waded out to a small island, probably 300 yards off shore. The water never got over knee deep. One fellow was given a flashlight and sent to one end of the island and I got one and went to the other end of the island. We were to face the open ocean and signal every few minutes. Out of the darkness came 3 rowboats (about 12 feet long) with an English sailor at the oars in each boat and a British Officer in the stern seat calling

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directions. Several of us were loaded in each boat and we headed out to sea seeking a British warship.

As we cleared the lee of the island the full force of the wind and waves hit us. I was concerned when a British sailor tossed me his cap and said, "Bail, Yank” Only one boat reached the ship. Our boat and the other one made it back to an island (Ile Guenoc). We now had four British sailors and four flyer evadees shivering in a small cave on the island. The storm kept up all that day and the next night. The next day, we hailed a passing rowboat, and to our relief, were taken back to shore instead of being turned in to the Gestapo. (This was the Dec. 1/2 mission of Motor Gun Boat 318 to Tariec Island that rescued 7 men but stranded some of the rescue crew).

We returned to the Colonel's place. This time there were about 12 - 14 people sleeping all over the floor in several rooms. The next day they all cleared out except my English compatriot. The Colonel and Ghislaine were gone one night and when they returned late, Ghislaine gave me a rucksack full of papers that were marked classified. It turned out they were secret German papers that gave a breakdown of all forces in Brest, including diagrams of the submarine pens, lists of regiments that were present, and the location of tanks.

The next day, one of the locals reported that the Gestapo were looking for Ghislaine. Because they did not trust the informant, they did nothing. The next day, a person from Paris arrived with information that in fact the Gestapo were looking for Ghislaine. We, the British navigator, myself, and Ghislaine were moved to an apartment where Dr. de la Marnierre lived with his wife and two daughters. All but the doctor spoke English. The wife asked me how to play poker. I won several thousand francs. She refused the money when I tried to return her bet. So when we left, I put it on the mantle.

On Christmas Eve, 1943, the ladies requested our shoes. We thought maybe they wanted to make certain we didn't go wandering outside. On Christmas morning our shoes had been returned with a bottle of Cognac in one and a number of small gifts in the other, such as leather cuff links, and post card pictures of Brest.

It was a festive day with overtones of urgency. We had a hot dinner, lots of wine, cider, cognac and champagne. About 3 pm we were to listen to the British Broadcasting Co. and the message was "Get your fannies out to the coast, we are coming for you". Only emergency vehicles were allowed on the road on a holiday. The doctor's Red Cross nurse agreed to go to the hospital and steal an ambulance. The doctor decided that as it was his only ambulance, he would go along and bring it back. After dark, they drove us to a farmhouse in the location from which we had made our previous escape attempt. The doctor returned the ambulance, but the nurse decided to come with us. We were fed, then we headed for the ocean again just before midnight. The water was wadable for several hundred yards. There was a small island (Tariec) half a mile offshore. The minefields we walked through were well marked with paths and signs, "Achtung Danger De Mort Minen". Then after wading out we went past steel obstruction meant to rip the bottom out of large boats.

It turned out to be the same location where we had tried to escape earlier with the British. When we walked out to the island, I believed we were about to be captured. There were about 12 men in dark uniforms. Turns out they were undercover agents with radios to communicate with the ship. This time a whaleboat with 18 commandos at the oars beached on the island. We unloaded weapons, ammunition, and explosives. Then we rowed out into the bay and met our ship, a 110-foot gunboat. I clambered on board, and was assigned a bunk. It was a fine feeling to hear the engines start and to head off the coast, and sobering

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when after about 15 minutes the ship stopped. I came straight up out of my bunk. A British sailor said, "Take it easy Yank, we just fouled the plugs". In a few minutes, we were under way again.

About noon the next day we pulled into a port on the south coast of England. We were given American GI uniforms and put on a train for London, where we were met by an American Intelligence Officer named Major White. Because we had crossed the coast of France three times, British and American Intelligence wanted to know every detail of what we had seen. We were not allowed to go anywhere, not that there was much desire to wander. We were confined to quarters in London until Pete Clark, from our 303rd Bombardment Group came to verify I was in fact who I claimed to be.

Long after the war when Walter Hargrove was talking about the escape on Christmas night, he once joked with his family that the evaders waited until the Schnapps was passed out to the German troops and they could be heard singing “Ach du Lieber Augustine” before setting out across the shallows. This hearsay was not recorded in E&E report 293!

The rescue mission of Dec. 25/26 was the last one MGB318 made to Tariec Island. The ship probably picked up 32 people. The manifest included 11 US airmen including Lt. Hargrove and S/Sgt. Rice, 6 members of the Royal Navy, 2 men from the RAF, and several French agents or airmen along with 2 women. One of the women was Madame Ghislaine Niox, the Colonel’s youngest daughter. The other was Madame Maguy, who was probably the Doctor’s Red Cross nurse (Lt. Hargrove called her “Maggie” in his E&E report). Madame Niox carried the plans to the German fortifications at Poulmic. T/Sgt. Merl Martin (388 BG) was carrying the rucksack with information that Ghislaine and her father had obtained. Her son, Jean-Loup Niox, was sent from Brest to her sister Christiane Magne’s home. For her work assisting the Allied causes, Ghislaine Niox was awarded the Order of the British Empire.

The Colonel’s work in the Resistance long remained a secret from the occupiers. He was appointed director of Civil Defense for Brest. In this role, he maintained blackouts and met with the Germans to plan passive defense measures, no doubt passing the information along to the Resistance! However, in March, 1944, the Colonel learned that the Gestapo was about to search his apartment. He moved to Paris and was present when Charles De Gaulle’s forces freed the city.

Unlike many Luftwaffe pilots, Adolf Glunz, the German ace who was credited with shooting down the Augerhead, was never seriously injured. He completed his service being credited with an astonishing 71 kills. He died at the age of 84 in 2002. Lt. Hargrove returned stateside and was promoted to Captain. He finished his service but could not find civilian employment after the war, so he rejoined the Air Force and completed a 20-year hitch in the Office of Special Investigation. He and his wife, Catherine, had 6 children, 3 of whom served in the US Air Force. Walter Hargrove died at 82 on Aug. 8, 2001, and is buried in the Tahoma National Military Cemetery near Seattle.

While conducting research into the Resistance efforts, Laurent Viton wrote a newspaper article about the Augerhead that was published in Eu in 2004. He was contacted by a man who had visited the crash site. At present, caution is warranted because a number of aircraft crashed in the area, which is in the path between Molesworth and Paris.

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Escape and Evasion reports gathered information about aspects of training that helped evaders and what did not, as well as enemy strengths, positions, and weaknesses. The long appendix to Lt. Hargrove’s E&E report describes batteries of 88 mm anti-aircraft guns being moved to Abbeville. It tells the location of radio towers, and notes camouflaged tiger tanks at Ponchel. It maps rocket gun emplacements surrounding Auxi Le Chateau. Six hundred hated White Russian reinforcements were seen at Quimper along with Italian troops. “They are poorly treated by the Germans. In a group of twelve, only one will have a gun.” Morale was described as poor among German surrogates and high among the well-armed Resistance, who engaged in nightly sabotage of railroads and power plants. Results of Allied bombing were reported. “The Le Bourget airfield was completely destroyed during the raid of 16 August.” It was reported that many Germans called for service in Russia in winter of 1943 deserted or committed suicide (hearsay), and that of 400 Frenchmen called up at Vannes, only 7 could be conscripted. The rest hid. A Gestapo Colonel at Auxi le Chateau reportedly knew the whereabouts of six American airmen but declined to arrest them because “the war was lost and he might just as well stay in the good graces of the allies.” A diagram showed the nature of the beach defenses at Lanillis. Movements of trains, submarines, and ship tenders are described along with mines at the docks, aircraft surveillance, curfew hours, and troop maneuvers. E&E report 293 shows that allied airmen in the Caterpillar Club at Brest were not just playing chess with the Colonel, dancing with Maryse de la Marnierre, and drinking cognac. They were doing what they had been trained to do, gathering information to help win the war. Years later, Walter Hargrove said that he named his first daughter Suzanne as a small tribute to the many brave souls who risked and sometimes gave their lives to rescue him and his compatriots. The Colonel, Ghislaine and Maryse would have replied that no thanks was needed from the brave young aviators who risked their lives daily for strangers.

Source material:

1. Caldwell, Donald. The JG26 War Diary, volume two, 1943-1945, pp. 144-146. London: Grub Street Press, 1999.

2. Deerfield, Eddie (Editor), Hell’s Angels Newsletter Silver Anniversary Collection, Vol. 1 and 2, 303rd Bomb Group, Orlando, FL 2002. See Walter Hargrove, vol. 2, pp. 1135-6.

3. Gobrecht, Harry, personal communication to James Hargrove concerning the missions of air crews of Lt. Ripley Joy and Lt. William Monahan.

4. Hargrove, Walter (NMI). Unpublished memoirs, and Escape and Evasion report #293, filed 12 Jan, 1944, and Kimotek, Frank, E&E report #134, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 5. LeSueur, Ian. Pilot Officer Scheidhauer-the Forced Landing and the Great Escape, Channel Island Occupation Society, pp. 71-79.

6. Neal, John. The Scheidhauer Experience, part 2. pp. 7-15. (copy provided by Ian LeSueur).

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7. McKeon, Maryse (neé de la Marnierre). Maryse: in the role of Cinderella. Air Forces Escape and Evasion Society Communications, vol. 15, no. 3, July 13, 2001. Wichita Falls, TX.

8.Viton, Laurent. Personal communications to James Hargrove include information about the Augerhead crash site and Nazi pilot Adolf Glunz, an article written by Maryse de la Marnierre, maps of the escape routes on the coast near Lanillis, and the manifests of several ships that rescued evaders and French Resistance workers during WWII. Mr. Viton obtained much of this information from the research of Claude Hélias.

Notes:Caldwell (1) reports that one German pilot from JG26 was shot down by a B17 on Aug. 31, 1943. The pilot was Oblt. Walter Matoni, who was wounded in action when his FW190 was downed. There is no indication that a second fighter was hit by fire from a B17 that day. When Walter Hargrove arrived in Britain, he was credited with shooting down a FW190 and was awarded a second oak leaf for his air medal plus a Purple Heart for wounds sustained in combat.

S/Sgt Kimotek reported landing near Dieppe, which is west of the crash site.

The identity of the small town, “Ballincourt,” where Lt. Hargrove first found aid is uncertain. Laurent Viton and the author think that one possibility is Bellancourt-en-Sery SW of Abbeville. Lt. Hargrove had seen antiaircraft fire from Abbeville and he would not have headed that direction. There is also no record that he crossed the Somme River.

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Photo of 1Lt William Monahan’s air crew as assigned to Hell’s Angels on July 26, 1943. Taken on Aug. 10, 1943. Painted bombs indicate number of missions and swastikas indicate enemy fighters shot down by the crew. Original from Walter and Catherine Hargrove, see www.303rdBGA.com.

(Back L-R) T/Sgt M.D. Ignaczewski (E)(1)(5); S/Sgt Frank Kimotek (R-Evd)(1);S/Sgt Walter Gasser (AE/RWG-POW)(1); S/Sgt Alfred R. Buinicky (BT-POW)(1);

S/Sgt James H. Comer, Jr. (LWG-POW)(1); S/Sgt David Miller (TG-KIA)(1)(2)

(Front L-R) 1Lt William J. Monahan (P-POW)(1)(3); Lt Martin L. "Pete" Clark (CP)(1)(4);2Lt William P. Maher (N-Evd)(1)(6); 2Lt Walter Hargrove (B-Evd)

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Adolf Glunz (1918-2002), a top German ace from JG26. Left, formal photograph. Right, standing next to his “White 9” FW190 after shooting down 6 aircraft on Feb. 22, 1944. Symbols on rudder indicate credited air victories.

Caterpillar Club pin received for parachuting from an aircraft to save one’s life. This one is from the Switlik Parachute Company (Trenton, NJ) and came with a membership certificate. The Irvin Air Chute Company issued a different version in England. Both began this practice in 1922.

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False identification issued in 1943 to Lt. Walter Hargrove in the name of “Marcel Croisille” by the French underground in the Pas de Calais area. The photograph was one issued by the Army Air Force for this purpose. Other papers included a travel permit and a work permit. The original copy is owned by Mrs. Catherine Hargrove.

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Teen-aged Maryse de la Marnierre talking to evader William Hawkins in Dr. de la Marnierre’s apartment in Brest, Brittany in 1943. Source (7).

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Map of drop-off point (circled at right) for Allied evaders on St. Marguerite peninsula near Lanillis, Brittany (France). Hashed line shows the path where airmen walked to the shore past German defenses (position of a pill box is shown) and then waded into shallow water (stippled area in center of drawing). Tariec Island is circled. Arrows to left of Tariec Island indicate where rowboats were taken from the island to rendezvous with Motor Gun Boat 318 (X at left center). Ile Guenoc is to the west of Tariec above the X. The map was provided to Laurent Viton (8) by Rene Salaun and Claude Hélias.

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X

Lt. Walter Hargrove’s approximate escape route from occupied France according to E&E report #293 and information from Mr. Laurent Viton, omitting the failed attempt at Crozon (the peninsula between Quimper and Brest). Royal Navy Motor Gun Boat 318 picked up Lt. Hargrove, Madame Niox, and others at Ile Tariec near Lanillis.

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