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My grand-mother (who passed away last month) was the last surviving member of the network Comet, that tried to find, host and help British, and later American a
by bertil 8y ago
My grand-mother (who passed away last month) was the last surviving member of the network Comet, that tried to find, host and help British, and later American and Canadian, pilots out of occupied Europe into Spain. She had incredible stories about how to clothe the pilots: the vest, borrowed from that my then-slim great-uncle, with the button that popped in the Pyrenees, never to be found; hats and shoes were really hard; the cello box with a priceless cello in, shot by a patrol.
In one instance, it was really difficult because one of the pilots was so tall. The only way they could find something that barely fit was a cassock, the long black dress a priest would wear. (How my furiously anti-religious grand-mother, my Protestant grand-father and their best friend, the son of the Pastor from the Church of Sweden, found a Catholic cassock was never part of the story.) They did agree that he was too young, and had to be a seminarist -- therefore couldn’t celebrate sacraments, and had to stay quiet. Once again: they probably should have known the cassock had to be different than a priest’s. That was less a problem than the two inches missing at his ankles. Late growth spur was anyone’s guess.
The problem was: he had giant feet and no one could find shoes that fit, so he had to keep his Air Force issued shoes. They didn’t seem to look out of place, as the story goes: one day, to keep the cabin-feverish pilots busy while waiting for the green light from the coyotes, they all went to Montmartre. My grand-mother wanted to pretend they were friends visiting, and tried to take a photo of them on the steps. A German officer, willing to oblige, apparently suggested that my grand-mother stand with them while he took the photo. Thank God he never noticed the shoes: not sure my grand-mother would have found the inspiration to explain why the US Armed Forces was the appropriate source of footwear for freakishly tall seminarist.
My grand-mother only regret: that she didn’t dare ask the officer to stand with the “priest” and keep the photo for historians to admire the shoes.
--- Epilogue:
I later found a store selling replicas of WWII memorabilia and I checked to see what the shoes looked like (the German officer was a terrible photographer and had framed the photo below the stem, showing some leg but without the feet). I expected something very distinct, like ranger boots: check for yourself, US Air Force officers’s shoes would not look out of place on any civilian in 1940.
- Rebelgecko 8y agoWow, fantastic story and incredibly brave of your grandparents. Are you able to post the picture by any chance?
- bertil 8y agoI remember seeing it, but a while ago. It's in my grand-mother's stuff and all that is going through notaries because of succession red tape, so not anytime soon. I know she ended up friending one pilot who came back years later, but not this one.
- eschutte2 8y agoThat's awesome. My grandfather was a US pilot whose plane went down over then-Yugoslavia and who was smuggled out of Europe, by your grandmother's network or one like it.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoI read somewhere a while ago that pilot's boots were specifically designed so that they would look similar to civilian shoes for the exact reason that they'd be able to blend in better.
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoThe RAF had escape pattern flying boots[0] from from mid-war. Looked like a normal shoe with sheepskin lined legging attached. You cut the top off with the included penknife to leave a normal looking shoe[1]. The leftover bits were designed to reassemble as a waistcoat if you needed to sleep rough. Wouldn't be surprised if USAF had similar or maybe he was issued an RAF pair for having difficult feet. :) [0] https://www.historicflyingclothing.com/en-GB/ww2-raf/raf-1943-pattern-flying-boots-s8/prod_15245 https://www.historicflyingclothing.com/en-GB/ww2-raf/raf-194... [1] http://www.oldnautibits.com/assets/images/aeronautical/images/PC196.jpeg http://www.oldnautibits.com/assets/images/aeronautical/image...
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoFabulous story and inspiring bravery. Comet was huge, by the end of the war they'd got thousands of airmen out. Needless to say the Germans were particularly unpleasant to any they found helping the escape networks.
- bertil 8y agoThe oddest part of all that: my grand-mother was far more concerned that, if they found her, they would check my grand-father’s ID and potentially the whole group of residents at the hospital. My grand-father was born in Strasbourg in 1919, the capital of Alsace, one of the two disputed areas between France and Germany. He was born in what was then France, but would have been considered German by the Third Reich. With his medical training, he would most likely be sent to the Eastern front, or worst. The residents would have been even worst: they had found a way to use hospital resources to host one of their resident friend away from German attention, a Polish jew named Minkowski. He later became a key figure in neonatalogy (and his son is a well-known orchestra conductor). Any time I hear about a baby being born early, I feel something odd. The only person in the family suspected was my great-grand-mother. She spent some time being interrogated in Fresnes, the nearby jail, with the bulk of the network. She was told that her name was on a notebook; she knew that it was crossed out. She testified that “that man” did knock on her door, asking about her political affiliation and she asked him to leave a widow alone; and that she remembered seeing him striking her name. Truth was: she knew very well this was the whole cell. Her name was stroke out because she did agree to host pilots, but the list was for food (which was rationed) and she said that she didn’t need extra. Based on my grand-mother’s cooking skill, I think those pilots probably went quite hungry, but dodged a bullet. All her stories have those incredible near-miss and I learnt a lot about OpSec from her.