Tag: Escape Lines

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Possum

One of the most effective resistance activities during World War II was the establishment of escape and evasion lines (click here to read the blog Escape Lines). These were elaborate, sophisticated, and clandestine routes set-up to guide downed airmen and escaped POWs back to England.

Today’s blog offers you the opportunity to learn about a former British military intelligence agency dedicated to supporting the escape and evasion lines as well as the Possum Line and its Belgian founder, Dominique Edgard Potier.

Edgard Potier. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). PD-Expired copyright. Wikimedia Commons.
Edgard Potier. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). PD-Expired copyright. Wikimedia Commons.

Did You Know?

Did you know that four sitting United States presidents have been assassinated? Robert Todd Lincoln (1843−1926), the eldest son of Abraham Lincoln, was nearby when three of the presidents were assassinated. Lincoln served in the Union army on Gen. U.S. Grant’s staff and he later became secretary of war under presidents James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. One of Lincoln’s last public positions was an appointment by Benjamin Harrison as minister to the Court of St. James’s in the United Kingdom. 

Lincoln was “hanging out at the White House with some friends” (his words) when news arrived that his father had been shot. He went to the house where President Lincoln was taken across the street from the Ford Theater. He stayed with his father until the president died the next morning on 15 April 1865. During the evening of 30 June 1881, Lincoln met with President Garfield and several other cabinet members when the president asked for his recollection of the events of his father’s assassination. Less than forty-eight hours after that discussion took place, President Garfield was shot while Robert Lincoln stood nearby. Three months later, the president died from an infection of his wound. Lincoln went on to become president of the Pullman Car Co. and in 1901, President William McKinley invited Lincoln to join him at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. When Lincoln arrived by train in Buffalo, he was given the telegram informing him that McKinley had been shot. He rushed to the president’s bedside and was encouraged by McKinley’s progress. However, President McKinley succumbed to infection and died on 14 September 1901. He was the third United States president to have been assassinated and Robert Lincoln was a bystander to all three.

After that, Lincoln said, “There is a certain fatality about presidential functions when I am present.” He never accepted five separate invitations to run for president or vice-president.

British Directorate of Military Intelligence Section 9 (MI9) 

Many of us are aware of two well-known British intelligence organizations: MI5 and MI6. During World War II, the British War Office created the secret MI9 department with its mission of assisting POWs to escape and to help military personnel (primarily downed Allied airmen) evade capture behind enemy lines in Axis-controlled countries. Escape and evasion lines were established in many of the occupied countries, but the best-known lines originated in Belgium and France. As Allied bombing increased in 1942, the evasion lines became an integral part of resistance activities and perhaps, one of the riskiest. MI9’s headquarters was located at the Shean Block within Wilton Park in Buckinghamshire, England. Read More Possum

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Escape Lines

One of the more effective resistance efforts during World War II was the establishment and operation of multiple escape lines in occupied countries such as France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Risk/reward theory certainly applies to these efforts as the escape lines were probably some of the most dangerous operations performed by resistance fighters and the people assisting them (“helpers”). The greatest threat to the ongoing operation of the lines was not the Nazi security forces (e.g., Sichersdienst and Gestapo). It was the infiltration and betrayals by French, Belgian, and Dutch traitors. After the war ended, many of those who betrayed their comrades (and countries) were caught, tried, and executed. Unfortunately, some were never brought to justice.

Map of the routes used to guide downed airmen out of occupied Europe. The three major lines represented are the Pat O’Leary, Comet, and Shelburne. Map by the National Museum of the United Air Force (c. 2009). PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.
Map of the routes used to guide downed airmen out of occupied Europe. The three major lines represented are the Pat O’Leary, Comet, and Shelburne. Map by the National Museum of the United Air Force (c. 2009). PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.

Did You Know?

Did you know that the small village of Chambon-sur-Lignon in south-central France recently inherited 2.0 million euros? Erich Schwam (1930−2020) had no heirs when he passed away this past December. Why did he pick this small remote hamlet in a wooded area to leave more than US $2.4 million? As an Austrian child, the residents of Chambon-sur-Lignon sheltered Erich and his Jewish parents during the Nazi occupation of France. Besides Erich and his family, the village saved the lives of almost five thousand Jews (thirty percent were children).  It was through the leadership of the two Huguenot (Protestant) pastors, André Trocmé and Édouard Theis along with Roger Darcissac (head of education for the village) that the villagers banded together, at great personal risk, to devise a system to keep everyone out of the hands of the Nazis. The Jews would disappear into the woods when Nazi patrols came searching for them. The all-clear signal was when people from the village went out into the forest and began singing. Trocmé, Theis, and Darcissac were arrested by the French police and interned at Saint-Paul-d’Eyjeaux. They were released months later and returned to Chambon-sur-Lignon where they continued their resistance activities. 

Austrian identity card of Erich Schwam. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). Mairie du Chambon-sur-Lignon.
Austrian identity card of Erich Schwam. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). Mairie du Chambon-sur-Lignon.

Yad Vashem named Pastor Trocmé as Righteous Among the Nations in 1971 followed by Pastor Theis in 1981 and M. Darcissac in 1988. Chambon-sur-Lignon is only the second city collectively honored as Righteous Among the Nations (the Dutch village of Nieuwlands is the other). Click here to watch the video clip Le Chambon: How a Jewish Refugee Became a Freedom Fighter in WWII.

From left to right: André Trocmé, Roger Darcissac, and Édouard Theis. Photo taken shortly after their release from captivity. Photo by anonymous (March 1943). Pilcorw Magazine. PD-Expired copyright. Wikimedia Commons.
From left to right: André Trocmé, Roger Darcissac, and Édouard Theis. Photo taken shortly after their release from captivity. Photo by anonymous (March 1943). Pilcorw Magazine. PD-Expired copyright. Wikimedia Commons.

By early 1943, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) had arrived in England to establish bases for its long-range bombers: B-17s and B-24s. For more than three years, the British Royal Air Force (RAF) had been bombing the continent during nightly runs. Now it was time for the Americans to begin their campaign of daylight bombing. This meant more planes were going to be shot down and an increasing number of crews would likely parachute and land behind enemy lines (i.e., occupied countries). There needed to be a way to get these downed Allied airmen back to England safely. Read More Escape Lines