FOREST OF HIDDEN MEN
By Bill Trent, Weekend Magazine [no 12, 1968]
The Forest of Freteval today is a dark, tangled mass of trees and underbrush, a lonely stretch of wilderness about midway along the secondary highway from Cloyes to Vendôme in the Department of Loir-et-Cher in central France.
But if the plans of a 59-year-old retired Belgian army colonel named Lucien Boussa work out, the forest will this year become a shrine to the gallant men and women of the Belgian and French Resistance who took part in one of the trickiest - and one of the most successful - schemes to conceal grounded Allied air crews in the history of World War II.
The hope is that enough money can be raised to build a monument to these workers and to the 150 Allied airmen, some 25 of them Canadian, who camped in the forest during the last days of the war in France, hiding out from the Germans in the most unlikely place - right under their noses.
The airmen organized themselves into an outfit called Escadrille 69, selected the helmet insignia that appears on French Gauloise cigarette packages as their emblem and sat out what was left of the war undetected by the Germans, who occupied the surrounding area and even maintained an ammunition dump in the Allied airmen's hiding ground.
The incredible story of the forest of Freteval involves many people but its central character is a Belgian baron named Jean De Blommaert, who now lives a quiet life raising game birds in Bierge-les-Wavre, near Brussels, but whose exploits during the war made him one of the most daring figures in the Belgian Resistance.
De Blommaert, wounded while serving with the Belgian army just before Belgium capitulated in 1940, joined the Resistance immediately after the Germans overran his country and was an active organizer of Comete, the famous escape line that ran from Belgium through France and across the Pyrenees into Spain.
A scourge of Nazidom, he worked under so many assumed names that the Germans. nicknamed him The Fox. But if De Blommaert's work annoyed the Germans, it was considered highly valuable by MI9, the British intelligence organization for which he worked.
By 1944, the escape routes were operating with difficulty. Secret airfields from which evaders could leave could no longer be maintained and the route via Spain was long and required many contacts.
In April, 1944, De Blommaert made his way to London, discussed the escape setup with MI9 and returned to France to set up a series of relay camps in Maquis (French. Resistance) areas where evaders could be taken and gradually processed into Brittany, the jump-off place for Britain by boat. The plan might have gone into operation except that on May 13 Lucien Boussa, then a Squadron Leader in the Belgian section of the RAF, arrived at Resistance headquarters in Paris with a change of orders from British.
The message from London was to the point. The invasion is not far away. Do not evacuate any more airmen. Hide them on the spot.
The word invasion filled Resistance headquarters with excitement. But De Blommaert had a problem. All French patriots would have to be ready for action when the invasion came and they must not be burdened with the business of hiding airmen. Somehow, the airmen would have to be removed from French homes.
By mid-May, De Blommaert had hit on a plan - a camp to which Allied airmen from all over France and Belgium could be sent to await the liberation.
Located in central France, the camp became the destination of airmen moving through escape routes of Europe
In secret camp within earshot of Hitler's troops, some 150 Allied airmen patiently awaited the liberation of France
Clandestine camp freed Maquis from the task of hiding airmen and allowed
them to prepare for the Allied invasion.
Ingenious campers made tables from trees.
Second left is Sam Taylor, president of Regina's Drake Hotel
Hidden men had to obey two rules: Not to make a break and never raise
voices.
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image,
reproduced here from a photocopy of the article
Camp flag is proudly displayed in liberated town of Busloup.
Squatting left is William Brayley of Hudson Heights, Que.
Two cooks check supplies that were dropped at night by Allies.
Please contact the editor if you have a better version of this
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reproduced here from a photocopy of the article
Acting on advice from the French Resistance, he selected the forest of Freteval for his camp site for a number of reasons. The general area was a good one because there had been no active Maquis actions there and hence there was less danger of concentrated searches by the Germans. The forest lay in an area of broad plains dotted with many farms which could provide food, and the plains themselves would be good locations for parachute drops.
The Resistance group in the Châteaudun area, near the forest, thought the spot dangerous because of the German ammunition dumps, But De Blommaert reasoned - correctly, as it turned out - there would be German patrols in an ammunition area and that curious people from the region would keep well away from them.
In Paris, De Blommaert planned the processing details with the French Resistance. Its head there was Philippe d'Albert Lake, who was known simply as Paul. His assistant was his beautiful, blonde American-born wife, Virginia. Their job was to organize the escape circuit in the north, hide the men in Paris, interrogate them and approve them for the camp.
Paul and Virginia operated their processing centre from their large studio-type apartment on the Rue Vaneau. One of their other jobs was to schedule trips for the airmen to the camp.
Not far away, in a sixth-floor walk-up apartment at 8 Rue de Montessuy, almost within the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, Mrs. René Melison, or Annie, as she was known, also housed men awaiting transfer.
It was more through good luck than good management that none of the airmen was discovered, because the Germans frequently made house checks. Just before this period, police paid a visit to the Melison apartment, found nothing unusual and left, Perhaps because of good luck, or perhaps because the climb up six flights of stairs - there was no elevator - was too much, the Germans never visited Annie's apartment again.
Had the Germans returned in June, they might have discovered a stack of identity cards and a number of rubber stamps in the kitchen, because one of Annie’s jobs was to make identification cards. They might also have found her sitting around her living room giving French lessons to the airmen, most of whom spoke little or no French.
Annie was one of several young French Resistance women who also acted as escorts. The girls would walk through the streets of Paris with two or three airmen following at a safe distance. The girls would lead them to Austerlitz station, where they would buy the train tickets, then brush past the airmen and leave the tickets in their hands. The men and their escorts would then board the same car but separately. Annie made 40 such trips with airmen.
The Freteval operation was so successfully carried out that of all the men taken to the camp, not one failed to reach his destination.
The only person to end up in Nazi custody was Virginia - and none of the men she was escorting was captured.
Virginia, riding a bicycle and leading the way for a group of men in a farm cart behind, was stopped by a German patrol car on the highway near Châteaudun. The driver of the cart, keeping a close eye on his escort, warned the airmen and they jumped out and took off across the fields to safety.
Virginia, however, was not so lucky. A German, officer asked her who she was and where she was going. When she replied in French, he noticed her accent.
"You're not French," he said. "You're American." Virginia, replied that she was an American but that she was living in France and that her papers were in order. Despite this, she was arrested.
In the story of the French Resistance, Virginia will go down as one of its great heroines. She was to be sent to one concentration camp after another until, at the horror camp of Ravensbruck, she nearly starved to death. One of the few Americans to be sent to concentration camps for political deportees, she weighed 130 pounds when arrested and only 54 pounds when she was freed at the end of the war.
But the men of Escadrille 69 were to remember Virginia for another reason. She had carried with her a map of the route to the camp. Taken to Chartres for questioning, she quietly slipped the map into her mouth, chewed it and swallowed it.
How the Resistance managed to deliver 150 men to the forest camp at Freteval without the loss of a man is one of the success stories of the war. But how the men managed to remain from June until mid-August without being detected in an area under constant German patrol has still to be explained.
William Brayley, of Hudson Heights, Que., who now heads a large Montreal pharmaceutical house, recalls that the camp had two cardinal rules - nobody must break camp and try to make it back to Britain on his own; and there had to be quiet in the camp at all times.
Brayley, who was one of the camp's pioneers, says the Germans patrolled the highways that skirted the forest and a raised voice could mean the difference between life and death. Everybody, he says, knew that if the Germans heard noises and came into the woods to investigate, it could quite easily mean the end of the camp.
On quiet, windless days, the men kept their voices to a whisper. On some days the only sound to be heard were the camp sentries whistling short bars of This is The Army, Mr Jones.
The sentries were placed at strategic lookout positions and whistled their signals that new camp members were approaching.
By June 12, the airmen were coming into the camp in a regular flow.
The first action in the camp occurred on June 12 when Blommaert led a raid on a German ammunition centre with Brayley; Joe Peloquin, an American of French-Canadian descent from Biddeford, Maine; and Omer Jubault, the policeman of the nearby village of Cloyes.
Brayley, who compiled a sort of diary of camp life immediately after the war, says the ammunition was dangerously located at the side of an asphalt road built by the Germans to connect their series of caches. This particular dump was on a curve in the road, which meant that an attack could be made by surprise from either end. In addition, patrols went by every 15 minutes and the raiders had to work between tours.
The raiders, working feverishly to dodge patrols, managed to secure a large supply of grenades, British Army property taken at Dunkirk and several boxes of .303 ammunition that still bore the name of the U.S. manufacturer in Connecticut. The supplies were hidden in shrubbery at different points so that the local Maquis could get them that night.
On June 14, a radio was secured. The receiver was in the camp but the transmitter was put on a mobile basis to avoid detection.
Brayley's diary also notes:
June 15: It is decided to adopt the name, Escadrille Soixante-neuf [Sixty-nine] with the flying helmet insignia and the 100-franc membership card."
(The card was considered necessary in view of the exclusiveness of the squadron).
June 17: "Arrival of two barrels of wine, one white, one rosay. We had a ball."
June 17-21: "More and more wounded, tiered airmen pour into the camp. Bags and blankets are at a premium. The food and cigarettes situation begins to get worse.
Local Resistance people helped the campers in every way possible. Their liaison men, for example, held regular meetings in the, home of game warden Gaston Hallouin near the forest and some of the airmen were actually kept for a time in the adjoining home of a farmer named Fouchard. His home served as a food depot and animals for the camp were delivered there as well as bread made by a sympathetic baker named Théophile Trecul, of nearby Fontaine Raoul. Other food was lacking at times but a miller named Etienne Viron, of St. Jean Froidementel, kept a steady supply of flour for bread.
Cigarettes, considered essential for morale, were often in short supply. When the situation was particularly bad, raiding parties would go to stores in Cloyes and Chartres and steal cigarettes. The Germans, of course, never learned who the robbers were and store owners, who were never let in on any of the plans, were reimbursed through anonymous donations.
The influx of men into the forest finally made it necessary to open a second camp, Camp No. 2 was opened in the southwest corner of, the forest, about two miles from Camp No. 1, on June 24.
Every new man who entered the forest was advised of the general order of quiet at all times. German troops were all around the forest area.
"We get straw for beds from farms during the
night," Brayley notes on June 27.
"We lie at the side of the road until the patrol has passed. Then we
dash across to safety,"
He adds:
June 29: "Radio is brought to Camp No. 2 which is now operating
headquarters,"
July 4: "We listen for news of parachute operations on the radio."
A large number of the campers were Americans and on July 4, while on a forage for food, Brayley and a group of men came across a flask of liquor. The whole group stopped and toasted U.S. Independence Day.
The radio was one of the big mainstays of life In the camp. Whenever personal messages were received, someone wrote a bulletin and attached it to a tree that served as a notice board. The bulletin board was a main feature of an area of the camp from which a number of paths led in different directions. The men called this central area Hyde Park Corner and, to reassure themselves of life outside, named the paths after, well-known London streets.
The big radio news, however, was when a
voice announced, "La Tour Eiffel penche à droite" (The Eiffel Tower
leans to the right).
This was a signal that there would be a parachute drop that night.
These announcements were exciting to the men. On the night of a drop, three men with red flashlights would form triangles in the open fields. The position of the triangles indicated the direction of the wind at ground level and assured that the chutes would land in the right places. Attached to the chutes were metal containers with medical supplies, food, underwear and French francs.
When a drop failed to materialize, morale
was low. On one occasion, a plane made several passes over the area,
then went off without dropping supplies. The men felt very low. Then the
following night another plane made a drop and everyone was ecstatic.
Brayley's entry for July 7:
"Beautiful black Halifax.bomber ... roars over our heads. Bomb doors
open, 15 white parachutes drop out and swing like pendulums over the
wheat field. We run for the containers. We work feverishly until dawn."
De Blommaert's Intelligence training was sound and, after a drop, the men would go about the fields brushing the wheat, flattened by the containers, back into a normal upright position. There could be no trace of a drop.
Going through the containers was always a point of excitement. Brayley notes:
July 8: "Clothing doled out. We have a joke.
If it fits, bring it back."
July 10: "We make blankets out of parachutes. Embroidery classes dart
with the thread from parachute cables. New talent discovered."
July 11: "Norman Binnie [now an Air Canada mechanical-staff employee in
Montreal] and I start the Freteval Country Club. Everybody starts
whittling golf clubs and balls out of wood. Tournaments are organized."
It was unbelievable that with all the German patrols scouting the area it was possible for 150 men to gather in the forest, operate a radio to London and spend their spare hours playing golf.
But on July 18, the serenity of the operation came to an abrupt end. The local Maquis workers, untrained fanners, were clumsy about covering up evidence of a parachute drop. (There were frequent drops aimed at the Maquis rather than the camp people.)
And one night a German patrol ambushed a Resistance group. On this date, Brayley notes: "The Siege of Freteval is on and the Jerries begin a wave of terror."
The Germans still had no idea that Allied airmen were hidden in the forest - but they were aware that something was going on there. Curiously enough, however, they never ventured into the woods to find out. Instead, the patrols would stop on the road and strafe the woods with machine-gun fire.
On July 19, three strategic guard posts were set up in the forest to watch for approaching Germans. "The camps were on continuous alert," says Brayley. "There were repeated machine-gun strafings but no one was hurt."
On July 21, the Belgian Day of Independence, the men presented De Blommaert with a silk-embroidered scroll with the Belgian and French flags.
The worst part of the forest operation was the waiting. American advances were constantly being reported over the radio but in the Freteval area there was no sign of the U.S. soldiers.
On Aug. 9, Brayley notes:
"Shorty Craig gets appendicitis. We dress him up and carry him away."
By Aug. 10, the forest was rife with rumors of liberation. Lucien
Boussa, hearing that the Americans were at Le Mans, 40 miles away,
travelled to U.S. base headquarters there and asked for help in
liberating the camps' inmates.
In the meantime, however, some of the campers went to nearby Busloup to see what was happening. They returned to the camp to say that the Germans were in full flight on the highway. They were in Red Cross trucks.
On Aug. 12 Brayley notes: "British officer in jeep arrives in Camp No.1 in advance of approaching armies. We take the good word to Camp No. 2. Everybody packs up. We liberate Busloup.''
The end came just that way. The last of the Germans had now fled the area and along the highways, Frenchmen had begun to unfurl the tricolor. On Sunday Aug. 13, 1944, units of the U.S. Third Army would enter Cloyes and Busloup.
But on this Saturday night the villagers of Busloup reached down into their cellars and unearthed the bottles of wine they kept hidden from the Germans and regaled their liberators. The Frenchmen soon joined voices singing the current freedom songs and the men of the camp got into the spirit of things with their own Song of the Escadrille, written by Brayley. The first verse goes:
In the woods we built a camp for airmen,
We built it in the springtime and finished in the fall.
And if you ask us why the hell we built it,
We built it for the airmen who couldn't get away.
source: Don Ouellette, nephew of Joseph Oscar
PELOQUIN, B-24H 42-94999 44BG 506BS: CR 11 May 44 Patay
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