One of the most successful escape routes for allied airmen wishing to cross the border into Spain was right here in the P-O, known as the Pat Line, after the man who set it up.
O’Leary radioed London with the message “Pas plus de bateau que de beurre au cul!”
British soldiers, arriving at the camp in April 1945 were met with around 10,000 unburied corpses lying where they had died.
The war is nearing it’s end. The Germans occupying France are on edge and expecting the Allied Invasion at any time.
The Comet line, so named because of the speed needed to whisk stranded airmen down through occupied France to safety, helped hundreds of allied soldiers and airmen to escape from occupied France.
We all learn differently, and as we grow older, one of the greatest blocks to learning is memory. And yet many of us can still sing along to new songs – and remember the words!
Young Australian Bruce Dowling arrived in France in 1938 to improve his French. He ended up helping hundreds of allied servicemen to escape from occupied France and paid the ultimate price, beheaded by the Nazis 29th birthday in 1943.
Two of the most feared French collaboration groups were La Carlingue and La Milice, pro-Nazi French militia set up by the Vichy Government under Petain to fight ‘terrorists’, otherwise known as the Resistance.
Women from many countries fought alongside men in covert operations in Nazi-occupied countries during WW2.
When General de Gaulle published a list of 1,038 resistance heroes who contributed to the liberation of France; only six were women