Churchill's Band of Brothers

by Damien Lewis

  They could only be there for one reason – to collect Lieutenant Wiehe. Surely the prisoner exchange was looking more likely than ever, if all were being collected, even the worst of the wounded? For ten minutes all stood idle, waiting, and then there was a slamming of doors from the truck cab, a muffled order was given and the vehicle got underway again. Jones had been convinced his good friend was about to join them, but not any more, for there was no sign of the SAS lieutenant at all. ‘Why the stop at the hospital I never found out,’ he noted, sadly.

  In the Hôpital La Pitié-Salpêtrière Wiehe was recovering from the laminectomy – his spinal surgery. In fact, for days now he’d been hovering between life and death. And amongst the French medical staff were secret members of the Resistance. They understood exactly where the Gestapo would be taking the British captives, and they had conspired to ensure that when the lorry came to collect him, SAS Lieutenant John H. Wiehe was nowhere to be found.

  It was around 3.30 a.m. as the convoy set off once more. The moon was high and bright, casting an eerie light over the city. Of all the captives, Paddy Barker seemed to have landed the most outlandish dress. Maybe it was all the Gestapo had been able to find, to fit his big, rangy frame. Irrepressibly cheerful, despite the wound that he was carrying, Barker began making fun of his look – he was dressed in plus-fours, short socks and brown shoes, showing off a good length of hairy ankle. As for the others, Walker had holes in his strange, low-cut shoes, Varey was dressed in plus-fours above heavy boots, and Young had been issued with a white cyclist’s jacket that was far too small for him.

  Despite the forced humour of the captives chaffing each other, Vaculik felt increasingly troubled. Instead of pushing further south and east, the convoy had reversed course. One by one the vehicles passed through the Arc de Triomphe and rumbled onwards through the city, until they reached the suburb of St Denis, some 6 miles to the north of central Paris. As Vaculik well knew, this was completely the wrong direction of travel for Switzerland.

  He asked the guards where they were heading. He would learn soon enough, was the curt answer. What was he supposed to tell the others, Vaculik wondered. The convoy pressed on, passing through Sarcelles, Montsoult and Chambly – moving northwards all the while. They were fifty-odd miles out of their way by now, and Vaculik figured it was time to warn his comrades. There was no way they were making for Switzerland, he told them. No one made any particular comment. ‘Heads lowered, we were jolted along, each occupied with his own thoughts,’ remarked Vaculik. ‘They were not particularly pleasant ones.’

  But they were still alive, and while there was life there was still hope.

  Chapter 17

  Turning away from the guards, Vaculik pretended to blow his nose, while carefully slipping the length of watch-spring from its hiding place in his mouth and forcing it into the mechanism of his handcuffs. It made every sense to be ready. He managed to signal for Jones to do likewise – loosening their cuffs to the degree that they could still keep them on, but slip out of them in a flash. Surreptitiously, the lengths of steel spring were passed from man to man, as Jones tried to show each what to do.

  Vaculik meanwhile did his best to distract von Kapri, the young SS man who had done such a fine job of assisting Hauptsturmführer Schnur in the Avenue Foch interrogations and torture. Feigning amity, he asked whether the SS man had ever been to London, to learn such fine English.

  ‘No,’ von Kapri told him. ‘I learned English as a student in Munich.’ He spoke it as fluently as he did French, he added.

  ‘You look young to be in the military,’ Vaculik observed.

  He was in his twenties, which was young to be an officer in the SS, von Kapri explained, proudly.

  ‘Seen any fighting?’ Vaculik asked.

  ‘I was on the Russian front,’ von Kapri replied haughtily.

  The SS man paused to light a cigarette, and as the smoke drifted through the vehicle, Jones made a comment about what he wouldn’t give for a puff or two. Von Kapri ignored it, but not so his companion, Haug. Vaculik overheard a quick exchange between the two men, the subject of which was obviously whether to offer the prisoners a cigarette or not. Von Kapri clearly wasn’t persuaded, but Haug quietly removed a packet from his pocket and handed them around.

  As Vaculik sucked in a greedy lungful of smoke, his mind was a whirl of thoughts. They’d been on the road for a good ninety minutes by now, and nothing seemed to make any sense. If they were going to be executed, why the interminable journey? Why not shoot them in the cellars of the Place des États Unis, or at one of the many other places of execution the Gestapo boasted – a Paris barracks block, prison or rifle range? Vaculik had noticed that both Schnur and Schmidt formed part of their escort – the former riding in the truck cab, the latter in the Opel car that was sticking close on their tail. Why were two SS captains required, if not for a prisoner exchange?

  With the first blush of dawn already lightening the sky, Haug and von Kapri lowered the canvas rear of the truck. The roads were smaller and more rural now, and it was getting noticeably dusty. The vehicle rumbled over badly made surfaces, each jolt throwing the captives about, as the cuffs made it almost impossible to hold on. Through a rip in the canvas enough light filtered in to illuminate the pale and drawn faces of the seven men.

  At one stage Vaculik caught sight of a road sign through the torn canvas: ‘Noailles’ – a town lying some 50 miles to the north of Paris, amidst lush forest and farmland. Why on earth had they been brought here?

  Up front in the truck cab, Schnur had dozed through most of the journey, relying on the driver, Hildemann, to dumbly follow the line of vehicles in front. Finally, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, the column ground to a halt. Ilgenfritz, Hildemann’s boss, came over to the truck, ordering him to let the Opel take the lead now. Ilgenfritz made it clear he had no idea where they were heading – they were just to follow orders.

  ‘The car . . . drove off along a different road,’ Hildemann noted. ‘I followed with the truck . . . After about ten minutes the car halted . . . near a projecting piece of woodland. I had then to drive the truck along a field track.’ After bumping over rough ground, Hildemann pulled over where indicated, several dozen yards from the road.

  Without a word of explanation, Schmidt and Schnur – the two SS captains – set off on foot for the nearby woods. A few minutes later they were back. ‘Get out,’ they ordered Hildemann. They indicated that he should unfasten the rear of the truck, for the prisoners were to be unloaded here. Hildemann did as ordered, whereupon Haug and von Kapri vaulted down, and voices began calling for the prisoners to get down.

  ‘Schnell! Schnell! Schnell!’ Suddenly everyone was in a massive hurry, it seemed.

  It was light now, the sky above the truck a clear, duck-egg blue. Armed figures surged around the captives, some – oddly – carrying Allied weaponry, mostly Stens and US carbines. There was a momentary pause, as Jones tried to help Captain Garstin down from the truck, and in that instant Vaculik seized his chance.

  He turned to von Kapri. ‘Somme-nous sur le point d’être abbatus?’ – are we about to be shot?

  Von Kapri sniggered. ‘Bien sûr, vous allez être abbatus’ – of course you’re going to be shot.

  Vaculik had entertained few doubts. In his heart he’d known the dark truth. But still, to hear it on the lips of one of their would-be executioners – ‘the brutal words added to my horror’. Before he could react, Schnur gave the order: ‘Right turn, march at ease!’

  With that each of the prisoners was hustled into motion by the butts of their captors’ weapons and the line of figures began to trudge across the field. As Haug joined up, forming one of the escorts, it suddenly occurred to him that this was where the British soldiers were going to be shot, and that he was going to be a party to their execution.

  Schnur led the way, the gold braid of his epaulettes glinting in the early-morning light, his neatly pressed grey tunic over a gleaming white collar and tie, below which his
breeches bagged out above high leather boots. His large peaked cap, of matching grey and complete with a Totenkopf (death’s head) symbol, topped off the SS full regalia. It made it all the more incongruous that the SS man was carrying a British Sten gun in his arms.

  For a moment Schnur signalled a halt in the open, not far from the truck. The seven captives were lined up, but as the SS captain studied the scene he clearly didn’t find it to his liking. It was too near the road. Too visible. He ordered them onwards into the trees. As if in afterthought, Schnur turned and yelled for the truck driver, Hildemann, to join them. He should bring up the rear, where Jones was desperately trying to help Captain Garstin to stay on his feet and to keep going.

  As the SS commander yelled for all to keep up, Haug hung back with Jones and Garstin, which made them the last of the group to enter the shadows of the woodland. The ground rose before them in a shallow incline. It slowed Garstin’s progress still further. Up ahead, sunlight filtered into a clearing, and the first of the captives – Young, Walker, Barker and Varey – could be seen forming up in line, facing their armed guards who were ranged in a half-circle, weapons at the ready.

  There was no mistaking any more what was about to happen. For a moment Garstin paused and stared, aghast. ‘My God, they’re going to shoot us,’ he exclaimed in horror.

  Prods and yells from Hildemann got him moving again, as the last men in line were propelled into the clearing. A beautiful dawn chorus of birdsong filled the air. So this was ‘Switzerland’, Vaculik told himself, grimly. They joined the line – first Vaculik, then Captain Garstin and finally Jones.

  In the distance, a church clock chimed five times. It was time. The would-be executioners readied their weapons, as Schnur produced a piece of paper from his pocket. Oddly, several of the gunmen had pulled on white gloves. The captives turned to each other to exchange a final look – they all knew what was coming.

  ‘So you were right after all,’ Garstin remarked, quietly, to Vaculik. Then, under his breath, to all: ‘I’ll distract them . . . On my signal, be ready to make a run for it.’

  Everyone knew what the desperately sick SAS captain intended. He would stand firm in line and take the fire, so the others might make a break for it. Schnur cleared his throat. He began to read from the paper in German, as von Kapri, standing by his shoulder, translated.

  ‘On the orders of the Führer, having been tried and found guilty of collaborating with French terrorists and endangering the security of the German Army, you have been sentenced to death by shooting.’

  Both Ilgenfritz and Hildemann – the drivers – felt a jolt of shock upon hearing von Kapri start to translate. Until now they’d had no idea that any of the captives were British. They’d learned enough English in school to realise what language the death sentence was being translated into. But there was no time to process any of that, for hardly had von Kapri finished the first line of his translation than all hell let loose.

  Even as von Kapri pronounced the word ‘shooting’, Garstin signalled – NOW.

  To his right, Vaculik leapt like a coiled spring, emitting a deep animal yell, one filled with rage and a burning hatred, Jones doing the same to Garstin’s left. Throwing off his handcuffs as he charged, Vaculik launched himself at the nearest figure, von Kapri, as hard as he could. Bursting through the cordon, he made a few more yards before his foot caught in a tree root and he went sprawling. Moments later he heard gunshots, bullets hammering past above his head.

  On the words ‘death by shooting’, Jones had likewise broken away. ‘I found myself running and stumbling, shots and screams ringing out,’ he recalled. But as he’d not yet managed to fully free his handcuffs, he lost his balance and fell, having made only a few dozen yards. Most likely, that is what saved him, for a burst of fire went tearing across his fallen form, rounds chewing into the trees just beyond. There Jones lay, playing dead and praying for the best.

  For all his glittering SS insignia, Schnur hadn’t made a particularly good executioner. As the first of the prisoners had broken free he’d fumbled to get the paper from which he’d been reading the death sentence back into his pocket. That in turn had prevented him from opening fire. By the time he’d readied his weapon, several of the captives had taken to their heels. Panicking, Schnur yelled at his men to give chase. If any got away, he dreaded to think what might happen, once Berlin was informed.

  Leaping to his feet, Vaculik blundered onwards, tearing through brambles and with branches whipping at his face. ‘Behind me I heard a heavy volley and I knew what that meant: they had executed my comrades.’ He was driven on by a blind fury now and gripped by the desire to survive, so that he could ‘bring back the story, and see the murder of my comrades avenged’. As he raced deeper into the woods, zigzagging to avoid being hit, he ‘heard bullets pass . . . and whistle through the trees’. The knowledge of just who was chasing him and why seemed to lend him wings.

  Jones, meanwhile, lay where he’d fallen, ‘not daring to move . . . Would I feel anything when they walked up to shoot me? It was useless trying to get up . . . if I’d tried I would have been riddled.’ There was the pounding of heavy feet, as his would-be executioners gave chase. Expecting at any moment to take a burst in the back, Jones held his breath in fear. Moments later the boots had thundered over and past him, angry curses ringing through the trees.

  It took nerves of steel, but still Jones forced himself not to move. To play dead. ‘I lay on, the shots . . . ringing out. Still a lot of shouting and running. After a while . . . I raised my head from the ground. I could see a matter of fifty yards from me two of the Jerries – they seemed to be searching. I couldn’t hear any movement near me, so I got up slowly and moved towards a tree . . . I made it without being seen and got behind it for some cover.’ There Jones slipped out of his handcuffs.

  He glanced around, trying to work out where best to run. In the process, he caught sight of several bloodied bodies lying in the clearing. At the very least the killers had got five of his comrades: Varey, Walker, Young, Barker and Garstin, by the looks of things. From the position of the bodies, it was clear that some had tried to make a run for it. With the injury he’d been carrying, Paddy Barker would have stood little chance. As for Captain Garstin, weakened by his injuries, he had stood firm to draw the enemy’s fire.

  The sight of his comrades gunned down in cold blood made Jones’s blood boil, spurring him into action. He made a bolt for it, his heart ‘thumping fit to burst’, dashing through the woodland until he all but ‘passed out on the ground. The few weeks in prison hadn’t done me any good.’ There he remained, lying low in a thicket and hoping he’d made it clean away.

  A little distance away, Vaculik was still being hunted through the trees. From behind he could hear curses, boots crashing through undergrowth and the dull thud of ‘bullets hitting tree trunks . . . They were coming to kill me . . . If only they didn’t get me with a bullet I’d stand a chance.’ Despite the weeks of torture, the starvation diet and the lack of exercise, ‘I never ran so fast in my life and the fear of death urged me on.’

  Finally he burst out of the woods into open farmland. But it was now that a seemingly insurmountable barrier barred his path. Before him lay a tall, thick hedge, as high as any man. It stretched to left and right without a break, and ‘the Germans were almost on my heels’. Vaculik – ‘caught like a poor beast in a trap’ – did the only thing he could think of. In their Battle Course training in Scotland, they’d learned to surmount similarly daunting obstacles. With a superhuman effort, he launched himself at the high green barrier, wormed his way onto the top of it and vaulted down the far side.

  A horse, startled by his sudden appearance, galloped off, whinnying wildly. That was sure to alert the enemy. Vaculik took to his heels, as bullets zipped and snarled through the hedge. His pursuers had to be firing blindly now, which surely gave him the edge. He raced at full tilt across the open field, a ragged fringe of woodland drawing him onwards. It was maybe 500 yards away,
but if he could just make it without being caught, he should be well out of range of the killers’ weapons.

  He reached the line of trees, pausing for an instant to catch his breath. Glancing back, he saw that one of his pursuers had found a way through the hedge. He was kneeling, taking aim. Vaculik dived for cover, though from all his experience he knew the gunman had almost no chance of hitting him at this kind of range. The SS man unleashed a long burst, but the bullets whistled past high, tearing into the uppermost branches of the trees. Moments later Vaculik dashed into the cover of the woods, finding what seemed to be a well-worn bridlepath that snaked ahead into the shadows.

  It was around 5.30 a.m. by the time those pursuing Vaculik finally gave up the chase . . . for now. Back at the botched execution site there was much angry cursing, especially as one of the five captives who had seemingly been shot had miraculously disappeared. ‘There were now only four corpses,’ the SS men observed, with mounting alarm. Then, someone spotted ‘a track, made by crawling or dragging along, leading up into the woods’. It looked as if one of the captives, though injured, had managed to stagger away from the kill-zone.

  Haug had found it impossible to gun down prisoners with whom he’d formed a soldierly bond of sorts. He’d unslung his weapon and opened fire, but he’d deliberately aimed high. Ilgenfritz, by contrast, seemed to indulge no such qualms. The SS men spread out in line abreast and began to comb the undergrowth through which the injured captive had fled. After covering around 500 yards Ilgenfritz, together with his driver, Hildemann, spotted a figure hiding behind a pile of wood.