SAS Great Escapes

by Damien Lewis

  Fiddick would stay with Barassi for several days, as the locals checked out his bona fides. They fetched a village priest, Father Rohr, who was clearly there to determine whether Fiddick was the genuine article or not. Father Rohr had spent thirty years living in Fraser Valley, a point on mainland Canada lying just across the sea from Fiddick’s home, on Vancouver Island. This strange coincidence proved a streak of good fortune for Fiddick, for the priest was able to probe the airman’s story with the kind of questions only a man familiar with the area would be able to answer.

  With his identity thus verified, Fiddick was relieved of his RCAF uniform and given some civilian clothes. Thus attired, he stood more chance of being able to pass as a local, while being shepherded between cellars, attics and other places of hiding. But changing out of uniform was a decidedly risky move, Fiddick recalled, for ‘it would have been unhealthy for me had I been picked up.’ Any Allied serviceman caught in civilian clothes behind the lines would be seen as a spy or saboteur. But likewise, this was the only way to stand any chance of evading capture.

  Fiddick marvelled at the courage and spirit of the villagers of Cirey-sur-Vezouze. He knew all too well the risks they took in concealing him, his presence there being a veritable time bomb. An official SAS report from the time described how, if the Germans had any suspicions that French civilians might be helping downed Allied airmen or parachutists, ‘they razed the house to the ground and shot the occupants’. Regardless, the villagers risked their lives to keep Fiddick safe, providing medical attention for his injured knee and feeding him up so he might regain his strength.

  The locals here were known as ‘Les Loups’ – The Wolves. Fiddick soon got to appreciate why: they were fierce, loyal and fearless, plus they lived off the mountain and acted as a pack. Step by step, Les Loups arranged to smuggle Fiddick towards the headquarters of the local Maquis, concealed at a secret location deep in the mountains to the south of Cirey-sur-Vezouze. Unlike Les Loups, who had regular ‘day-jobs’ alongside their secret resistance work, the Vosges Maquis were mostly full-time partisans. They were dedicated to resisting the Germans and fighting the Milice, the militia of French Fascists who were in league with the Nazi occupiers.

  ‘On the afternoon of 4 Aug a member of the Maquis came and took me to a Maquis camp in the forest,’ Fiddick would go on to write in his escape report. That man, René Ricatte, was the local Maquis leader, and he turned out to be daring and resourceful. Ricatte arranged for a pair of French gendarmes, resplendent in their police uniforms, to convey Fiddick towards La Scierie de la Turbine, a sawmill set deep in the woods. They did so on their police motorcycles, as if Fiddick were under some kind of official escort.

  At the sawmill, Fiddick was handed over to another group of Maquis, masquerading as French woodsmen. From there they continued on foot, making for the Maquis headquarters, set high in the mountains at the Col des Harengs. But en route they stumbled into a German patrol. Fiddick had no idea what he should do, fearing that dressed as he was, if taken captive he would be executed. But masquerading as French countryfolk, Fiddick and his escorts managed to walk right past the enemy sentries. And so, with enormous relief, they ‘headed out into the hills’.

  Reaching the Maquis headquarters, Fiddick finally found himself at a place of relative safety. But for the spirited and brave role that he had played within the resistance of Cirey-sur-Vezouze, including sheltering a fugitive Allied airman, Leonard Barassi was to pay the ultimate price. Along with two other resistance members, Andrew Legendre and Roger Roualin, Barassi would be rounded up by the Gestapo and shot on 11 September 1944, not far from the village where he had granted a desperate Lou Fiddick refuge.

  Further bad fortune lay ahead, or at least for Fiddick’s Lancaster crewmates.

  The Canadian pilot had hoped that others of L-7576’s aircrew might also have survived their warplane being shot down and be brought into the Maquis camp, but then came terrible news. The remains of the Lancaster were discovered in some woodland, and at the crash-site three bodies had been found. The two gunners had been killed in the hail of fire from the Junkers Ju 88, of that Fiddick was certain, but whose was the third corpse?

  Fiddick wondered about the fate of the remaining three aircrew, wherever they might be, if they were even still alive. Then came further, shattering news. Reports filtered in to the Maquis camp that two Allied aviators had been captured by the Germans, and shot out of hand ‘by the side of the road’. Fiddick could only imagine that was the horrific fate that had befallen some of the Lancaster’s ill-fated aircrew.

  Fortunately, he did not have long to dwell upon such dark thoughts. On the night of 13 August 1944, the Maquis camp where he was staying almost entirely emptied. Fiddick sensed that something significant was afoot. The Frenchmen returned with news that a stick of British paratroopers had landed in the forest near by. The Maquis leader asked Fiddick if he would like to join the newcomers. Fiddick replied that he would very much, for at least it would give him ‘somebody to talk to’, as hardly any of the Maquis spoke English.

  Fiddick’s escape report tells of how, on 15 August, he made the journey ‘to another Maquis camp about 8 miles away’, where he ‘met 15 SAS troops . . . The Frenchmen knew where they were and took me right to the camp.’ These were the advance party of 1 Squadron, 2SAS, engaged on reconnaissance for a major SAS mission, codenamed Operation Loyton. They were there to pave the way for a far larger contingent to drop into the area, tasked to cause chaos and havoc behind enemy lines.

  ‘The operation was planned against enemy road and rail communications in the eastern frontier area of France,’ the Operation Loyton mission report outlined. ‘It was intended that parties should operate against the main lines westwards from Strasbourg, and in addition harass soft transport on the road network complimentary to the railways.’ The city of Strasbourg straddled one of the few road routes that led through the Vosges and across the River Rhine, the natural barrier delineating the Franco-German frontier.

  The SAS planned to drop into the mountains in such numbers that, aided by the Maquis, they might create enough mayhem and bloodshed to convince the enemy that their lines were disintegrating, and to give the impression that Allied forces had broken through. Their ultimate goal was to drive German forces from the area, for if the Vosges fell, then Allied forces – now massed to the west of the mountains – could punch through this bulwark of Nazi Germany’s defences and advance into the Fatherland itself.

  Deep in the forested highlands of the Vosges, Fiddick was introduced to a stocky, dark-haired twenty-three-year-old dressed in the khaki battledress of the British Army. ‘I met a chap there – a captain – by the name of Henry Druce,’ Fiddick recalled of the commander of the SAS advance party. This fortuitous meeting would lead to a lifelong friendship, one that would not only enrich the lives of both men and their families, but also play a crucial role in the coming chapters of the war here in the Vosges.

  Captain Henry Carey Druce was born in The Hague, the Netherlands, to a wealthy British father and a Dutch mother. Sent to Sherborne School in leafy Dorset, in the south-west of England, he had gone on to complete officer training at Sandhurst. After graduation, he was commissioned into the Middlesex Regiment, a line infantry unit founded in 1881. Craving adventure, he’d volunteered for the Glider Pilot Regiment – those tasked to fly gliders packed with airborne troops into battle – but was seconded to SOE, where he could make better use of his fluent French, Dutch and Flemish on clandestine operations.

  Inserted into Nazi-occupied-Europe to assist downed Allied airmen to make it back to friendly lines, he was captured after his cover was blown by a Dutch double agent. Following a daring escape from enemy captivity, Druce had crossed hundreds of miles of hostile territory to get home to England. But once his true name and likeness was known to the enemy a similar role was out of the question, and he’d found himself at something of a loose end. By chance, he happened to meet 2S
AS’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Brian Franks, during a train journey to Scotland. By this time 2SAS were ‘very short of operational men’, Franks reported. Upon making the acquaintance of someone so eminently qualified for Special Forces operations, Franks invited Druce to join the ranks of the SAS.

  It was similar qualities to his own – dash, daring, bluff and front – that Druce recognised in the downed Canadian airman who had been brought before him in the Vosges. Writing of their chance meeting in the Operation Loyton War Diary, Druce noted: ‘August 15. A Canadian pilot called Fiddick joined us. He had been shot down and had injured his leg, which made walking difficult.’ As Colonel Franks had done for him, Druce promptly invited Fiddick to join their ranks. His instinctive assessment of Fiddick proved accurate. He ‘would turn out to be one of our best soldiers’, Druce would remark. For his part, Fiddick was overjoyed at his reception. ‘I was finally among people I could understand! I was also impressed by the fact that they had dropped into an area so rife with Germans!’

  The tenacity and dedication of the SAS team to parachute into an area teeming with the enemy demonstrated the core qualities of men like Druce and his fellows. Yet Captain Druce had not been the original choice to lead this mission. Indeed, the officer slated to command the advance party had contacted Colonel Franks the night before departure, admitting: ‘I really don’t feel I can do this operation. I have just lost my nerve . . .’ Hence Franks had turned to Druce – fresh into the SAS – asking him to take over command.

  Druce considered his predecessor ‘a most courageous man’, for having had ‘the guts’ to admit that he was not up to the task, and that his nerve had gone. Many of the SAS had been on numerous behind-the-lines missions for three years or more, and it was little wonder their nerves were shot. They had a term for what had happened: they called it ‘crapping out’. But far better to have done so before mission departure than in the field, whereupon the officer would have become a burden upon the men supposedly under his command.

  Druce had immediately accepted Franks’ offer, noting that he ‘came rushing like a stuck pig out of god knows where’, and made a beeline for the departure airfield. Now, barely seventy-two hours later, and as he was still struggling to remember the names of those under his command, he had a new and wholly unexpected arrival – a Canadian airman, dropped in from out of the blue.

  It fell to Druce and his patrol to prepare for the much larger force of SAS operatives slated to drop into these mountains. Or not, as the case might be. Franks had given him carte blanche: if he determined the Vosges to be good guerrilla territory and target-rich, he could call in the main body of raiders. If not, he could stand the mission down, at which point he and his men would make their own way back to friendly lines.

  ‘Our task was to recce the area in the Vosges as to its suitability as an area for operation “Loyton”, and also to find and establish a safe base and fresh DZs [drop zones] for re-supply and personnel dropping,’ wrote Druce, in his mission report. Time was of the essence, for ‘we reckoned that the Americans would over-run us in about two weeks’ time . . .’ In fact, Druce and his fellow commanders’ view – that American troops and armour would shortly punch through the Vosges, driving all before them – would prove mistaken.

  For Druce, it was crucial to forge a good working relationship with the local Maquis. They had established a basic camp in remote terrain, ‘consisting of wooden huts made from cut down trees . . . on top of a hill in a good defensive position’, Druce reported. ‘The camp seemed well organised and well run, and the Maquis in the camp consisted of about 80 men who . . . had about 10–15 assorted old and rusty rifles.’ While the Maquis were pitifully armed, the SAS had dropped in complete with container-loads of weaponry, and they set about training the Frenchmen how to use the new Sten guns, Bren light machine guns and the grenades that they had brought with them.

  From intelligence reports, Druce had understood the Maquis to be ‘well organised’, but shortly he realised that there were several groups, ‘some good some bad’. Colonel Brian Franks’ report would go further, describing the Maquis as being ‘infiltrated with informers and with no fighting spirit’. Whatever the truth, within days of the SAS team’s arrival, word reached German commanders of British parachutists having linked up with local resistance forces. The enemy reaction was swift and decisive.

  Not long after Fiddick’s arrival, Druce learned that German troops were sweeping the area in a force some 5,000 strong. Fiddick’s own escape report noted of this moment: ‘After we had been at the camp for three days, the Germans got wind of us, and came to search the forest.’ The nearest German patrols were barely a few miles distant, the SAS’s position becoming ever more unhealthy, according to Druce.

  These enemy forces were no second-class units. Colonel Franks reported that they were made up of ‘Special Troops brought from Strasburg. These troops combed the woods and did not keep to the paths and tracks.’ Those ‘Special Troops’ included Gestapo and Einsatzgruppen – paramilitary ‘death squads’ that specialised in wiping out the so-called enemies of the Nazi state. They had been brought in specially to hunt for the British and French fighters, for, as Franks noted portentously, ‘The Germans had all their experience of the rest of France behind them to deal with Maquis and SAS.’

  With the enemy drawing close, Druce had little choice but to abandon the camp. He arranged for Fiddick to be issued with British Army battledress complete with regimental flashes on the shoulders, to replace his peasant attire. That done, on the morning of 17 August 1944 he gave orders to move out. The hundred-strong force of Maquis, plus the dozen SAS – thirteen, with Fiddick in their number – grabbed all they could and melted deeper into the forest. Druce hand-picked a small group to bring up the rear, and Fiddick was chosen to be one of them.

  Clutching an American-made .45 calibre pistol, Fiddick waited uneasily, giving the main column a head-start. Finally, his party moved out, tracing the same path that the rest of the fighters had taken, their movements screened by dark woodland. Druce reported that ‘after two hours difficult marching across the hills’, they came upon a path. After following this for some time, his men stumbled upon a German patrol that had taken a rest break, the troops gathered at the side, eating.

  Moving as silently as possible, Druce, Fiddick and the rest of the men ‘got off the track and hid, with the idea of moving on once the patrol had finished eating’. But as they crawled into the undergrowth, a cry of ‘Achtung’ pierced the quiet. One of the Germans had spotted the last man in the column, a Frenchman. The Maquis fighter had opened fire, at which the entire mountainside erupted into a blazing firefight. The SAS men threw themselves flat, just as the foliage all around them was torn apart by bullets. Fiddick got into cover hunched behind a tree, fumbling for his pistol. He knew it was next to useless at this range, but at least it made him feel better, as he unleashed eight rounds into the woods where he assumed the enemy were hidden.

  ‘Neither side could really see each other . . .’ Fiddick recounted later, ‘so we just fired when we saw movement in the bushes and hoped we hit someone.’

  With his pistol now empty, he set about reloading, the action keeping his mind off the ferocity of the gunfight. Just then he heard the fearsome sound of an enemy machine gun opening up from above. Judging by its high fire-rate it had the signature of a Maschinengewehr 42 ‘Spandau’, which made a noise like a buzz-saw chewing its way through wood. As the Spandau swept the terrain, Fiddick saw the foliage around him disintegrate under the sheer power of the weapon.

  ‘I was standing behind a tree with bullets going all around it,’ Fiddick recalled. ‘It was a little unusual to have so many bullets flying . . . I hadn’t expected such a thing, although there were plenty of bullets flying around on the night we got shot down.’

  He was joined by an SAS trooper with a shock of bright red hair, who was armed with a Sten submachine gun. At the sound of rustling in the
undergrowth the trooper lowered his weapon and emptied the thirty-round magazine in five furious seconds. Agonised cries emanating from the bushes told Fiddick that the man had found his mark. Fiddick was about to speak, when a hail of return fire ripped through the undergrowth, tearing into the SAS trooper’s abdomen, his legs caving under him as he hit the forest floor.

  Under such a fierce onslaught, Druce gave the order to split up. Prior to moving out from the Maquis camp, he had set an emergency rendezvous for just such an eventuality. ‘Fearing that the enemy would soon be on the lower path also,’ he reported, ‘I decided it best to make for the RV in small parties, since my task was to bring in the reinforcements for the area and therefore I was not keen on risking our necks . . .’ Those who survived would need to make for the emergency rendezvous.

  On Druce’s order, Fiddick rose to his feet and dashed off down the mountainside, there being little choice but to leave the body of the red-haired trooper where he had fallen. The Canadian ran full tilt through the trees, firing his pistol at anything he perceived to be a threat, before throwing himself into a dense patch of vegetation. His escape report noted that by now, the whole party were ‘split up and were on the run’.

  This represented the lowest point for Druce and one of the darkest moments during the entire operation. As they hurried downhill, he and his men got increasingly separated, no one knowing where the best route of escape might lie. Bit by bit, the survivors managed to slip away from the enemy. But it would be fully five days before what remained of the force was able to gather again. Those left alive – they had lost two others during the fierce firefights – were in a very sorry state. They were without radios, ammo, explosives and most importantly food, as most of their supplies had been lost during the melee.