Slowly gathering more speed, the vessel churned down the channel for the waters of the Bay of Gibraltar. No one said a word to the two passengers. Unsure what to do, Arthur and Cleaver stood together by the port gunwale and fought to keep their balance as the vessel plowed into choppy, whitecapped waters.
Several planes flew in low circles above the bay, some with the all-too-familiar hum that Arthur recognized as that of the Henschel 126. Much of the Spanish military’s equipment, vehicles, and planes had come from Germany. For the first few years of the war, the Nazis had pressured Spain to enter the fray on Hitler’s side and capture Gibraltar; however, Franco’s determination to keep the German Army off Spanish soil thwarted Hitler’s Operation Felix, the Nazis’ plan to capture Gibraltar. Franco became increasingly concerned that he faced the threat of invasion from both the Germans and the Allies, playing a skillful but dangerous game of duplicity with both sides until he gauged which way the war was going. In June 1944, the landings at Normandy cemented the dictator’s decision: Hitler would lose, and Spain would do as little as possible to help the Nazi war effort henceforth. Still, Spanish officials collaborating with the Nazis were aiding Gestapo efforts to take back escaping Allied airmen. The Gestapo prowled ports and other escape routes for Allied airmen for several months to come.
As planes darted down over the plodding fishing vessel and circled it several times, Arthur hoped that from above, he and Cleaver looked like ordinary Algeciras fishermen. On every run to Gibraltar with Allied airmen aboard a fishing boat, one of the crew stood at the bow and another at the stern, peering at the water in every direction. They were searching for the tiny, telltale wake of a U-boat’s periscope among the whitecaps.
The boat felt like it was trying to blow through cement, and for a long while the mass of the Rock did not appear to be getting any closer. Halfway there, the currents grew heavier, the vessel’s progress seemingly slowing to inches. A scout plane was dogging the craft, passing slowly over her and back again and again. The pilot had to be looking for something, or someone.
To throw off pesky scouts, crewmen would lower a few nets into the water in an attempt to trick the pilots into believing that a fishing run, not an escape, was under way. The scout above was apparently not buying it, keeping the boat squarely in view. The captain, the crew, and the two passengers had no way to know if the pilot was playing games or tracking the vessel for a German U-boat. There was another distressing possibility. For the first two miles into the bay, sleek, speedy German E-boats—coastal patrol craft—with Spanish Navy crews, could stop and board any vessel they wanted to in Spanish waters. Several E-boats were on the water around Arthur and Cleaver, but were battling the rough waters, too.
With stomach-knotting slowness, the fishing boat lumbered past the halfway point to Gibraltar. There were just a few miles left, but the boat was getting there at a near crawl.
The Spanish scout planes peeled away, not willing to risk being mistaken for Germans by RAF Spitfires or Hurricane fighter planes.
British patrol boats now appeared ahead of the fishing vessel. From the flagpoles at their sterns, the Union Jack snapped in the gusts. As comforting as the sight was, Arthur and Cleaver were still not safe. A U-boat could have them in the crosshairs of a periscope a mile or more away. Also, the Royal Navy had heavily mined the waters around Gibraltar from past fears of German or even Spanish assaults.
Like all of the Spanish skippers sneaking Allied escapees to the Rock, the seaman ferrying Arthur and Cleaver knew the safe passages among the minefields. Allied agents provided the captains with secret charts of the routes, and after the skippers memorized them, the charts were destroyed to prevent them from falling into the hands of collaborators or the Nazis.
Suddenly the Rock of Gibraltar loomed right in front of and above Arthur, 1,398 feet of stark cliffs that commanded the path between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, one half of the ancient Greeks’ and Romans’ mythic Pillars of Hercules. The fishing boat slowed even more as it neared several long, steel piers where more patrol boats and several Royal Navy frigates and destroyers were moored.
A town that appeared completely deserted stretched from the harbor to the foot of the mountain. The town was in fact deserted. When the war had broken out, the British government had evacuated Gibraltar’s civilian population, mainly to London and also Morocco, Madeira, and Jamaica. Now, with complete Allied control of the skies above Gibraltar, the Royal Navy no longer had to worry about Luftwaffe strikes against the port. The biggest threat rested with the U-boats. While there was little question that a German submarine had spotted the fishing boat at some point of the trip and may well have been tipped off that a high-priority British escapee was on the vessel, the skipper would not have risked a torpedo attack that would have revealed his location with so much daylight still left.
The boat throttled down and eased against one of the piers with a gentle thud. As crewmen lowered the gangplank, a jeep rattled onto the dock and alongside the vessel. Two officers stepped out of the jeep, boarded, walked straight up to Arthur and Cleaver, and asked for their identification from the Barcelona consulate. One wore the olive-drab uniform of the U.S. Army, the other the tan-hued issue of the Royal Army.
After checking the photos and papers, one of the officers gave the escapees the customary greeting: “Gentlemen, welcome back to the war.” 2
CHAPTER 30
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“IT IS THEREFORE SECRET”
As Arthur and Cleaver settled into the backseat of the jeep, the fishing boat pulled away from the pier and churned back out into the channel.
The jeep surged forward, and Arthur and Cleaver hung on as it shot toward an opening at the base of the Rock. Seconds later, they were moving up the mountain through a labyrinth of illuminated tunnels. Other jeeps moved through the tunnels, the American and British uniforms everywhere emphasizing the fact that Arthur’s and Cleaver’s long months on the run were truly ending. A giant clock affixed to a bone-white limestone wall read 1 p.m.
Inside the Rock of Gibraltar, miles of limestone had been blasted to create a vast underground city, with “huge man-made caverns, barracks, offices, and a fully equipped hospital.” About thirty thousand British and American soldiers dwelled within the complex.
The government of Gibraltar’s records for “The Great Siege Tunnels” state: “This ‘town’ inside the Rock contained its own power station [and] water supply . . . Some soldiers posted here would not see the light of day for months on end . . . engineer companies . . . with diamond-tipped drills . . . added some 30 miles of such tunnels, a feat thought impossible at the time.” 1
At the foot of the mountain’s northern walls, the engineers had carved out an aerodrome, where Arthur and Cleaver were to be put on transport planes bound for London. First, though, an arduous debriefing and interrogation, and a round of paperwork to complete, awaited both men.
After an examination at the hospital, they were issued uniforms, shoes, and watches and were fed a hot meal in a massive mess hall—with cups of the first real coffee either man had tasted in months—and a clerk showed up to escort Arthur to the Military Liaison Office of the American consulate. Someone would arrive shortly to take Cleaver to the RAF debriefing office. The American and the Englishman understood that the time had come for them to part ways and return to their squadrons. Well aware that they would likely not see each other again, they stood and shook hands. No words were necessary.
Later, with emotion simmering beneath understated words, Cleaver wrote, “I would add that without Taillandier and Meyerowitz in particular, I would never have reached safety. Of their valor and friendship, I can hardly begin to render fitting words.” 2
As Arthur followed the clerk to the limestone-walled office of Colonel Horace W. Forster, the American liaison in Gibraltar, his thoughts turned to Esther, his parents, and his brother, Seymour. He checked his
new GI watch—it was just after 2:30 p.m. The airman wanted to know when he could get word to them that he was alive.
Forster, after his initial conversation with Arthur, sent a cablegram to London. Dated June 16, 1944, the cable informed the “Commanding General, European Theater of Operations, U.S. Army” that “the enlisted man named below, Staff Sergeant Arthur S. Meyerowitz . . . 448th Bm.Gr. [Bomb Group] having reported to this station . . . will proceed by first available transportation to LONDON, ENGLAND. Where he will report to the Commanding General.” 3
The colonel allowed Arthur to write a few brief lines for a cable to his family—so long as he revealed nothing about his whereabouts or where he had been since December 31, 1943.
Arthur was handed a detailed questionnaire in which he was required to recount the events aboard and loss of Harmful Lil Armful, all of his own actions on the mission, his parachute jump, and everything he could recall about the conduct of every member of the crew.
He battled whether to reveal the loss of nerve and cowardly conduct of the pilot, Second Lieutenant Philip J. Chase. Having discussed Chase’s actions with Cleaver, a man who did everything that a pilot was supposed to do and had harshly criticized Chase’s conduct as related by the B-24’s flight engineer, Arthur wondered whether he should come clean about the skipper of Harmful Lil Armful.
Not certain if Chase was even alive but certain that Air Corps brass might not place much credence in the charges of an airman against an officer, Arthur held back. He filled out the questionnaire without criticizing Chase. It was a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life. It would have been worse years later if he had ever seen Chase’s classified account of Harmful Lil Armful’s final flight, a retelling that stood in stark, self-serving contrast to everything Arthur knew about that mission.
Required to write an account of his ordeal in France, Arthur related every moment from his painful landing in the trees to the journey to Gibraltar. He listed and described everyone who had helped him, the places he had stayed (96, boulevard Deltour was the only actual address he knew), the escape route he had taken, and the ways in which he had evaded the Nazis and the police.
Arthur was on a transport plane out of Gibraltar the next day, June 17, and landed at Bristol, England, that night. His back blazed with pain that would bedevil him for the rest of his life, and he was still suffering from frostbite. It was too early for him to start processing all that had happened from the inspection of Harmful Lil Armful on the airstrip at Seething on December 31, 1943, to the moment he had set foot on Gibraltar.
Letting his guard down still seemed impossible at that moment, if ever. The constant fear of discovery and death was not something a person could shake overnight. He was far from doing that, but for the moment, the realization that he would see Esther and his family again pushed back all the other emotions with which he was grappling. Marcel Taillandier, Gisèle, and all the men and women who had so gladly risked their lives for a stranger from the States would remain a part of him for the rest of his life. Safe now, he felt guilty that his French friends still lived in moment-to-moment danger—in Gisèle’s case, if she still lived at all.
Arthur scarcely stepped from the plane at Bristol before he was led to the office of First Lieutenant Charles A. Byron, of the Adjutant General’s Office. Byron slid a pen and single-page, typed document with the word RESTRICTED emblazoned across the top of the sheet.
As Arthur studied the document, he realized that he would never be able to reveal the true story of how Philip Chase’s decision to fly with a bum engine and to jump from the crippled B-24 before his crew had sealed the bomber’s fate. He did understand the need to keep secret the names of the French men and women who had aided him. Some of them were likely doing the same for other downed pilots and airmen at that very moment.
When he signed the document, he accepted the fact that the details of his “escape or evasion from capture could be useful to the enemy and a danger to your friends. It is therefore SECRET.”
His signature proved he grasped and accepted the classified status of his debrief:
You must therefore not disclose . . .
(1) The names of those who helped you.
(2) The method by which you escaped or evaded.
(3) The route you followed.
(4) Any other facts concerning your experience. 4
The Western Union cablegram Arthur had sent from Gibraltar the previous day reached New York a week later.
CHAPTER 31
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ROCKAWAY BEACH
On Monday, June 26, 1944, Seymour Meyerowitz walked home to 1205 Findlay Avenue from Robert Morris High School. A sultry sun washed across the Bronx as he neared the yellow-brick apartment house.
Each day that passed without any word from Arthur, Seymour prayed for his brother’s safe return. However, he battled doubts that his prayers would be answered. Seymour marveled at their mother Rose’s faith that Arthur was alive. She never lost her faith that God would bring him back, and she would not allow anyone else to question it in her presence.
Arthur’s girlfriend, Esther Loew, was having perhaps the roughest time as neither a letter from Arthur nor any word from the War Department arrived. The silence ripped at her and wore her down. As she grew more distraught, her family and the Meyerowitz family feared that she was teetering on the verge of an emotional breakdown. It was understandable, Seymour observed. “She was deeply in love with my brother,” he would later say. 1
To try to cheer Esther up, the Loews had rented a bungalow at Rockaway Beach and invited the Meyerowitz family to join them for a few days. Seymour was supposed to meet everyone at the cottage later in the day with his uncle Max, who would drive. Seymour was glad to have an afternoon off from his after-school job assembling expensive fluorescent fixtures at a lamp factory. As he reached the building on Findlay Avenue, ran up the front stairs to the entryway, and stepped inside, all he knew about his older brother’s fate was that Arthur was still listed as MIA, missing in action.
Seymour had a task to perform for his mother. Before he left for school that morning, Rose instructed him to check for any telegrams from the War Department that might arrive during the day. Seymour did not expect to find one. Why should today be any different from all the others since the family had last received a communication from the Army? Still, a part of him feared that a message could come at any time, and he wondered how he would react if grim news arrived, how he could tell his mother. What if today was the day?
He could not and did not want to imagine life without his older brother. Even though Arthur was missing, no one could yet say he was gone.
One thing Seymour could easily imagine was what would happen if he did not check for the telegram. “No place to hide if I didn’t,” he recalled. 2
He climbed the three flights of stairs in the hot, sticky building and walked down the hall to 1205. He pushed his key into the lock, and as the latch clicked and the door swung open, he saw a telegram lying at his feet. A scream exploding from him, Seymour “got kind of hysterical.” 3
From down the hall, Mrs. Baden, a neighbor, rushed from her apartment to see if he was all right. Shaking, terrified of the telegram’s contents, sixteen-year-old Seymour stared down at the envelope. “I was afraid,” he would remember. 4
Several neighbors looked out their doors to find Seymour now standing rigid and looking down at the yellow piece of paper. The neighbors immediately understood.
Mrs. Baden bent down, picked up the envelope, and opened it to find a Western Union cablegram. She asked Seymour if he wanted her to read it, and he nodded.
She said, “It’s from your brother . . .”
“I was stunned,” Seymour would say. 5
Mrs. Baden read the message, addressed to “Mrs. Dave Meyerowitz,” out loud:
DEAR FOLKS AND SEYMOUR EVERYTHING OKAY H
ERE HOPE TO BE SEEING YOU ALL VERY SOON MY LOVE TO EVERYONE LOVE ARTIE MEYEROWITZ 6
His head swimming with a torrent of emotions, Seymour tried to focus on what to do next. It was not easy—his elation blurred his ability to reason for a few moments, and his eyes kept filling up. Then he calmed down. His first action was to get word to his mother and father and Esther at the beach, but it would take at least a couple of hours by bus or Uncle Max’s car to join up with them. This news could not wait.
“We needed a telephone line,” Seymour said. 7 The only person in the building who had one was a neighbor on the first floor, and he raced down the stairs and pounded on her door. When she opened it, he breathlessly explained to her that his brother was alive and he needed to reach his parents immediately but they were on the beach at Rockaway.
Everyone with a serviceman overseas knew how important a moment like this was, and the neighbor dialed the operator, told her that we have “a missing airman telegram,” and put Seymour on the line. 8 When he related that his parents were somewhere on the beach, the operator, who must have known her way around Rockaway, suggested calling a candy store close to the beach and see if anyone there might be able to go look for the family and Esther. She called the shop, and when a clerk who was there alone answered, she told the youth that she had an emergency—she needed his help to find the parents and sweetheart of an airman who had just turned up alive after being MIA for six months. Then she put Seymour on the phone.
Without hesitation, the clerk agreed to help. He found a large piece of cardboard, scrawled a message in large letters, locked up the store without even considering lost business, and raced onto the beach with his sign.
There, more than an hour later, a middle-aged couple and a pretty, black-haired young woman rushed through the thick white sand toward him. Tears streamed down their sun-darkened faces. Rose, David, and Esther had spotted the words scribbled on the cardboard sign: MR. & MRS. MEYEROWITZ—YOUR SON IS ALIVE!
The Lost Airman Page 25