Escape from Paris

by Stephen Harding

  While the sprawling Invalides complex was the ideal place to store such weapons until they could be put to use against the Germans, the mere presence of war materiel within the precincts for which the Morins were in large part responsible significantly increased the family’s risks. The residence of one or two bogus “cousins” might possibly be explained away as ignorance of some obscure German decree, but the discovery of a cache of weapons obviously provided by Britain would result in brutal interrogation and almost certain death. Yvette and her parents were well aware of the danger and accepted the possibility that a traitor within the organization, or a policeman’s random curiosity, or even their own carelessness, could bring disaster down upon them at any moment. In an example of sangfroid rare in one so young, Yvette took to wearing a bracelet her grandfather had given her for her first communion. It was engraved with her name and birthdate, and she thought it would help people identify her body should the Germans arrest and then execute her.8

  THOUGH THE OFFICIAL ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SERVICE DU TRAVAIL obligatore—the German-enforced work program—in the summer of 1942 ensured that large numbers of refractors still sought shelter with France’s various resistance organizations, by the following year the nature—and nationality—of the people being hidden in Paris by Turma-Vengeance and the other networks had changed significantly. The underlying reason was the Allies’ round-the-clock Combined Bomber Offensive, which was sending ever-larger formations of aircraft ever deeper into Occupied Europe.

  One less-than-desirable result of the widening aerial campaign, of course, was the increasing numbers of Allied airmen forced to abandon their crippled machines by parachute or crash-land them in German-held territory. While British and Commonwealth aviators had been regular—if unwilling—visitors since 1939, by early 1943 Americans were making up a larger percentage of the downed airmen being aided by the evasion networks. With the help of people like André Schoegel, increasing numbers of “Yanks” were finding refuge in and around Paris as they awaited onward movement back to Allied territory.

  The first Americans to be sheltered by the Morins—albeit briefly—arrived on June 28. Like the majority of the USAAF aviators who would pass through Invalides, sergeants Lester Brown Jr. and John H. Houghton were B-17 crewmen.9 They were the radio operator and ball turret gunner, respectively, of a Fortress belonging to the 384th Bomb Group, based at Grafton-Underwood in Northamptonshire. Their aircraft was shot down on June 26 during a raid on the airfield at Villacoublay. While three of the bomber’s crewmen were captured by the Germans soon after landing, seven others were located by helpers and six of those were sent on to Paris after being given civilian clothes and a hurriedly produced set of identity papers.10 Brown and Houghton were escorted to the capital by rail on the late afternoon of June 28, arriving at the Gare d’Austerlitz. There they were met by a man they later described as “an ex-major in the French army,” who led them down into the Métro. While Gare d’Austerlitz was at most a thirty-five-minute walk from Invalides, the airmen’s escort had apparently decided that the hour-long subway journey—which involved some thirteen stops and a transfer among four lines—was safer than making the journey by foot.

  The trio arrived at Invalides’ east entrance gate just after its 7 P.M. closure, and the German guards had retired for the evening. After waiting across the street for a few minutes to make sure all was quiet, the Frenchman led his two charges across the narrow boulevard des Invalides. The man then pushed the button that rang the dit-dit-dit-dah bell inside the Morins’ apartment, and moments later Georges opened the smaller door set within the left section of the massive gate. The two Frenchmen shook hands, and the escort hurried off as Georges ushered the Americans in and led them around the corner and into the apartment.

  After Brown and Houghton had settled themselves onto a small couch, Denise served them bread, cheese, and wine. As the Americans ate, they gathered from Georges’s mixture of hand gestures and few words of English that someone else would be joining them. An hour later the aviators were startled by a sudden knock on the door and Denise admitted two men, one about thirty and the other in his sixties.

  In good English the visitors quizzed Brown and Houghton about where they were from originally and how long they’d each been in the military. The older man then asked to see the gunners’ dog tags, and handed them back after jotting down the information stamped into the disks. He then wanted to know if the airmen had any more pictures of themselves in civilian clothes. They didn’t—the photos had been used for their first set of false papers—but the man said that wasn’t a problem, they would take more later.

  Having wished Brown and Houghton a good night’s rest, the two men said they would return in the morning, then hurried out into the night. A few minutes later Denise led the Americans upstairs to Yvette’s room—the family had been told they were likely to have “guests” that evening, so in order to free up space the young woman was spending the night at the home of the Morins’ family physician, Dr. Mercier, and his wife, Germaine.11 The airmen made themselves as comfortable as possible, one on Yvette’s bed and the other on a thin, down-filled mattress laid on the floor. Despite their anxiety about what the morning might bring, they were both soon asleep.

  Georges awakened the airmen just after 6 A.M. and indicated they would be leaving soon. After a simple breakfast Brown and Houghton said a quick goodbye to Denise, then followed their host out the door and down the narrow alley to one of the workshops. There, Georges handed each of the men a pair of mud-stained overalls and a hoe. At precisely 7 A.M. the German guards opened the eastern gate, and as Brown and Houghton sauntered out the troops ignored them, as Georges had known they would. After all, he’d reasoned, the guards were there to monitor the visitors entering the compound, not to keep track of gardeners leaving to attend to trees and shrubs along the outside walls. Once through the gate, the two Americans turned south on the boulevard des Invalides and walked until the tall man from the night before appeared alongside. After neatly leaning their hoes against a nearby tree, Brown and Houghton followed their guide to the next stop on their journey to freedom.12

  Despite the brevity of the Americans’ stay at Invalides, Georges and Denise Morin had shown themselves entirely capable of hosting evaders whose language they did not speak. And when the next U.S. aviators arrived, Yvette Morin’s own very limited English skills would prove no impediment to the blossoming of a deep and committed relationship—and to a proposal.

  THE HUGE PLAZA TO WHICH ANDRÉ SCHOEGEL LED JOE CORNWALL AND HIS companions on the afternoon of July 22 was the place de la Concorde.13 The largest open square in Paris, on that Wednesday it was also among the busiest places in the capital. Though few vehicles moved on the nearby streets, individuals and groups of people traversed the vast open space, some striding or riding bicycles purposefully to jobs or appointments, others simply strolling in the summer sun. The sheer number of people made the esplanade the perfect place for a clandestine rendezvous, and after leading the four American airmen to the huge fountain at the southern end of the plaza Schoegel motioned them to gather around him. As they did so, a stout and rather formidable-looking middle-aged woman walked up to the group. She and Schoegel exchanged a few terse sentences in French, then the woman motioned for Joe and Harry Eastman to follow her. As she led them away, Joe caught a quick glimpse of Turner and Davitt trailing the tall, slender man off into the crowd.14

  The reason for splitting up the four airmen is now lost to history, but was likely the result of a decision within the Turma-Vengeance network that all their American “eggs” shouldn’t be placed in the same basket. Sheltering the airmen in at least two places would prevent all of them being captured in a single German raid, while at the same time reducing the burden placed on those chosen to house and feed the Americans. Whatever the motive, the result was that André Schoegel led Dave Turner and Dick Davitt off to the suburb of Orly, where they would stay with him in his modest home at 2 rue Jenner.15


  Joe and Harry Eastman had little time to consider the reasons for their friends’ sudden departure, for the formidable French woman was striding briskly away. As the two airmen hurried to stay close to her, they realized she was leading them toward a wide bridge over the River Seine. Before reaching the span, however, the woman turned to the right and started down a sloping, tree-shaded walkway paralleling the water. Joe and his fellow gunner followed, bicyclists whizzing by them on either side. The walkway quickly leveled out, and continued along a slight bend in the river toward another ornate bridge—the Pont Alexandre III—with pairs of tall columns flanking either end. Looking to his left, Joe could see barges tied up to wide stone wharves lining both sides of the waterway, and he noticed armed German troops monitoring the loading and unloading of cargo.

  When their French guide reached the bridge she paused slightly, then turned and started across the span. The wide sidewalks on either side of the roadway were nearly as busy as the place de la Concorde, and for a few moments it was all Joe and Harry could do to keep the surprisingly fleet Frenchwoman in sight. When they reached the far side of the span the crowds thinned a bit, and a broad green esplanade opened out before the two aviators as they hurried to keep pace with the guide. Their eyes were drawn to what looked like a vast palace at the end of the long, park-like tract, and to the monumental golden dome rising above it. It was their first glimpse of Invalides.

  The closer the guide and her charges got to the north end of the palatial building, the easier it was for Joe and Harry to see the red-and-white-striped sentry boxes on either side of the massive, wrought iron entrance gates. In front of each box stood a German soldier with a rifle over one shoulder, and as it became apparent that the Frenchwoman intended to walk directly through the gate the two American aviators realized they had no choice but to follow her. To suddenly stop and abruptly change direction would likely only draw the Germans’ attention and, besides, they knew no one in Paris and had nowhere to go. Seeing that the guide and other people were going through the gates with barely a glance from the sentries, Joe and Harry shot a quick look at each other and with only a subtle nod between them agreed to brazen it out. Trying to look as casual as they could, the two men strode nonchalantly toward the gate, both sighing quietly with relief after passing the soldiers without being challenged.

  Ahead of them, their guide was walking toward a huge portal in the front of the massive building, which Joe decided looked more like a centuries-old hotel or hospital than a palace. Once through the arched stone entryway, the Americans followed their guide across the vast Cour d’honneur, enclosed on all four sides by two-storied buildings with sharply peaked roofs. At the far end of the courtyard, which Joe assumed was a military drill field or parade ground, the Frenchwoman angled to the left, striding through one of a series of archways into the dim and cool recesses of a long corridor made of dressed stone. The aviators followed, and less than a minute later walked out into what appeared to be a broad, sunlit alley—the Cour de Metz. To the left was a four-story stone building, and to the right the long eastern façade of the Cathédrale Saint-Louis. Towering above the large, rectangular building that made up the far end of the cathedral—the Dôme church—was the soaring golden edifice Joe and Harry had seen from the other side of the river.

  At the end of the Cour de Metz the Frenchwoman walked a few steps out into the Cour du Dôme, the broad, open space between the gated southern entrance to Invalides and the steps leading up to the Dôme church. Visitors—many wearing German uniforms—thronged the area, and for a moment Joe thought the Frenchwoman intended to lead Harry and him out the gate, which had its own set of rifle-toting guards. But after looking carefully about for a few seconds, the woman turned to the left and set off down a wide gravel path separating a long, two-story building from the compact, well-manicured Jardin d’Hôpital (Hospital Garden).16 Joe noticed a second, smaller guarded gate directly ahead, but before reaching it the woman turned right down a narrow alley. When the two airmen followed her, they found her knocking on the door to a small, two-level apartment set into a line of structures that included a small garage and what looked like workshops. As Joe and Harry walked up, the door was opened by a slight, middle-aged man with a small, well-trimmed mustache. After a brief, hushed conversation with the man, the Frenchwoman turned, winked at the Americans, then walked away without a backward glance.

  Joe and Harry, somewhat bewildered by their guide’s abrupt departure, turned back to the man standing in the doorway. He smiled, tapped himself on the chest, and said, “Georges.” Then, with an almost theatrical sweep of his arm, he invited them into his modest home.

  IN THE EIGHT DAYS SINCE HE’D LEAPED FROM THE DOOMED SALTY’S NATURALS, Joe Cornwall had been on a near-constant emotional roller-coaster. Though undoubtedly thankful to have survived the Fortress’s sudden destruction, he was still coming to grips with the fact that most of his crewmates—men with whom he’d lived and trained for months, and who in many ways were closer to him than his own family—were almost certainly dead. Moreover, from the moment he’d thumped painfully to earth Joe had been a hunted man, on the run in a strange country with the threat of capture constantly looming over him. Unable to speak more than a few words of French—and those with a decidedly American accent—he’d had no choice but to entrust himself to a series of complete strangers.

  That was proving to be a difficult adjustment for Joe. The vagaries of his early life had molded him into a self-reliant and self-confident man, one used to making his own decisions and accepting responsibility for his actions. Yet, not surprisingly, he also craved order and consistency, an inclination that had tempered his maverick spirit and allowed him to adjust remarkably well to military service. But the realities of life on the run in German-occupied France challenged each of Joe’s defining personality traits. He’d not only had to relinquish control over his life to people he’d never met and whose intentions were not always clear, but the helpers’ need for secrecy ensured that he was not informed of any change in his location until the last possible moment. It was a disquieting situation, to say the least.

  Now, as the Americans settled themselves on the small couch in the Morins’ narrow living room, Joe made a quick assessment of the man who had apparently assumed responsibility for him and Harry. Georges appeared to be in his late forties, with silver strands running through his otherwise coal-black hair, and one of his eyes looked as though it might be false. Though slight of stature, the Frenchman exuded an aura of calm competence that Joe found reassuring. Georges obviously did not speak much English, but he had gone to the trouble of writing out a few sentences using a small French-English dictionary and now read them in a clear and steady voice. He and his family were honored to welcome the American guests to the Hôtel des Invalides and to their home, he said, and would do what they could to make the aviators’ stay a pleasant one. At that point Georges handed Joe a piece of paper bearing several lines laboriously handwritten in English, saying that these were the rules the American guests must follow for everyone’s safety. As the airmen were scanning the document Denise walked in from the kitchen, introduced herself, then handed each of the gunners a small, steaming plate of vegetables and a meat Joe immediately recognized as rabbit.

  After the meal Denise led the Americans upstairs to the small front bedroom, which she indicated belonged to her adult daughter, Yvette, who was at work. The aviators gathered that the room was theirs for the length of their stay, and a quick coin toss won Harry the bed and relegated Joe to the thin mattress on the floor. On one wall a framed picture of Georges and Denise attracted Joe’s attention. Obviously taken outside in front of the Dôme church, the image depicted husband and wife in formal attire, he in pleated pants with a white shirt, vest, and tie, and she in a conservative black dress. But it was the person standing between Georges and Denise that caught Joe’s eye. Obviously the daughter whose room the Americans now occupied, she was slender and the same height as her mother—about five fee
t four, Joe estimated. Her dark hair was swept up, and she was wearing what appeared to be an embroidered, knee-length white dress and matching shoes. She stood with her hands behind her back, looking directly at the photographer, her head cocked slightly to one side and the beginnings of a smile just lifting one corner of her mouth. Though the photo depicted her as a teenager, probably at the time of her confirmation or some other religious event, she was beautiful in a natural and unpretentious way. Joe found himself wondering what she looked like now, and hoping he’d have the chance to find out.

  His opportunity would come, just not as soon as he would have liked.

  THE MORINS HAD BEEN TOLD IN ADVANCE THAT THEY WOULD BE SHELTERING more than one person and, as when Brown and Houghton arrived weeks before, Yvette had arranged to stay with Dr. Mercier and his wife at their home on avenue Daniel Lesueur, which was less than a half mile south of Invalides.17 She therefore didn’t go back to her parents after work at the Crédit National on Thursday or Friday, June 22 or 23. When she did return home, on the afternoon of Saturday the twenty-fourth, she was accompanied by Germaine Mercier.

  Though no written account survives of the first meeting between Joe Cornwall and Yvette Morin, all indications are that their initial encounter was a revelation for both of them. Looking at Yvette, Joe would have seen a somewhat older and more sophisticated echo of the girl in the photo. Slender, petite, and lovely, with a winsome smile and vivid green eyes, Yvette would undoubtedly have captivated Joe from the moment he met her. And she was almost certainly equally as enthralled by him. Despite the emotional and physical rigors of his week on the run, Joe remained an impressive figure. Just under six feet tall, lean and sinewy, with dark, wavy hair and bright blue eyes, he had the rugged good looks of a movie-poster cowboy.