Escape and evasion lines (World War II)


Escape and evasion lines in World War II helped people escape European countries occupied by Nazi Germany. The focus of most escape lines was assisting British and American airmen shot down over occupied Europe to evade capture and escape to neutral Spain, Switzerland, or Sweden from where they could return to the United Kingdom. A distinction is sometimes made between "escapers" and "evaders". Most of those helped by escape lines were evaders. Escape lines sometimes helped other people fleeing Nazi persecution, such as compromised spies, resistance leaders, and Jews.
About 5,000 airmen, mostly British and American, were helped to evade German capture during World War II.

Description

Typically, downed airmen were found, fed, clothed, given false identity papers, and hidden in attics, cellars, and people's homes by a network of volunteers who worked with the escape lines. Airmen were then accompanied by guides, also volunteers, to neutral counties. The most common routes were from Belgium and northern France to Spain. Travel through occupied France was mostly by train, followed by a crossing on foot of the Pyrenees mountains into Spain with a local guide. Once in Spain the airmen were assisted by British diplomats to travel to Gibraltar and then were flown back to the United Kingdom.
Late in the war, especially after the Normandy Invasion on June 6, 1944, the escape lines turned more to sheltering airmen in place or in forest camps to await the arrival of the allied armies rather than helping the airmen to escape occupied Europe. Operation Marathon describes the forest camps.
Approximately 2,000 British and 3,000 American airmen downed in western Europe evaded German capture during the war. Airmen were assisted by many different escape lines, some of them large and organized, others informal and ephemeral. The work of the escape lines was labor-intensive. The Royal Air Forces Escaping Society estimated that 14,000 volunteers worked with the many escape and evasion lines during the war. Many others helped on an occasional basis, and the total number of people who, on one or more occasions helped downed airmen during the war, may have reached 100,000. One-half of the volunteer helpers were women, often young women, even teenagers. Several of the most important escape lines were headed by women.
The work of helpers of escape lines was dangerous. Given the large number of helpers scattered over large areas, escape lines were relatively easy for the Germans to infiltrate. Thousands of helpers were arrested and more than five hundred died in concentration camps or were executed. The attrition due to German arrest of escape line leaders was much higher. In March 1943, only one 61-year old woman remained free to re-invent the Pat O'Leary Line. In March 1944, only three of a dozen leaders of the Comet Line, the largest and most famous of the Lines, were still alive and not in prison.
Initially, escape lines were self-financed by individuals in occupied countries. However, two UK clandestine organizations, mostly MI9 but also Section DF of the Special Operations Executive, financed the large escape lines and the U.S. clandestine organization MIS-X helped prisoners of war escape from German POW camps.
The members of the escape and evasion lines were usually unarmed and did not participate in violent resistance to the German occupation. The motto of the Comet Line, was "Pugna Quin Percutias," which means "fight without arms." To maintain tight security, escape lines usually avoided contacts with armed resistance groups.

Escapees and evaders

Organized escape and evade lines operated in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark. The number of airmen evading capture after being shot down or crashing in Europe was a small fraction of those killed or taken prisoner. For example, about 22,000 British and American airmen were killed or captured when being downed in France, but only 3,000 are recorded as having evaded capture by the Germans. However, the percentage of airmen who evaded capture in France was higher than in other countries due to the proximity of the Spanish border to France and the short ocean passage to England. Nearly all the airmen downed in Germany were killed or captured, although a few escaped from prisoner of war camps and were helped to avoid re-capture by escape lines.

Escape lines