Biographies & Memoirs

38

Base 212

‘They have arrived at Base 212.’ The Partisans’ message was brief. Captain Saggers ought to have been feeling pleased – after all, getting escapees and aircrews home was his job. Now it was a problem. He had over 100 escapees in his care, more than anyone in the history of MI9, and, thanks to the Domobranstvo, no airfield to fly them from.

It would take a monumental effort to scout a new site, clear it, and flatten the ground. He didn’t even want to think about the labour required for adequate drainage if it rained. Thanks to Britain’s commitment to the exiled Greek government, he had no planes. Every RAF transport plane in the Mediterranean was flying non-stop helping the second British intervention in Greece.1

Jack Saggers donned a jacket and hopped in his car. He’d have to get on with it, and pray they were not discovered again.

The steep descent to Semič tested the escapees’ will. The party shuffled down the hill, propping themselves up with sticks, sweat pouring off them. It was near 21.00 when they finally arrived. Then Leslie caught sight of something. ‘Officer ahead! Form up!’ The arms supporting each other dropped, and with his last strength every man held himself high. Again, they sang ‘Long Way to Tipperary’, shuffling forwards as the tune rang out.

‘Eyes right!’ shouted The Crow. The officer standing in front of a large building in the centre of town was Captain Jack Saggers. All turned to salute.

Saggers, a stickler for protocol, had had such a mess of a day he’d forgotten his cap. Blushing in embarrassment, he couldn’t return the salute, but he could tell from the state the column was in that he should skip further formalities.2

Saggers turned to face Base 212. It was the old schoolhouse, now called the American School by the locals. Little more than a cleaned barn now, this was Saggers’s safe house for E&Es. Semič was as safe as one could get in Partisan territory, which wasn’t saying much. Saggers opened the doors to reveal the most beautiful sight: piles and piles of fresh hay. No more dusty barns, no more cold forest ground. The men stormed in like an invading horde and collapsed in the hay.

Saggers turned to Leslie and Ralph. ‘Rather over-egging the pudding, aren’t we?’

Leslie was too tired to be fazed by droll remarks on the scale of their success. ‘Well, we’re here, sir.’

‘Quite so. Genuinely well done. Hell of a thing you’ve pulled off, and the Partisans, of course.’

‘We owe them our lives, sir,’ said Ralph. ‘Are we safe now?’

‘Yes, you should be. We just lost one of our airfields, but we’re working on another. Should be getting you out within a few days. When the time comes, we’ll fly you out.’

For the first time, there was a sense of hope among the party. Seeing the men relax, Saggers tried to hold their attention a moment longer. ‘But I must stress, gentlemen: you may have to leave at the slightest notice. Never stray out of earshot during the day. And go nowhere at night. I’ll leave you to it.’3

So that was it then: evacuation by air. By ship had been the most popular theory, though Ralph had hoped that wouldn’t be the case; it was unlikely they had it in them to reach the Adriatic. A number had thought they’d be evacuated by submarine.4 Planes had been on no one’s mind. This was understandable: of the working crew, only a half dozen of the party had ever been airborne, and those that had, only on joyrides at country fairs. As his colleagues flopped in the hay, The Crow congratulated everyone on their achievement – ‘We must have walked 500 miles!’ The only reaction was a roll of the eyes.5 Ralph knew they had travelled about 170 miles; he’d been checking his map often during the march. Obvious hyperbole was part of The Crow’s management toolkit. The crew had marched for twenty-one of the last twenty-six hours, covering over sixty kilometres, and, hopefully, made it to safety.

Monday 11 September 1944

The sunny morning brought a reckoning for the escapees’ feet. Since the escape no one had had more than a riverside sponge bath, and by now the soles of their feet had softened to a spongy, livid pulp, but Donald Luckett now found that pointing the soles towards the sun hardened them. Their new home had a lone toilet and water tap at the back that saw constant use.

Of Semič’s inhabitants only the very young and old remained. For breakfast, the elderly women of the town had prepared a large soup. Their situation must have been awful: their sons were all dead or out fighting on opposite sides of this war and it had fallen to these women to do everything: tend the crops and the animals and raise the children. And now, on top of all that, they had to feed the guests of the Partisans. Yet all offers of help with cooking were refused. The soup was devoured with gratitude by the escapees.6

The following days were slow. Semič itself was pretty, if mournful. Pictures of ‘the Big Four’ – Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and Tito – adorned the town. There was little in the way of recreation. Heeding Saggers’s warning, no one left the town.

Wednesday 13 September 1944

With so much time on their hands, the inevitable rumours circulated. The reality of the civil war in Slovenia was not lost on the escapees, and many feared one of the townspeople would slip out and give up their position to the Domobranstvo. There was a welcome distraction when several American airmen arrived. Cigarettes were shared and stories exchanged. One of the newcomers said he was the sole survivor of a bomber and had had the most miraculous escape. He was a tailgunner, and under enemy fire the tail of his plane, with him still crouching in the rear turret, had been blown clean off. The detached tail had spun away with such ferocity that it had begun to act like a rotor, thereby slowing its descent. The tail had crashed into a pine forest, which had cushioned the fall. An astonished Partisan had come to check the wreckage, only to find the young man dazed but unharmed. The airmen were less than happy about the accommodation and hated the soup. They were amazed by the escapees’ contentment.7

Ralph and Leslie were lounging outside and looked up to see an American sergeant blocking their sun. Accompanying him was another American with bags of camera equipment. He was a photographer for Life magazine by the name of John Phillips. He’d been further south, taking photos of Tito and the Yugoslav Partisans; now he was with the Slovenian Partisans. He asked the pair for a quick interview. ‘Could I take a photo of your whole group?’8

‘Sure, mate,’ said Ralph. ‘We’ll see who we can rustle up. Oi! You buggers! Get here on the double. The world’s press is calling!’ Soon all those within earshot – around seventy of the ninety-nine – had assembled by Base 212. In the photo Ralph’s slouch hat is visible in the background as he stands shoulder to shoulder with Leslie. The picture and story of the escape never made it to the pages of Life magazine; it gave away too much intelligence.

Thursday 14 September 1944

By now Axis forces had moved out of the vicinity to fight Partisan formations west of Ljubljana, and the most immediate threat to the escapees’ safety had departed.9 At Semič, the day brought more new arrivals: seven POWs, led by a Kiwi, Captain Walter Heslop.

Heslop’s escape deserves its own book. He had been captured in North Africa in November 1941 and imprisoned in Italy. After Italy’s surrender, Heslop was transferred to Germany, but he had broken out of his train before it had even left Italy. He stumbled upon and fought alongside Italian Partisans before his unit was forced to disperse after its commanders were killed. Heslop had spent another eight months on the run before leading six others east to the Slovenian Partisans.10 Heslop was a modest man: seeing 100 other runaways, he had no desire to burnish his own legend, only to hear Ralph and Leslie’s story. Not yet muzzled by intelligence officers, they told Heslop everything: how Leslie had established contact with the Partisans; how the original plan of a full rescue had not been fulfilled; how the Partisans had been happy to put the plan back on.11 Ralph and Leslie now realized they were not the only escapees; they were part of a most successful escape line.

Sunday 17 September 1944

‘Everyone up! Time to move!’ The cry from the American Sergeant came at just past midnight, only a few minutes into 17 September. The shock jolted the escapees awake, and the American urged them out into the care of a small group of Partisans. There were only a few light sources in Semič, so the dazed men had trouble seeing their guides. The Partisans led the column out in double time: five minutes running, five minutes walking. The escapees were soon gasping for breath – no one could understand how the Partisans kept up this kind of pace. Once the light of the town faded, it was pitch black; tonight was a new moon, and the only light was from the stars. The more observant realized they were marching south-east – to an airfield, they hoped; to salvation.

An hour of running and marching passed, and the column was called to a halt. Several men dropped to the dirt, face-down, scraping their hands and knees. Ralph could hear the lead Partisan conferring with a courier. Then: ‘Turn round! The evacuation is off!’

The men were in disbelief. They’d waited a week for this, bored out of their minds, with almost nothing but their dreams of freedom to pass the time. Back they trudged to Semič, and returned to bed.12

Many slept through the day. When the Sergeant burst in again in the evening, most of them were conscious this time. ‘All right, we’re giving it another go! We gotta be there by 23.30.’ It was around 22.00: that meant practically running to reach their destination. Everyone just wanted it to be over. It was just as dark, and the Partisans set the same brutal speed. The horrible sensation of running blind was worse for the poor men at the rear: they had 200 boots’ worth of dust thrown in their faces.

Just before midnight they arrived in a huge meadow near the village of Otok. They had arrived at the newly created airfield, codenamed Piccadilly Hope. The moment the men stopped, their perspiration seemed to freeze – at least the forest had retained some heat at night. The escapees stood milling about in the dark, too nervous to ask what was going on. Then the silence was broken by the sound of engines – the same engines they’d heard in Pohorje nearly three weeks earlier. Then more engines – a flock of droning motors approaching.

‘Look!’ Everyone’s eyes were trained on the heavens. Against the stars could be made out the silhouettes of planes. The Partisans had built pyres around the meadow, and now they lit fires under them – beacons to mark the runway. Then Ralph spied a faint white shape drifting down. A parachute. The man hit the ground with a thud.

He got up and greeted the Partisans. ‘Dober večer’ (Good evening). A conversation ensued. The parachutist switched on a torch and, pointing it at the sky, gave a sequence of flashes. Up above, the pilots would have seen the flashes, and now the roar of engines faded.

It returned as the planes made their approach. The lights of the oncoming plane blinded the onlooking crowd, the outline of the craft becoming clear, along with the khaki colour of its fuselage. It was a Dakota, a stubby, functional, twin-engine transport plane. It lowered itself onto the grassy runway and bumped to a halt, propellors drumming, and was guided to a parking spot by Saggers’s staff. Then another was coming in, and another, and another – six Dakotas in all, each one laden with supplies that were unloaded eagerly by the Partisans.

Suddenly the voice of the parachutist was at Ralph’s side. ‘Lovely evening for it.’

The London accent took Ralph by surprise. ‘You’re British?’

‘That’s “sir”, technically. But don’t worry, I’m not one for formalities.’

Ralph’s eyes were dazzled by the plane’s lights and he couldn’t make out the man’s rank insignia. The parachutist, it turned out, was a lieutenant and, thanks to chance, he was having a strange war. He’d been safe from conscription as he was in a reserved occupation, and early in the war had taken in two Slovenians as lodgers. They had wanted to keep their language alive and had taught their landlord, whose middling Slovenian had subsequently been enough to land him an officer’s commission in SOE.13

The planes had offloaded their cargos, and the escapees’ eyes had now adjusted to the dark. Ralph watched some Partisan wounded being taken aboard the first plane. There was still room for more.

Ralph again became The Crow and took the lead. ‘Right, original seven with me!’ The words were bitter in Ralph’s mouth. It was only six, really – Kit was gone. Ralph was holding onto the faintest hope that his friend was still alive, that he was being sheltered by some kindly family. Otherwise, the best to be hoped for was that Kit hadn’t been killed upon recapture. Les, Andy, Bob, Len, and Griff formed up with Ralph.

‘Can’t wait to get away, Crow?’ sneered one of the Australians. Ralph couldn’t tell who it was, but he nearly lost it.

‘I’m going first to make sure the guys at the other end know we’re coming, you idiot! So you don’t have to spend hours waiting around in the cold!’14 Les put his hand on Ralph’s shoulder and beckoned him to board. The wounded had the spots nearest the door, so the original six escapees took their seats by the cockpit. A grim-looking pilot emerged.

‘If I don’t get off this route, I’ll be dead in six weeks!’ he declared in a northern English accent.15 Such charming optimism! Ralph was glad the Partisan wounded couldn’t understand.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Len.

‘Bari, Italy.’

Italy sounded nice. Behind them the other planes were being loaded. The pilot wasn’t done with the pessimism. ‘You best hold on tight when we take off,’ he added. ‘The runway’s far too short, so it’ll be a dicey do.’16

The engines groaned back into life. Ralph could feel his guts making the same noise. He’d never flown before, and a first time on a short runway in the dead of night wasn’t ideal. The plane accelerated and began to lift. Ralph had a sudden sense of almost being able to touch freedom. A loud clang put paid to that feeling as the plane’s undercarriage smacked the tops of the trees at the far end of the meadow. For a moment, all aboard thought the craft was poised to crash. But the Dakota continued to lumber into the sky and flew on to Italy.

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