At the end of December 1941 the evaders, Allan COWAN, Bernard CONVILLE and DUNCAN GRIEG embarked on the Polish liner M.S. Batory escorted by two destroyers. the ship arrived back in Gourock, Scotland from Gibraltar on the 4 January 1942.


Allan COWAN went to work in an aircraft factory in Southampton. In May 2001 I was lucky to be taken by the Carlton television programme "Find Your Family" to meet Allan (pictured left in 2001) and his family in Scotland. At 89 years old he still had vivid memories of those months evading in Belgium and his escape through France and over the Pyrenees. Sadly Allan died on the 23rd July 2001 before we had a chance to meet up again. He filmed this message for Dedee Dejongh in Brussels.

"Thanks very much for all the help, for going down the line with us. I'll never forget it, my memories will live forever.... I hope you keep in the best of health, I don't know how I am myself, I probably won't last long. I will never forgot the memory of traveling with you down the line and the narrow escapes we had. When the German officers stopped us and the police and we managed to worm our way out of trouble with your help until we got out to the South of France. We left you in the South of France and you had to go back up again. So that was the last we saw of you. We wish you all the best."

Duncan GREIG was "Mentioned in Despatches" presumably for his solo escape and was, in 1945, commissioned into the Gurkha Rifles as a Lieutenant. At Christmas 1944 he wrote to Marcel Fauconnier from Dehra Dun in India.
Dear Marcel,
You have probably wondered how we four got on after leaving Parike. Well Percy got back with me but Bettley & Slavin are now in Stalag VIIIB both were caught in Brussels. We made the journey through France & Spain in the latter I spent many months in prison but eventually got home at the beginning of 1942. I'm very sorry I was unable to come over chez vous with the invasion army but I'm gasping for a crack at the Jap & hope it won't be long till I get one.
Please give my regards to Marie & everybody in Parike.
yours as always
Tony

Note:- In Parike Duncan Greig was called Tony, Allan Cowan, Percy and Samuel Slavin, Joe.

Duncan, by now a Major, died of a heart attack on 28 September 1961 in Aden. His official obituary is as follows:-
Duncan Greig enlisted in the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders in January, 1939, on leaving school, and served with that regiment in France, when he became a prisoner-of-war at St Valerie in May, 1940. He subsequently escaped and lived on a Flemish farm for a year before crossing into Spain, where he was again imprisoned. Eventually he was repatriated through Portugal, and was later posted to India, where he was commissioned into the 2nd Gurkha Rifles. From there he applied for, and obtained, a commission in The Royal Scots. He served in the 2nd Battalion in Trieste and on the Intelligence staff in Austria, whence he was posted to the 1st Battalion in Munster. After leaving them in Berlin he spent six years with the Malay Regiment where he was mentioned in despatches and on the PT staff at HQ Scottish Command. At the time of his death in Aden he was on his way to join the Trucial Oman Scouts for a tour of duty. He leaves a widow and five children, to whom our most sincere sympathy goes out.

The guide "Jean" who took Duncan Greig and his two Belgian companions met in the hotel in Licq and who took them over the Pyrenees in 1941 was arrested and executed.

One of Duncan Geig's Belgian companions in the Pyrenees, student Nester A. G. BODSON (pictured left) was born in 1921, son of a schoolmaster, he was parachuted back into into Belgium on the 27th August 1942 as "Springbok" a wireless operator for the agent "Bull". He was captured straightaway, the parachute drop had been set up by the Germans using the captured wireless of Fonck code-name "Balaclava". Nester Bodson refused to talk, he gave his name, his sergeant's rank and army number and that was all. Fourteen months later , on the 5th December 1943, he was shot.
   

The plaque outside the "Maison des parachutistes" 46 rue du Châtelain Ixelles Brussels with Nestor Bodson's name.

Roy Langlois in 1947

Roy Brouard LANGLOIS D.F.C. was prisoner of war no.653 at Stalagluft Sagan & Belaria. On March 24/25th 1944 he took part in the famous mass escape from Stalg Luft III Sagan which was the basis for the film "The Great Escape" starring Steve MacQueen, in which 220 men tried to escape from the camp. In the woods at the end of the tunnel was Langlois who could see that a patrolling sentry had deviated from his beat and would tread within a few feet of the tunnel. He tugged at the signal rope, meaning "stay put." The next escaper, thinking this was the opposite signal, emerged from the tunnel right under the feet of the guard, who until then had passed by. For some seconds he did not see the tracks in the snow and body-heat steam drifting upwards from the tunnel mouth. Finally noticing the signs, he raised his rifle, fired a wild shot at Langlois (which missed) and blew his whistle. Nearly all the men were recaptured and 50 were murdered by the Gestapo. Langlois ( nicknamed Daddy Long Legs ) was returned to Sagan. He had already earned the Distinguished Flying Cross before the war for gallant and distinguished services rendered in connection with operations in Palestine during the period 1st April 1939 until 30th July 1939 and was to attain the rank of Wing Commander before retiring from the RAF in 1962. He was married to Maria Kirby-Green the widow of Squadron-Leader Tom Kirby-Green one of the RAF officers executed after The Great Escape. He died in 1993 aged 76. See LINKS page to go to Rob Davis' website on The Great Escape.


The other three G for George airman Sergeant John McLARNON POW No139328., Sergeant Harold Joseph Edwin BURRELL POW No.139375 and Sergeant R.D. PORTEOUS POW No.32409. After splitting off from Langlois, Copley and Newton the three airmen knocked at the door of a farmhouse at Lierre near Antwerp. The farmers daughter was probably called Mlle. Justine VAN DEN EYNDE and her and the other people on the farm hid them for the night and gave them overalls to wear . The next day they were taken to Antwerp and were hidden in the house of Mme Beukelaer in Geulincxstraat until the 9th September. During this time false papers were prepared and arrangements made to get them to Lisbon by M. and Mme. MEYERBERGER of Brasschaet near Antwerp. On the 9th September they left Antwerp by train and were met in Brussels by Mrs Harris who said she originated from Birmingham she took them to the Rue Washington where they stayed 2 nights with Jean VANDENHOVE. While staying with Vandenhove they were visited by a silver haired man called WILLIE (William Reynolds?) who had previously owned a cafe in Ostend. On the night of the 11th they were taken to the station by Mrs Harris and left Brussels guided by a Major Du Normand bound for Besancon. On arrival at Besancon they went by bus to St.Laurent near Lake Geneva where they stayed the night. The three crossed into Vichy France at 3pm on the 13th September. They were to rendezvous in a cafe a few kilometers outside St. Laurent and then were to be taken by taxi to St.Claude and then by train to Toulouse. But things did not go according to plan. While they were in the cafe they were spotted by a Gendarme who questioned them and asked to see their papers. He was not satisfied with the airmens identity and took them to the local Gendarmerie where it was established that they were RAF airmen. They were then interned in St Hippolyte-du-Fort near Nimes, in the South of France, which contained many British evaders picked up by the Vichy police.In March 1942 and later taken to Fort de la Revere near Nice where they remained until August 1942. They were then taken to POW camp in Germany.


Flight Sergeant Hilary (Larry) Eldred BIRK, 402634, 99 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force reached Spain with Jack Newton 10/12/1941 he arrived in Gourock Scotland from Gibraltar on the 10th March 1942. He returned to active service but was killed in North Africa on Wednesday, 15th July 1942. Age 20. Albert Day describes Larry as a constant joker, on his return from Spain when walking around London with Albert, Larry would lead an imaginary dog, stopping to allow it to urinate and refusing to go in restaurants that would not allow dogs in. He was the son of the Revd. George Phillip Birk and Elvy Grace Birk, of Croydon, New South Wales, Australia. Buried at BENGHAZI WAR CEMETERY, Libya 6. E. 20.
Hilary BIRK's brother Doric Philip BIRK was also killed in the war. He was a Flight Sergeant in the Royal Australian Air Force 460 Squadron flying in a Lancaster III LM324 AR- Which crashed on a mission to Oberhausen. He is buried at Heverlee War Cemetery Belgium.

Pilot Officer John Learned IVES J/92827 271 Sqdn., Royal Canadian Air Force reached Spain 10/12/1941 he returned to active service but was killed in a plane crash in the English Channel on Saturday, 28th April 1945. Age 24. He was the son of Carroll Sanborn Ives and Gladys Emma Ives, of Sherbrooke, Province of Quebec, Canada. He is commemorated on the RUNNYMEDE MEMORIAL, Surrey, United Kingdom, Panel 280.

Flight Lieutenant Howard Bertram CARROLL 68806 207 Squadron RAF.(On the left of the photograph with his cousin Spitfire pilot J. Dudley McCarthy) He was the son of Bertram Howard Carroll and of Ida May Carroll (nee Hunter)from Romford Road, Manor Park, London E12. . He probably stayed at least one night at Jean Vandenhove's tobacconist shop. After reaching Spain with Jack Newton, Hilary Birk and Gerard WAUQUEZ he arrived back in Plymouth by flying boat on the 21st January 1942 and returned to active service. He was killed in a flying accident on Monday, 19th November 1945 age 24 and is buried in HANOVER WAR CEMETERY, Germany Grave Reference 14. B. 15.

Szczepan SCIBIOR , born Uniejow Poland 13th December 1903, was the pilot of the Wellington bomber that crashed near Charleroi in 1941 with Comete Line evaders Michel KOWALSKI and Stephan TOMICKI as crew. He was captured in Brussels at 268 Rue Alsembourg the house of Marie Le Gal, after being in hiding for nine days. Following liberation by the British from prisoner of war camp at the end of the war, Scibior moved to UK, but in March 1946 he returned to his native Poland. On his return he took command of 7th Air Bomb Regiment in Leczyca and in August 1947 he was in charge of Polish Air Force Academy in Deblin. He was arrested on August 9, 1951 and wrongly accused of being a British spy. He was tortured, tried and sentenced to death on May 13th 1952. Szczepan Scibor was executed on August 7, 1952.
In 1956 he was fully rehabilitated. His symbolic tomb is located at Warsaw's Powazki Military Cemetery.



Sergeant Albert DAY RCAF 10263 77 Squadron RAF reached Spain 25/12/1941. Albert could not leave Brussels earlier in December 1941 when Burke and Carroll went south as he had double pneumonia. Madame Jeanne Monnier in Colonel Remy's book 'Reseau Comete' relates the story. "Baron Donny ran everywhere searching for a doctor, but I saw him return empty handed. He told me it was impossible to find anyone. I then told him I would find someone. I would get my own doctor who lived on the other side of the street. . . so I telephoned Dr Raymond Kraekels. . . . he took care of Albert, visiting him twice each day. . . . he saved him. ."
Albert Day remembered the actual story differently. At Madame Duporque-Monnier house he met a pharmacist called Leo who worked at the main hospital in Brussels. When Albert was ill with bronchial-pneumonia, and Baron Donny was unable to find a doctor, Leo contacted a Doctor Lardot at the hospital who was able to obtain the drugs to treat Albert.

Albert Day died at his home in St.Louis, Missouri on the 15th March 2007. A great supporter of the Royal Air Forces Escaping Society and more recently the Escape Lines Memorial Society, Al will be much missed by his many friends.
Rest in Peace Al.

Both Jack NEWTON and Richard COPLEY have given me information for this web site.

Jack Newton arrived in Pembroke, Wales in a Sunderland flying boat on the 14th January 1942. The first RAF man to return to Britain with the assistance of the COMETE Line. After the war Jack became a Foreign Service officer and lived in East Sussex. On the 22nd October 2000 he attended the annual reunion with their rescuers in Brussels.
Click on The Times 23/10/2000 (in the contents column) to read a report on the reunion.
He died on the 27th January 2004 shortly after his biography "Evader" by Derek Shuff was published.

" ... How then can I live among this gentle, obsolescent breed of heroes, and not weep? Unicorns, almost, For they are fading into two legends ...."

Keith Douglas (1920-1944)