Chapter 4 Man among men; Santosa Hill; Story of FELO; Escape if you can.....

MAN AMONG MEN

HISTORY'S final verdict may be that there were some few others in the
armies of 1939-45 who equalled Australia's George Alan Vasey as leaders of men in battle.

But today, nearly five years after his death, the qualities of the man have a jewel-like brilliance in the light of memory. It is difficult for those who knew and served with him to imagine a greater soldier in the field.

I first met him in a cave. The Middle Easters of Sixth Division will remember those ancient holes in the desert where Headquarters worked by lamplight to plan the assaults on Bardia and Tobruk.

Outside Bardia, in the last days of 1940, one of those burrows housed a planning partnership which was to be the greatest single factor in the A.I.F.'s first run of victories. Colonel F. H. Berryman, then "G.1." of Sixth Division, and Colonel G. A. Vasey, Assistant Adjutant- and Quartermaster-General, shaped the blueprint of battle.

Coming down the steps into that cave one thought less of blueprints than of "blue" air. At the table nearest the steps sat Colonel Vasey, his language as searing as a blow-torch flame as he welded his plan of supply into shape. Like everyone who earned a blistering, I soon knew that "Bloody George" used swearing as a means to clear short-cuts through explanations and bring the minds of others to his own quick grasp of essentials. It was "utility" language. To represent it as picturesque or temperamental is to misunderstand Vasey. I think, in fact, that -like the A.I.F. as a whole- he has too often been admired for his mannerisms rather than for his real qualities.

Field-Marshal Lord Wavell, in the lectures which he published under the title of Generals and Generalship, names as the first essential for a military leader "the quality of robustness, the ability to stand the shocks of war". Vasey had that. His resilience was put to a great variety of tests. As a newly appointed brigade commander in Greece he took the shock of the German attack at Veroia Pass. He led the Australian component in Crete against the world's first air-borne invasion, and he later commanded an air-borne division in New Guinea. From 1939 to 1944 he had no "soft" appointment, and the experiences were all new. The supply problems of the first Libyan campaign and the fighting retreats under air attack in Greece and Crete were without precedent for Australian troops. The counterattack across the Owen Stanleys, where Vasey led the Seventh Division from November '42, set new patterns of war.

The demands on generalship for physical as well as mental "robustness" were increased when the tide turned our way in New Guinea. It was not enough to cope day and night with the problem of maintaining a "front" on well-nigh inaccessible ridges.

The "front" had to be visited, by hand-over-hand climbing. A no-man's land which was meaningless on the maps had to be studied from five hundred feet up, from puttering little "spotter" aircraft that were slow enough to be targets for snipers.

Any good general will share risks and hardships with his troops. A great general can bring, into the misery and hazard of a outpost something more than an example of coolness. George Vasey, wearing a red-banded cap and a breast-load of ribbons, moved regularly through the "hot spots" where the rule of survival was to be inconspicuous. As he passed on, men might swear at him for his foolhardiness. But they swore with admiration in their voices, and a lightening of tension in their minds. They knew that he was not deliberately "putting on a show" of bravery for their benefit. It was simply natural for him to treat war as a brisk normality.

Vasey was "born for" the profession of soldiering. He entered the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1913, when he was eighteen. Graduating as a lieutenant in June 1915, he was at once appointed to the A.I.F. He sailed for Suez towards the end of that year.

It was as a gunner officer in the 4th Field Artillery Brigade that he arrived in France. He saw action on the Somme in the summer of 1916. His capacity for both command and staff work was at once evident. He was a battery commander before the end of the year. After the Messines battle of June '17, he was appointed brigade major of 11th Aust. Infantry Brigade. With his majority confirmed, he had reached the highest rank that a Duntroon graduate was at that time permitted to hold. Had it not been for that curious restriction Vasey would undoubtedly have gone higher in the First World War. He came through the actions of Passchendaele in October '17, the stopping of the German break-through near Amiens in the following March, and was on the Somme again before the war's end.

He was not yet twenty-four when the Armistice came. He had been awarded the D.S.O. and a mention in despatches, and, for over a year, had held the highest rank that regulations permitted.

The between-war years saw him making the professional soldier's usual tour of duty in India, where he passed through the Quetta Staff College in 1928-29. Later, he had two more terms in India-in 1934-36 as Brigade Major, Bareilly Infantry Brigade, and in 1936/37 as G.S.O.2 at Headquarters, Rawalpindi District. He gained the esteem of British officers. His forthrightness and the crisp honesty of his opinions were becoming known, and the quality of his peace-time work in administration confirmed the judgment of those who had picked him for advancement in 1916. He was lean, vital, flexible in mind and tireless in body.

He was in his forty-fifth year when the Second World War began. He had married, and his two sons were growing up in Melbourne. But for the dynamic qualities of Vasey there was an immediate job of work. His number was VX9 in Second A.I.F. enlistments, and he left with the advance party for Palestine.

In the five years that followed he passed from a colonelcy to a major-generalship. On him were bestowed the C.B., the C.B.E., a bar to his D.S.O., the Greek Military Cross and the American Distinguished Service Cross. These were the formal tributes to military capacity of a high order. To them must be added the intangible honour of complete trust and affection which his men gave him.

It was shortly before his death that I last saw him, in Melbourne. He was soon to leave for Wewak, to take command of the Sixth Division. The strain of a recent illness showed in his face. I had seen him look as drawn once before, just after he had led the remnant of the rearguard out of Crete. There had been the same unquenchable gleam of life through the tiredness then.

A few days later, in company with Major General Rupert Downes, war historian of the medical services, and other officers, Vasey began his last journey. Flying north through extremely bad weather on 5 March '45, his R.A.A.F. transport plane crashed into the sea off Cairns. All on board were killed.

At the zenith of its achievement, a great life of service came suddenly to its end. But the value of that life will endure as long as there are men who value the thoroughbred qualities of leadership.

FREDERICK HOWARD, SECOND A.I.F.

THE STORY OF FELO (Far Eastern Liaison Office)

IT really began in Singapore late in 1941, but because Japan thought and moved too fast for us, the idea was stillborn. Special Operations (or S.O. as they were called by the limited number of initiated) had been carried out in the European theatre from the beginning of hostilities. Their object was to penetrate the enemy-controlled areas, sabotage his installations and equipment, obtain intelligence, weaken his morale by undercover propaganda and, by the same methods, strengthen the morale of the subject populations and increase their resistance to his occupation forces.

In Malaya it went off like a damp squib because the groundwork had hardly been done before a fast-moving Nippon army was at the Causeway. Overt propaganda (i.e. propaganda where no attempt is made to disguise its origin) had been successfully carried out by the Far Eastern Bureau of the Ministry of Information since early 1940, but this organization was not equipped to do what one can best describe as combat propaganda.

With the fall of Singapore imminent, a number of us who had been trained in various phases of special operations were sent to Java to endeavour to establish organizations there, but again the Japanese were too fast for us, and in March '42we found ourselves in Australia with orders to persuade the Australian authorities to approve of the conduct of special operations with bases in this country.

The area we had to cover was large enough and potentially fruitful enough to satisfy the most ambitious of us. The Netherlands Indies and Malaya had gone, together with New Britain, the Solomons, and a fair parcel of the New Guinea mainland. In all these areas there were native populations whose resistance to Japanese occupation might be a major factor in the enemy's final defeat.

One man only at that time saw the possibilities of our operations-General Sir Thomas Blamey, the Commander-in-Chief, Australian Military Forces. With his personal backing three organizations were established (Allied Intelligence Bureau was already working under the Director of Naval Intelligence), and one of these, and the only one entirely Australian in direction and control, was the Far Eastern Liaison Office, a title which was intended as a cover for its real activities. FELO, as it came to be known in its shortened form, was charged with all combat propaganda in the South-West Pacific Area. This involved lowering the morale of enemy forces, misleading him regarding our military intentions, and influencing subject populations to weaken the enemy's war effort and assist our own forces.

Our beginnings could hardly have been more modest-a Director (R.A.N.), an Assistant (British Army), and three O.R's (A.M.F.). The ranks were soon swelled and given greater variety by the addition of a Deputy Director (Wing Commander, R.A.A.F.), a Captain of the Netherlands Indies Army, and a Lieutenant of the Dutch Navy. The varied nature of the organization was maintained and even increased up to the end of hostilities, when we had a total strength of over 500, of which 35 were R.A.N., 285 A.M.F., 21 R.A.A.F., 25 Dutch including native troops, 145 New Guinea natives, 8 civilians, and last, but by no means least interesting, 5 Japanese prisoners of war.

From the beginning our operations fell into two main divisions: overt propaganda by means of leaflets and front-line broadcasting units and the penetration of enemy territories by field parties and native agents. In the later stages this second function was directed more to procuring intelligence than to organizing native resistance.

Two months were spent in getting our organization together. Our first need was people who knew the areas in which we were to operate, and fortunately the area with the highest priority at that time was New Guinea. We assembled specially selected men from the New Guinea service and ex-planters who knew the natives and the country and were made to order for our purposes.

The organization of leaflet distribution took time to establish but by the end of hostilities FELO personnel were working with all major Air Force groups in New Guinea, Borneo, and the Philippines. One, Lieutenant Snow, got as far north as Okinawa - the only Australian selected by the U.S. Air Force to go beyond the Philippines and, as a result, some of the first leaflets dropped in Japan itself were produced by FELO. This system of distribution was later followed by South-East Asia Command and the U.S. Army Psychological Warfare Section in their own areas.

Leaflet production and distribution became the major activity of FELO as time went on. To the average person it might appear to be a simple operation involving dropping a number of pieces of paper through the bomb bay, and hoping that someone would read some of them. In the early days we did approach it as light-heartedly as that, but were soon disillusioned. Many of the drops had to be made on individual native villages surrounded by jungle, or on isolated Japanese detachments.

In some cases leaflets, particularly those used for deception purposes, had to be dropped in a very limited area, otherwise the object of the dropping would have been defeated.

To get any kind of accuracy in dropping it was necessary to evolve all kinds of devices. Leaflet bombs, packages with a firing mechanism that burnt through the string at a certain height, leaflet dischargers attached to the bomb racks of low-flying fighters, the leaflets being forced out of the cylinders by the slipstream when a plunger was released, leaflets in mortar shells, twenty-five pounders, and even rockets; one of the brighter brains of the outfit even proposed attaching leaflets to migrating swallows so that we should score direct hits on Japan. The maintenance, supply and operation of this equipment became an important part of the duties of FELO personnel, and would not have been successful but for the help given to us by the armament sections of the R.A.A.F. and the gunners and ordnance people in the Army. The major factor, of course, in the success of this pinpoint dropping was the co-operation of the air crews.

We asked one fighter pilot the reason for his enthusiasm for leaflet-dropping. "Well," he said, "I fly along, the tracks I know the Japs are using, and drop the leaflets on the way down. Then when I finish the run I come back, find the Japs picking up the leaflets, and shoot them up." The leaflets he was dropping suggested to the Japanese that they might surrender to us under promise of good treatment!

During the three years of FELO operations we dropped over sixty million leaflets in fourteen different languages or dialects. The area covered ranged from the Solomons to Japan itself, and included Indo-China, Malaya, Java, Borneo and the rest of the Netherlands Indies, New Guinea, and the Pacific islands. The total dropped does not seem large when one thinks of similar operations in Europe, but most of our leaflets had to be dropped in thinly populated areas, on isolated native villages or Japanese jungle positions. Accuracy of aim was more important than indiscriminate distribution in large quantities.

It is hard, even now, to assess the effectiveness of our work. While we know that twenty per cent of Japanese prisoners admitted that they had been persuaded by our leaflets to surrender, only 4,610 Japanese prisoners were taken in the area in three years of hostilities, which argues little effect on the main bodies of troops. Apart from that, after Japan's defeat, isolated Japanese garrisons who hitherto had refused to surrender were induced by leaflets to negotiate and, while countless references to our propaganda in private diaries indicated a lowering of the morale of enemy troops, official documents captured refer to measures taken to combat it. Finally, the War Measures Bill introduced in Japan was admittedly designed to counter our propaganda.

We had much more to go on when it came to estimating the effect of our work on the subject populations, and there was no doubt that the leaflets were a major factor in stiffening native resistance and denying their cooperation to the occupying forces. This was true in all territories, though probably less in Java, where the Indonesian nationalist movement was anti-Dutch in sentiment. But in the eastern part of the N.E.I. archipelago, in Borneo, Malaya, and throughout operations in New Guinea and the islands, we were able not only to strengthen native morale in a general sense, but also to induce them to acts which had a serious effect on the Japanese war effort.

For instance, during the campaign in the Huon Peninsula in 1943, thousands of natives took to the hills as a result of instructions contained in leaflets, and it was officially estimated that over one thousand Japanese front-line troops had to be used as carriers to replace them. Not only was this effective in reducing the enemy's fighting efficiency, but it was also instrumental in saving hundreds of natives who might otherwise have been killed by Allied bombing.

So much for leaflets. The men engaged in their production had the thin edge of the FELO stick. For the most part it was a desk job with little chance of action or getting further forward than an advanced base. Most of them tried, and usually succeeded, in getting transferred to the operational side in the end, but their contribution was probably no greater in the more active field.

Another means of overt propaganda was front-line broadcasting units. These units were equipped with radio sets, gramophones and specially designed loudspeakers with a range of up to 8oo yards, and the necessary power generators; their main objective being, of course, to speak to the enemy troops with whom we were in direct contact and induce them to surrender. This was occasionally achieved, one alone securing eighty prisoners as a direct result of its efforts. After the Japanese surrender the units were used in various parts of the New Guinea area, in conjunction with leaflet raids, to establish the initial contact with the Japanese forces.

In addition to these units we devised another type which we called Mobile Propaganda Units, designed to operate among the native population in New Guinea, either in newly liberated areas or in the no-man's land lying between our forces and the Japanese. Their first objective was to break Japanese influence on the natives and their second to turn them into active participants on our side.

The units' equipment included film projectors. Films shown varied from shots of the Allied war effort to Mickey Mouse who was a great favourite with the kanakas. Gramophone records of native songs and talks by New Guinea residents recorded for particular villagers were played, and frequently we arranged for a direct message to the headman of the village given by someone known to him. The effect on the headman of hearing himself addressed by a disembodied voice was considerable and the instructions in the talk were usually carried out. These units did an extremely good job, one of their most important contributions being to bring hundreds of natives over to our side, thus making available to us, instead of to the Japanese, considerable forces of native labour.

FELO, to most Australian and U.S. forces, was an organization that dropped leaflets and lugged heavy radio equipment over jungle trails to broadcast messages of doubtful value to an unreceptive enemy. But further, by placing in enemy-occupied areas agents and parties who could organize resistance movements, give specific instructions when the Allies wanted a particular line of action taken, and establish local contacts for passing on to the Japanese the kind of information we wanted them to have, we achieved two things: we made the natives feel they were still in direct touch with us and so strengthened their resistance to the enemy, and we misled the enemy by rumours which apparently came from reliable native sources.

Work of this kind needed men who knew intimately the areas we wanted to work in, and individual people with whom they could establish contacts. They had to face long months of isolation in enemy-occupied country, constantly on the alert, with natives as their only human contacts, and their only link with us their portable radio transmitter. As well as danger from the enemy they had to face intense hardship in what was often almost unexplored country, dependent for their supplies on what we could drop them from time to time. Although this work obviously would demand a high degree of physical fitness, it was not a paramount consideration, for a knowledge of the country and the natives enabled men in their late forties and early fifties to carry out some of our most successful operations.

Isolated activities of this kind were not of the sort to bring much glory to the operative. His job was to work with the natives, stimulate their resistance to the Japanese, and get what information he could out to us. At all costs he had to try and avoid direct contact with the enemy, as their knowledge of his presence in the area would largely nullify his work. However, we never suffered from a lack of volunteers.

The first two operations were only partially successful although both procured valuable information. The first, led by Captain N. C. Barry, with ten native constables, covered the area of the Ramu Valley from Bena Bena to Atemble. Before the operation was completed Barry contracted scrub typhus, and only after a walk of fifty miles under the most appalling conditions managed to get his party back to our lines. Only his great courage enabled him to keep going and it was many months before he recovered.

At about the same time, in early 1943, Captain L. F. Howlett led a party consisting of one W.O. and twelve natives over the Markham River, through to Boana, and back to Chivasing. The Japanese-controlled natives gave their movements away repeatedly and they were constantly hunted by the enemy, but in spite of this they worked their way back to the Markham River with valuable information of enemy movement and dispositions. There, almost within sight of our positions at Chivasing, they were betrayed by hostile natives and ambushed by the Japanese. Howlett was killed, but the rest of the party dispersed and escaped to bring the information back to New Guinea Force.

One of the best-known and most successful operatives in New Guinea was Lieutenant G. A. V. Stanley, R.A.N.V.R. Stanley was a geologist before the war, and had prospected over large tracts of the New Guinea mainland. In particular he knew the Sepik River area as the average Australian knows his own home town. The Sepik natives were magnificent fighting men, not long weaned from head-hunting. Stanley was convinced that they could be used as a potential guerrilla force to harass the enemy. His first patrol was inserted by Catalina on the Yellow River. The pilots who flew these aircraft took risks comparable with the patrols themselves, often having to land on badly snagged, uncharted and fast-flowing rivers at dusk or dawn, disembark the party and stores, and get away without being observed.

From the Yellow River, Stanley worked towards the coast over a fifty-mile radius, and he soon had native agents working through the villages inciting passive resistance and collecting intelligence. The operation was unfortunately cut short. The Mosstroops expedition, an over-large European force, was inserted at the Yellow River base to form the nucleus of a guerrilla force and protect the intelligence parties. Inevitably it attracted the attention of the Japanese, who attacked the base camp and forced a withdrawal.

A few months later, however, Stanley tried again, this time working alone save for one N.C.O. signaller, Corporal J. M. Conboy.

Again he went in by Catalina to the Yellow River, and stayed in the area for eight months collecting intelligence, marking down the Japanese escape routes and organizing native resistance, adding greatly to the effectiveness of the operations from Tadji. For this work Stanley received the D.S.C., his signaller the B.E.M.

Our first operation outside British New Guinea was undertaken in March '44 when, at the request of G.H.Q., we inserted a party north of the Idenburg River in Dutch New Guinea with the object of working across country to the Hollandia area and getting information out for the American Task Force which was to carry out the Hollandia landings.

It was one of our strongest parties, led by Captain Bob Cole with three N.C.0's, Sergeants A. N. Dening and M. G. Berrie and Corporal A. J. Lulofs, and eight native constables. Working their way across country sounds unimpressive enough, but what country it was: almost completely unexplored, with natives in possibly the most primitive state of civilization, through swamps infested with leeches and mosquitoes, through mountain passes and untouched jungle. Even without the risks of war it would have been a great achievement. An Allied Intelligence Bureau party had already been lost on the coast and a Dutch party failed to get through, so much depended on Cole's efforts. It took him two months but he did get through, passing the intelligence to the U.S. forces and killing fifty-two Japanese on the way. Cole was awarded the M.C., Berrie the M.M. and Dening and Lulofs were both mentioned in despatches.

Early in 1944 we began to assemble a small fleet of small craft to facilitate work in the Dutch islands and the territories around New Ireland. They ranged from H.D.M.L's put under our command by the R.A.N., to forty-foot work boats for supply purposes, and fast-moving launches for hit and run missions.; with these we started covering the areas of southern Dutch New Guinea and Nissan. When the Allies had taken Morotai we established a base for our small-craft operations against the Moluccas and later Borneo. For the Moluccas operation which was under the command of Flight-Lieutenant H. M. MacDonald with Lieutenant Roberts as second-in-command, we used three craft and established an advanced fuelling and supply base on an island in a Japanese-controlled area off the east coast of the Halmaheras. The mission took five months to complete, covered the smaller islands of the archipelago, and brought out the first reliable information we had been able to get of the prisoners of war at Ambon. As a result of the operation a strong native resistance movement was organized which destroyed many small Japanese parties who had previously patrolled that sector. The R.A.A.F. were given a number of important targets and they took full advantage of the information.

From the Moluccas we moved on to Borneo and at the end of hostilities we had one party working down the coast of Sarawak towards Kuching, and a second moving out from Balikpapan southwards towards an ultimate objective in Java. Although they were never required to complete their final objectives, they had already done a useful job when the surrender took place and both were used extensively during the process of establishing contact with the enemy.

In all these operations, which could not have been so successful had it not been for the general loyalty of the natives to the Allied cause, and in other phases of our work, we maintained close contact with our sister organizations, Allied Intelligence Bureau, which worked almost exclusively in British New Guinea, and the Services Reconnaissance Department, which was responsible amongst other feats for the now famous raid on Singapore Harbour.

FELO was the first organization of its kind to be established in the Pacific theatre, and its organization influenced the bodies set up later in South-East Asia and by the Americans in the Philippines and Okinawa. The first Deputy Director of FELO, Group Captain C. C. Bell, became the head of the South-East Asian organization, and all the original officers and men of the U.S. Army Psychological Warfare Section were trained by us and for some time served alongside our people. So our influence extended to three major theatres of operations, which gave an added satisfaction to those of us who had been present at the humble beginnings of FELO three years before.

"SPECIAL OPERATOR", R.A.N.

ESCAPE IF YOU CAN

ESCAPE? Naturally. During the last World War every airman, soldier and sailor knew it was his duty to escape, and tremendous indeed were the hazards encountered during an escape from a German concentration camp, from enclosing jungle palisades, or from some pitiless desert compound where time was as eternal as the endless sands beyond the wire. But some escaped without ever having been captured. A paradox? Not quite. By getting out of enemy-held territory before being captured one escaped as surely as if one had tunnelled under the wire itself.

But how could this be done? One could not walk boldly in uniform across Holland, Belgium and France into Spain, although it is said that one soldier did actually accomplish this miracle. But for the majority who were stranded on the beaches, or who were shot down over these countries, the only hope was in the quick assistance of some link in the escape organization which, With courageous tenacity, worked ceaselessly by day and night to cheat the Hun of his prey.

Who were these mysterious ones who came out of nowhere to succour the desperate men of our own race? Who were these men and women, these farmers, peasants, teachers, hairdressers, doctors, chemists, guides, leaders and humble links in this amazing and secret chain? Why did they plan so cleverly, and act so bravely, risking death and torture at the hands of the ruthless and efficient Gestapo, to help the men of Britain, Australia and America? Their very exploits give the answer: they were working in secret for the Allies.

From Brussels, the headquarters of the Belgian escape organization, to the Pyrenees of Spain was a journey over which the heart beat fast with every step of the way, yet all along the dangerous miles were the links and the sections of this underground movement. And now comes a name, the name of a woman. She was called "Anne", or sometimes "Madame Anne". Someone has said that everyone carries within him the seeds of his own dissolution. For four long years Anne, as head of the Brussels movement, and her loyal and scattered associates never knew from minute to minute when the iron hand of the Gestapo would close on them. The streets of all the cities and towns, the villages, the farms and the fields, echoed to the tramp of the German jackboot. There was death round the corner every hour of every day but, of all the numerous secret ones forming the links and sections that ran do-,N-n to the Pyrenees, only eight knew the actual identity and place of residence of Madame Anne. Of these eight six went into German prisons, the other two escaping to England. Not one betrayed the woman whose wits and genius for organization helped no less than one hundred and seventy Allied servicemen to safety.

But many of the organization paid the supreme penalty. Of sixty-five of her links who were arrested some went to concentration camps, some to the infamous St Gilles prison, some to that haunted, blood-soaked ground, the Tir National. At the time of deliverance, four years after the opening of the underground route south, when British guns and British men came to Brussels, this gallant lady and her equally brave helpers were hiding as many as fifty-four airmen in various houses in the city.

Every besotted Gestapo ape and fanatical German guard held in his holster the power of the instant extinction of life and, to gain the prestige so dear to his personal conceit and ambition, he itched to use it.

Imagine then the ingenuity necessary to outwit such men, men with a conscienceless Germany behind them, men warped and brutalized by pagan concepts. Consider the cool planning, the steely resolution, the keen judgment and swift decision required to gain even continuance of life itself. Men and women, some old, some very young, gave themselves gladly and unreservedly to something that had become sacred to them, a flame in their hearts, a sacrifice, if so it must be, to uphold freedom in a racked and reeking world, never knowing when from out the darkness, or through a window or doorway, or in a crowded train or street, would come death either by summons or by bullet.

Stealth! It was the foundation of security, of the underground permanence of the organization. Without it any such movement would quickly end in a red stream of disaster, without it such an organization could not begin. How then did such a movement begin? Naturally, very slowly. A link was forged, then another, then beyond that another until there was a chain, a secret project that crystallized out of an ideal and hardened into being. So many links formed a section; each section became in time superbly organized: it had its intelligence, its guides, its runners, its interpreters, its clever forgers, its medical staff of doctors, chemists and nurses, its bland householders whose drawn blinds and closed doors masked a man in hiding.

So it was then that, from the beaches of Belgium and Holland right down through enemy-occupied territory to the southern seaports of Bordeaux, San Sebastian and St Jean de Luz, the escapees went in the care of laughing, seemingly carefree guides, both men and girls, until the last transfer to the cunning Basque guides who took them across the ravines and thundering rivulets of the Pyrenees into Spain.

All this careful and intricate preparation and planning and execution suggested that the links went far beyond the Pyrenees and Spain, that the long invisible chain reached even to England itself. Whatever was done in that sphere will probably never be revealed, but the German is no fool. His Intelligence service knew of the Belgian organization, was fully aware that Allied men were being smuggled out of German-dominated countries, and time and time again he tried to uncover the movement.

Huns who could speak English were deliberately dropped from planes to impersonate Allied airmen and get picked up by the underground. One Belgian family - the wife was English, and there were two children gave refuge to two Nazis in this way. It happened in Brussels. After supper, when the English wife had unsuspectingly answered the questions put to her, the Nazis drew their pistols. The husband, a Belgian, was shot, the wife and children imprisoned.

But the word went round. Such an organization cannot make the same mistake twice. An exhaustive questionnaire was always afterwards put to any Allied man before anything was done to start him on the road to Spain. The Germans once arrested a whole section, some twelve or more, of whom five were shot, and four died in German prisons. No mercy was given; none asked for.

Madame Anne became aware of the movement in 1940, when a Protestant clergyman asked her for food coupons for British soldiers left on the Belgian beaches. When the R.A.F. started their raids she acted as interpreter for the airmen who baled out. Gradually she became a part of the organization, one of its keenest brains and most fearless women. A married woman herself, with a husband and small family, as were many others, she devoted her courage and skill to the outwitting of the Huns. In time her home became the headquarters of the Brussels organization, and from it issued the warnings and instructions that baffled the Gestapo. Her real name? But she would not wish it to be made known. Who knows? There are still war clouds over those uneasy skies although the guns are silent these several years. And who knows?

She herself has told how surprised and filled with admiration she was when she learned that one of the airmen in her home was an Australian. That free men, so far away from Europe's blood-bath, should cross the seas voluntarily to stand beside their kinsmen of the British Isles, was in itself a revelation and, doubtless, it may fairly be thought, an encouragement both to her and to those associated with her in this hazardous work. After that first Australian came others, and nearly all went safely across the miles to the snow-capped Pyrenees - via the intrepid Belgian underground.

Is it difficult to understand the magnificent, of walking in civilian clothes in the identity of a Flemish worker; of being in Brussels; of meeting, perhaps, with Madame Anne; of strange adventures in streets and in trains; of getting forged documents with perfect German signatures on them; of endless waiting and suspense; of laughing escorts of men and girls; of the slow passing across France; of the bicycle he rode to the foothills with a merry party of young people; of the hours of climbing up and up towards the high peaks; of crossing the turbulent Bidassoa; and at last the exultation of treading the soil of Spain under his weary feet.

Take the authentic experiences of Mark, his full name being, perhaps, Question Mark. He was a bomb aimer in a Halifax that had dropped its four-thousand-pound bombs on Dusseldorf, and had then turned for home. The time was a night in July '42. Over Belgium the Halifax was set on fire and in a moment was roaring with red flame. Out into the black void dropped Mark, his parachute swaying, his mind a blur of lurid impressions, the inferno he had leapt from still searing all thought.

He touched down near a small river. It was very dark. He did not know what had become of the others, he did not know just where he was. Into the river went the tell-tale parachute, and he stood watching until its ghostly outlines vanished. Then he turned and ran into a nearby forest. His watch told him it was two in the morning. Running and walking he kept on, not knowing where he was going, eyes and ears strained for sight and sound of the German patrols and their ferocious Alsatian dogs, until he saw before him the outlines of a small farmhouse.

And now was the moment for decision. What should he do? Should he avoid the farm-house and keep on, trusting to luck? Or should he knock and again trust to luck? Escape seemed scarcely possible, yet he doubted if he could go on interminably without being taken. He went to the house and knocked on the door. Presently it opened, and an elderly woman stood staring at him.

"I am English," he said.

At that, without speaking, she pulled him into the house and closed and barred the door.

She roused the household, a lamp was lit, and, amid smiles and rapid welcoming, French food was set before him. He could not understand the French, and was somewhat bewildered at this quick, hospitable treatment. Nevertheless he wondered what they would do with him.

At dawn the eldest son left the house, but quickly returned with the information that it would be unsafe for Mark to remain. He was taken, dressed in dungarees and an old jumper, to a thick hedge, and was made to understand he must hide under it all day. He settled down to wait, and during the long hours came to understand that an effort was being made to help him. But it seemed so forlorn a hope, so impossible of being carried into effect, that he almost cried out aloud when a man passed by his hiding place and said in perfect English, "The matter of your escape is being taken in hand immediately."

That was a shock. What was all this? Into what fantastic world had he tumbled from the blazing Halifax? His uniform was gone; he was dressed as a peasant; he was crouching under a dense hedge; in a nearby field he could see a party of Germans working; and a man passed him who spoke correct English. English! Was this a genuine effort to help him? Or would he be taken as a spy in these civilian clothes and shot out of hand?

But gradually his fears were set at rest. When night came he was taken back to the farmhouse, and there he stayed hidden for some days until a man who said he was a "guide" came for him. Then began the first steps that finally ended in far-away Spain. The guide took him by train to the outskirts of Brussels, and, on detraining, gave him over to the care of dark-haired little Dedi, who, in turn, took him to the home of Madame Anne.

Mark was the first Australian Madame Anne had seen, and great was her interest in him.

For a fortnight Mark stayed in the security of this happy and gallant little family, sometimes making trips into Brussels with Dedi, at other times listening with the family to the forbidden B.B.C. news, a thing prohibited by the Germans under penalty of death, listening to Madame Anne as she explained the escape route from Brussels to Paris, and then down through France to the Pyrenees. It all depended, she said quietly, on good organization -and good luck.

Then one morning Dedi came for him, and it was goodbye to Brussels and Madame Anne and her brave family. From then on it was a cold war of nerves, with the courageous Dedi shepherding him away from danger and watching over him for the Gestapo and German troops were everywhere on the alert.

In Paris Mark said farewell to Dedi who returned to her home to witness the murder of her father, and to be marched off herself to prison. In a secluded house Mark was given forged papers bearing German signatures, and was told that he would be a "doctor" for the next leg of the journey. From guide to guide he was passed, from section to section, entraining and detraining, hiding,, waiting, but slowly and surely moving south. Gradually France went by, and the high peaks of the Pyrenees came ever nearer. Good organization, and good luck, Madame Anne had said. For Mark it proved to be both. Then came the time when he and his guide left the little fishing village at dusk and walked to the foothills of the mountains to wait for the night hours before beginning the exhausting climb towards the peaks.

The moon flooded the countryside with its argent light, and fears that they would be seen and taken by the roving German patrols mounted with the moon. But the Basque guide laughed, and kept on. The Germans, he said contemptuously, were fools, they would search in the shadows for escapees, and a man could walk under their stupid noses and get away. And his words proved his knowledge of the Hun. For more than eight hours they toiled up and up on rope-soled boots, the guide leading with the sure knowledge of the border smuggler, which in peace time he was. And at last, at long last, they crossed the torrent of the Bidassoa and walked into Spain.

It was done. He had escaped. Thanks to Madame Anne, thanks to little Dedi, and to a host of others whose names he would never know, he was free. He looked back over the far plains of France, dim in the moonlight, and remembered that even at that moment someone else was being brought down that long heroic chain of safety. But not until he was in a plane making for England did he have time to think upon it all, to understand all that had been done for him by the Belgian escape organization, to appreciate the genius of Madame Anne and her gallant comrades in smocks and dungarees, to realize that his freedom at that moment was bought with blood, and was an accomplished fact only because of the willingness of people unknown to him to lay down their lives that he might return to his own land, and, when there, once more climb into a bomber or fighter and head through the night towards Germany and pay the score, and raise his hand in a salute to valour.

E. V. TIMMS, FIRST AND SECOND A.I.F.