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Evasion Reports

When an allied aircraft was shot down over territory controlled by the ennemy, some airmen were KIA, others were made prisoner and others managed to escape and eventually return to allied controlled territory. Upon returning to the United Kingdom, they were interrogated and requested to write down their stories. The reports concerning US airmen can be downloaded on http://www.archives.gov/research/search/. However these reports are in scanned format and therefore not indexed on search engine. Furthermore they are mostly handwritten and sometimes difficult to decipher.  You will find below a few evasion reports that I transcribed.

These evasion reports are fascinating to read. Each of these reports is a the personal story of a man that contributed to History. It tells us about his courage and about the courage of the French who risked their lives to help him. It sometimes also tells us about the darker side of the war: collaboration, suspected collaborators being beaten up or summarily executed by the underground, French girls having their heads shaved etc... However, for the most part, these evasion reports tell us about the amazing courage of these women, men and children who took huge risks to save escaping airmen. I hope transcribing and translating these reports to French will help us remember their courage.

More information:

http://www.conscript-heroes.com/escapelines/index.htm