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'an unusual name for a girl'
Apr. 12th, 2012 01:16 pmThank you to all those who have sent me links to obituaries for Raymond Aubrac, the French Resistance leader who died on Tuesday at the age of 97. Aubrac was much in the news yesterday here in the UK, but it was only while watching the BBC News at 10 last night that I made my own connection with him, which I thought I’d share. It was someone casually mentioning that he’d been rescued from the Gestapo by his “pregnant wife” that made me recognize him.
Here’s the story I know—Aubrac’s escape from France in early 1944, as told by Hugh Verity in We Landed by Moonlight (Ian Allan Ltd., 1978):
On the same night of 8/9 Feburary, [John] Affleck completed [Operation] ‘Bludgeon’ at his second attempt. They landed at their target at [11:30 p.m.]. The field was waterlogged and the Hudson [aircraft] was bogged while taxying back to the take-off point. Affleck had to stop the engines and call for assistance from the team on the ground and the passengers. They all manhandled the heavy aeroplane back to the take-off point and turned it into wind. It was trying to snow.
Once the loads were turned round Affleck started the engines but the Hudson would not move as the tail wheel had sunk in. They manhandled it again to clear the tail wheel. When this was done they found that the main wheels had sunk in up to the hubs so the engines had to be switched off again. A crowd of villagers arrived to help with the digging and pushing. The only French words the crew could muster was the navigator’s ‘Allez-hop!’
Some oxen and horses were then brought to the scene and hitched to the Hudson to drag it forward out of the mud, but they could not move it. At one point all work ceased as a German aircraft flew overhead. Affleck worked out that the latest safe time to take off would be [3:00 a.m.]. If not airborne by then the aircraft would have to be destroyed. He said to Paul Rivière, who was in charge on the ground: ‘If we have to burn the aircraft we’ll stick to you and run like hell for the Spanish frontier.’
He also decided that channels should be dug out in front of the main wheels so that he could taxi forward on the engines. This was eventually achieved. Meanwhile he had to stop the men from the Maquis [French Resistance guerrillas] removing all the guns and ammunition from the Hudson. Affleck attempted a take-off but could not build up enough speed and had to throttle back. While taxying back to line up for another attempt they were bogged once more, but this time managed to extricate the aeroplane quite quickly. He decided to take the minimum load and confined his passenger list to an RAF evader, one Frenchman [Aubrac], his wife and their young son. The man was a resistance worker who, under the sentence of death, had been rescued from a police van by his wife and friends. His wife had attacked the Gestapo in the van, tommy-gun in hand, when eight months pregnant. He seemed to be a nervous wreck. His wife was now within hours of giving birth. She just sat there in the mud.
At [2:05 a.m.], after they had been on the ground two and a half hours longer than intended, a final attempt at taking off succeeded—but only just. When very near the boundary of the field the Hudson hit a bump and bounced into the air at about 50 knots [quite slow for take-off]. Affleck just managed to keep it airborne, build up a safe speed and climb away. He had taken off with rather more than 15° of flap [helps in a short-field take-off but slows flight]. He was cold, wet and covered with mud from head to foot. After half an hour he realised that the Hudson was going very slowly, wondered why and realised that he had forgotten to put his flaps up.
He had no aerials left—they had all been broken off in the struggle on the ground. They found their way home without being able to identify themselves to the air defences of Great Britain. Eventually they landed at base at [6.40 a.m.]. The Hudson, covered with mud and ‘looking like a tank’, was greeted by the Station Commander, Group Captain ‘Mouse’ Fielden. A few days later Flying Officer J.R. Affleck was promoted to acting flight lieutenant and awarded an immediate DSO [Distinguished Service Order].
When he was describing this incident to me in 1975, John Affleck had two thoughts to add. Firstly, that, had he thought about it, he should really have flown all the way home with his wheels down. In the wisdom of hindsight, towards the end of his career as a professional airline pilot, he realised that there was a great danger of that mud-covered undercarriage becoming stuck or frozen up so that he would not be able to lower it for the landing at Tempsford. The other afterthought, looking back, was that he could have almost died of laughing at the struggles of the crew to communicate with the crowd of French helpers without any common language and that his main pre-occupation during this time was to stop these helpers damaging the Hudson.
The evader whom he brought back was Flight Lieutenant J.F.Q. Brough, of Carlisle, who had been with the Resistance since he crashed in France, in a 138 Squadron Halifax on 3/4 November 1943. In his letter to the author, Brough wrote:
‘As well as myself, we also carried Mr and Mrs Aubrac, two top members of the Resistance, and their young son. Mr Aubrac had been elected to the French Consultative Assembly in Algiers; Mrs Aubrac was nine months pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl in Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in London the day we landed at Tempsford.’
This baby girl was named Mitraillette (sub-machine gun).
----------------------------------
Some of you may recognize the name Mitraillette. (I made an LJ post quoting some of this passage in March 2010, when I was deep in the throes of writing Code Name Verity: http://eegatland.livejournal.com/72287.html)
Here’s the story I know—Aubrac’s escape from France in early 1944, as told by Hugh Verity in We Landed by Moonlight (Ian Allan Ltd., 1978):
On the same night of 8/9 Feburary, [John] Affleck completed [Operation] ‘Bludgeon’ at his second attempt. They landed at their target at [11:30 p.m.]. The field was waterlogged and the Hudson [aircraft] was bogged while taxying back to the take-off point. Affleck had to stop the engines and call for assistance from the team on the ground and the passengers. They all manhandled the heavy aeroplane back to the take-off point and turned it into wind. It was trying to snow.
Once the loads were turned round Affleck started the engines but the Hudson would not move as the tail wheel had sunk in. They manhandled it again to clear the tail wheel. When this was done they found that the main wheels had sunk in up to the hubs so the engines had to be switched off again. A crowd of villagers arrived to help with the digging and pushing. The only French words the crew could muster was the navigator’s ‘Allez-hop!’
Some oxen and horses were then brought to the scene and hitched to the Hudson to drag it forward out of the mud, but they could not move it. At one point all work ceased as a German aircraft flew overhead. Affleck worked out that the latest safe time to take off would be [3:00 a.m.]. If not airborne by then the aircraft would have to be destroyed. He said to Paul Rivière, who was in charge on the ground: ‘If we have to burn the aircraft we’ll stick to you and run like hell for the Spanish frontier.’
He also decided that channels should be dug out in front of the main wheels so that he could taxi forward on the engines. This was eventually achieved. Meanwhile he had to stop the men from the Maquis [French Resistance guerrillas] removing all the guns and ammunition from the Hudson. Affleck attempted a take-off but could not build up enough speed and had to throttle back. While taxying back to line up for another attempt they were bogged once more, but this time managed to extricate the aeroplane quite quickly. He decided to take the minimum load and confined his passenger list to an RAF evader, one Frenchman [Aubrac], his wife and their young son. The man was a resistance worker who, under the sentence of death, had been rescued from a police van by his wife and friends. His wife had attacked the Gestapo in the van, tommy-gun in hand, when eight months pregnant. He seemed to be a nervous wreck. His wife was now within hours of giving birth. She just sat there in the mud.
At [2:05 a.m.], after they had been on the ground two and a half hours longer than intended, a final attempt at taking off succeeded—but only just. When very near the boundary of the field the Hudson hit a bump and bounced into the air at about 50 knots [quite slow for take-off]. Affleck just managed to keep it airborne, build up a safe speed and climb away. He had taken off with rather more than 15° of flap [helps in a short-field take-off but slows flight]. He was cold, wet and covered with mud from head to foot. After half an hour he realised that the Hudson was going very slowly, wondered why and realised that he had forgotten to put his flaps up.
He had no aerials left—they had all been broken off in the struggle on the ground. They found their way home without being able to identify themselves to the air defences of Great Britain. Eventually they landed at base at [6.40 a.m.]. The Hudson, covered with mud and ‘looking like a tank’, was greeted by the Station Commander, Group Captain ‘Mouse’ Fielden. A few days later Flying Officer J.R. Affleck was promoted to acting flight lieutenant and awarded an immediate DSO [Distinguished Service Order].
When he was describing this incident to me in 1975, John Affleck had two thoughts to add. Firstly, that, had he thought about it, he should really have flown all the way home with his wheels down. In the wisdom of hindsight, towards the end of his career as a professional airline pilot, he realised that there was a great danger of that mud-covered undercarriage becoming stuck or frozen up so that he would not be able to lower it for the landing at Tempsford. The other afterthought, looking back, was that he could have almost died of laughing at the struggles of the crew to communicate with the crowd of French helpers without any common language and that his main pre-occupation during this time was to stop these helpers damaging the Hudson.
The evader whom he brought back was Flight Lieutenant J.F.Q. Brough, of Carlisle, who had been with the Resistance since he crashed in France, in a 138 Squadron Halifax on 3/4 November 1943. In his letter to the author, Brough wrote:
‘As well as myself, we also carried Mr and Mrs Aubrac, two top members of the Resistance, and their young son. Mr Aubrac had been elected to the French Consultative Assembly in Algiers; Mrs Aubrac was nine months pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl in Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in London the day we landed at Tempsford.’
This baby girl was named Mitraillette (sub-machine gun).
----------------------------------
Some of you may recognize the name Mitraillette. (I made an LJ post quoting some of this passage in March 2010, when I was deep in the throes of writing Code Name Verity: http://eegatland.livejournal.com/72287.html)