SAVED FROM NAZIS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 308, 29 December 1944, Page 3

SAVED FROM NAZIS

FLYERS IN BELGIUM

UNDERGROUND "ROMANCES"

(By LIONEL SHAPIRO

BRUSSELS.

When the full story is told of the concealment by the Belgium underground of scores of American and British and Canadian flyers, it will be seen to contain some of tie most torrid romantic passages since John Gilbert and Greta Garbo ised to maul each other tenderly tirough nine reels of silent film. Apparently those flyers who were lucky <nough to parachute into the hands Df the Underground also fell into the hearts of Belgian girls. At least half of the flyers who have escaped and who I have met are dewy-eyed with love. Yesterday morning three bu; loads of American and Canadian flyers left Brussels on the first leg of a jmrney to rejoin their units, and th( sidewalk scene was warm with tea's and embraces. About thirty prety Belgian girls were bidding goodoye to Johnny and Bob ana Louis and George, and more than once gruff voices were heard to say, 'Don't worry, honey. I'll come b<ck as soon as the war is over and ve'll be married."

Stranger than romantic ficion is the story of a 20-year-old fiye' from Abilene, Texas, co-pilot on i Fortress. He baled out over Bdgium, was rescued by the Underground and billeted in the home of a blonde Belgian movie starlet who was 1 member of the "Armee Blanche." During

the long weeks when the flyer was unable to leave his billet, romance bloomed in the approved Hollywood fashion. They will be married as soon as the Ab»lene youth returns to Brussels with 'the required permission of his commanding officer. There is another case right out of a Hollywood scenario, of a New York flyer who was snatched from under the noses of his German pursuers by a young Belgian patriot. The latter hid the flyer in his own home, where a romance promptly blossomed between the New Yorker and his rescuer's pretty sister. This romance, too, will result in wedding bells as soon as permission is granted. Not only were the flyers hidden, housed and fed by the Belgian patriots; they were also furnished with mild luxuries and sufficient smokes. Parties were held regularly within the social circles of the Underground, at which the rescued flyers were the guests of honour. Smokes and drinks were filched from German officers' messes by members of the Underground. Except for the ennui of confinement, even in a comfortable home, the flyers thoroughly enjoyed their concealment. A flyer from Bradley Beach, New Jersey, has written a book about his adventures in escaping from the Germans and his subsequent romance with a daughter of the nobility in one of Belgium's finest homes. "The trouble is," he confided, "that the censor will never pass the story. And even if he does nobody will believe it."—Auckland Star and N.A.N.A.