BEHIND ENEMY LINES

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24372, 26 September 1944, Page 3

BEHIND ENEMY LINES

NEW ZEALAND AIRMEN SHOT DOWN SAFE RETURN TO ENGLAND (R.N.Z.A.F. Official News Service.) LONDON, September 21. Shot down 50 miles behind the German lines in eastern France, while their New Zealand Mosquito squadron was carrying out a low-level attack on an S.S. barracks near the border, two New Zealanders are now' safely back in London. They lived for a week in a village well in the rear of the enemy lines, and owe their escape to French villagers and Britisn paratroopers. The two men are Flying Officer E. C. Heaton, of Greenmeadows and Warrant Officer K. G. Mason, of Wellington, pilot and navigator respectively. They had bombed the target and were making their third low-level attack with cannon when the port motor of their Mosquito was hit by flak. They managed to fly on for 10 minutes, but found it impossible to gain height and made a forced landing on a rough field. The Mosquito tore through two fences and came to rest in a potato patch. Shaken, but fortunately unhurt, the New Zealanders started walking westwards across the fields, heading for the battleline. At dusk they met a French boy. They tried schooldays French on him. He took them home, where they were warmly welcomed as soon as they had identified themselves as British. That was typical of the reception given them by all Frenchmen. In Care of Maquis After walking towards the battle all next day. during which the only sign thfey saw of the enemy was a couple' of truck-loads of German troops, the New Zealanders met more Frenchmen, who took them to a nearby village and put them in care of the local Maquis leader. “He said the safest course would be to stay there a few days, by which time the Americans would have overrun the locality,” continued Flying Officer Heaton. “We took his advice. The whole village knew we were there. People would come into the Maquis leader’s cottage to hold councils of war, and even bring children along to see us.” Warrant Officer Mason said he thought he met more people in those few days than ever ip his life before. Flying Officer Heaton said there was one scare when scouts reported that Germans had been seen moving in the neighbouring hills, and they took , the airmen from the village to hide them, but nothing happened. The fifth day in the village there was great excitement when about six jeeps came racing in. The villagers first thought they were the Gestapo, but they turned out to be British paratroopers operating behind the German lines beating up enemy convoys. “We were thinking of throwing in our lot with them,” said Flying Officer Heaton, “but the next day they went Off on patrol and made contact with the American line. They came back the following day. picked us up, and drove' us through the German line,s to the Americans. It was a long drive, 50 or 60 miles, through rain, yet we saw nothing of the enemy except that we once avoided a road where a German battery was said to be sited.” The two men came back to England after 13 days absence, spending three days in Paris on the way.