NAZIS OUTWITTED

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 September 1940, Page 4

NAZIS OUTWITTED

BY DUTCH OFFICER. LONDON, August 10. Lieutenant Leonard Rodrigues, of the s,th Regiment, Dutch Artillery, whose British wife lives in London, arrived safely in Lisbon this week after many thrilling adventures in Belgium and France. This is his story. Leaving Amsterdam was easy—by train for the frontier town. And I simply walked across the, frontier in the dark' without seeing a single guard. In Brussels I stayed with friends and heard that the Germans were looking for chauffeurs to drive requisitioned motor-lorries with troops to France. I took the job and was paid ten marks daily, that is to say, the equivalent of 200 French francs and given plenty of food and cigarettes. After a week of driving a lorry I slipped away at Gravelines and walked down to Calais. I and two Englishmen, one a soldier and the other a civilian, arranged an escape by boat. We found a boat with oars on the beach. But it was hard to get away,, as along the entire coast from Dunkirk to Boulogne there were two sentries every 500 yards who maintained a watch day and night. One dark night we pushed the boat to the water’s edge and then drew lots

to see who should go and get food. A Frenchman had promised to bring some but had not turned up. I lost, and this saved my life. As I came back with the food I lay among the sand dunes and saw my two comrades /being interrogated. Then the sentries pushed the soldier aside and shot him. ■ I told him earlier to tear up his military papers, but he would not, saying he might be shot as a spy on landing in England. He was such a nice young man, only nineteen. The Germans took the civilian away a prisoner, leaving the soldier’s body on the beach. I crawled away as fast as I could, feeling very sick. When I got back to Calais I found the Germans had organised a refugee train for they did not want a floating population" watching‘"the endless gun emplacements they were preparing along the coast. We went through Amiens. It was a nightmare on June 13. The streets were littered with bodies. In Paris I joined forces with a Briton and we set off for Marseilles. We crossed the “frontier” into unoccupied territory by the simple process of walking fast out on to the bridge across the Loire while a sentry looked the other way. He called us back, but while we were retracing’our steps a .motor lorry came along which the sentry had to halt. So we turned again and raced to the other side, reaching safety. After that, going easy, I reached London.