WRONG TURNING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23699, 4 July 1940, Page 14

WRONG TURNING

OFFICER'S ESCAPE ROWED ACROSS CHANNEL HELP FROM FRENCH COUPLE ' [FROM OUR OWN COHHKSI'ONDENT] LONDON, June 7 A capturetl British officer, marching to a Nazi prison, escaped by quietly walking dowh the wrong road. He told tho story on his arrival in England after rowing, across the English Channel.

With his Territorial battalion, this officer reached Calais from England a fortnight ago.

For tho next few days the City workers and shop assistants who formed the bulk of the rank and file of his battalion withstood constant divebombing attacks. During one attack of 51 dive-bombers on headquarters the houses around and most of the cars and vehicles in tho street wore destroyed. The brigade signal section, however, remained unshaken and continued to send and receive messages. Finally, a small body of British troops were surrounded, and, in tho officer's words, "there suddenly seemed to bo Gex-inans all around us."

Taken prisoner, tho officer and some of his men were lodged in a neighbouring church until evening, when they began a long march inland under German guard. After three hours' marching without a halt the officer noticed that there were no guards near him, and as the column took a road forking to the right lie went down the left-band fork. After sleeping underneath a hush until morning be abandoned greatcoat and steel helmet, and, throwing a sack across his shoulders, set off across the fields on the long walk to the coast, guided by tho position of the sun. He hit the coast near Cape Gris Ncz. On tho beach the officer round a small white dinghy. With the help of a French couple, who provided him with beer and bread, ho 6et out at nightfall to row across tho Channel. After 12 hours he was seen half a mile off Dover and picked up.