ESCAPE BY SEAPLANE

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLXII, Issue 15242, 7 January 1943, Page 4

ESCAPE BY SEAPLANE

YOUNG HOLLANDER'S ADVENTURE. .Life under the Nazis was becoming unbearable for Piet, Jan, and Klass, three bold young Hollanders, and they continually talked of escape, a writer in the ‘‘Christian ‘Science Monitor’’ relates. For Jan, who could fly, every unguarded airplane was a temptation. Once they had spotted such a plane and planned to fly it to Britain, only to discover that two other Netherlander had escaped in it while they were plotting. Then, one eventful day, they spied a seaplane, mopred at a tiny coastal harbour. Jan had never handled that type, but was willing to try. Stealthily, and with friends helping., they collected and hid their supplies. Patiently they waited for clear weather and the vital westerly wind. Quietly, under cover of the darkness one night, they rowed to the plane in a rubber dinghy and climbed gingerly aboad to aawit daybreak, when German planes would be flying and their ship less noticeable. At 6.30 they started the motors. Cam e a harrowing moment when the starboard engine spluttered. Then, with both engines humming perfectly, they roared to a quick take-off and zoomed over the coastline—amid a hail of German anti-aircraft bullets. Nearing Britain in their swastikamarked craft, they were greeted by more anti-aircraft fire, this time from an English coastal gun, but a Netherlands flag and three very ci-vilian-looking hats waved from the window l stopped the shooting. Banding was not easy, and after three heavy bounces the ship pitched over. All piled into the tail however, and righted the craft with their weight. Then they drove the plane to shore and a hearty welcome by British coastguards. Piet. Jan and Klass are now working and fighting for Holland. Their escape was typical of many. One Nazi twin-engined plane which managed to land at a Suffolk airfield despite three Hurricanes in roaring pursuit, was found to contain two Hollanders, one who subsequently became a pilot officer in the Royal Air Force, and another who went to work with the Netherlands Government in exile. Until the Nazis made an airborne escape virtually impossible by quadrupling their guard over parked planes and removing vital engine parts at night many a Netherlander braved both Nazi and British ack-ack and pur-suit-plane fire in a dash across the North Sea to freedom.