Betrayed: Secrecy, Lies, and Consequences

by Frederic Martini

  Fred was then assisted downstairs into the courtyard, where he found himself in company with Alex Macpherson, Paul Wilson, and several other men he didn’t recognize. An SS officer addressed them, saying (1) they were all spies and terror fliers, and as such not covered by the Geneva Conventions, (2) a French magistrate had authorized their execution, and (3) they were now to be transported to another facility for further interrogation before the sentences were carried out.

  A large, black panel truck entered the courtyard. The back of the truck was divided into what looked like animal cages, and pairs of airmen were handcuffed together and thrown into the cages. The man handcuffed to Fred introduced himself as Lt. “JD” Coffman from the 489th BG.40 Fred, with slight slurring, managed to identify himself and his outfit before the truck jerked into motion and talking became difficult to impossible. Over the next half hour, they rode to the southern suburbs of Paris, where the truck came to a halt in front of a long single-storey brick building with a high-peaked entryway.

  FRESNES PRISON

  As he and JD emerged from the van, Fred could see that there were heavy, vertical iron bars across each window. A walkway extended from the street to tall double doors, and as they were dragged from their cages, the men could see into an interior courtyard with additional buildings extending into the distance. A concrete wall roughly 20’ high extended to either side for at least one block, ending at guard towers marking the corners of the compound.

  The airmen stood at the entry to Fresnes Prison, built 40 years earlier and the largest prison in France.41 After France surrendered to the Germans, the SS took over the operation of the prison. They used it primarily to house members of the French Resistance and captured British spies, with areas set aside for executions as well as interrogations. Those surviving a stay in Fresnes Prison were usually deported to Germany to work in forced labor camps or prison factories. Still in handcuffs, Fred, JD, and the other airmen were led through the prison gates and herded to an administrative station. Their names and arrival times were noted and the handcuffs removed before they were stripped, searched, and their personal effects confiscated. The airmen were then led deeper into the complex to the cell block.

  Fred was led along a long, central hallway from which three pairs of side corridors branched at right angles. The interior was harshly lit by hanging floodlights as there were few openings to the exterior other than the barred windows found in some of the cells. The Gestapo had taken advantage of this layout to organize Fresnes Prison into three major divisions. Division 1 was for German prisoners, Division 2 was where spies, British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents, and saboteurs were held,42 and Division 3 was reserved for male and female political prisoners, most of them French. Fred and the other airmen were led to Division 3, the two side corridors at the far end of the long central hallway.

  Fred looked along each of the side corridors as he passed them, and they all looked identical to the one he found himself entering. Cells were stacked four stories high, with the doors on the upper levels opening onto elevated walkways. Suspended catwalks connected the walkways on either side of each level. Although Fred didn’t have time to count them, there were roughly 400 cells in each division. Not all of the cells were of identical size, but none were spacious. At the time the airmen arrived, Fresnes prison held approximately 3,000 prisoners. As the airmen entered Division 3, it was dark, smelly, and noisy — Fred could hear cries and moans (mostly in French) echoing along the gloomy corridor.

  The men climbed two sets of stairs. Fred, who was having some difficulty keeping pace due to the persistent pain in his side, was shoved into the first small cell available and the door locked behind him. The other airmen continued varying distances along the walkway before being directed into other cells, some already occupied.

  Fred found himself in a concrete and stone enclosure approximately 12’ x 6’ with a single, frosted window high on the exterior wall. The window was nailed shut, and steel bars could be seen on the other side of the glass. There were small ventilation ducts opening high on either wall. Very little air flowed through them, but they did interconnect the cells along the corridor and would provide a potential means of communication. A straw mat on a metal frame bolted to the wall took the place of a bed. The room also contained a toilet with neither seat nor lid, a wooden table bolted to the floor, and a rickety, wooden chair. There was no sink and no faucet. A small cup and a wooden bowl, both empty, sat on the table. The walls were grimy and unpainted, lit by a naked lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. There was no light switch in the cell. The heavy door that sealed him in had a small viewing window and a slot through which he hoped food would pass. He was very hungry.

  He sat at the table and gazed around in despair. What was this place? They surely knew he was an aviator, that they were all aviators, so why were they here and not heading to a POW camp? His glance went to the bare floor, and for a brief instant, he thought it odd that previous prisoners had used so much pepper that it spilled everywhere. But then some of the grains disappeared, reappearing elsewhere, and he realized that these were fleas rather than pepper grains — the floor was alive with them. He pulled his feet up onto the chair, but it was too late. He could feel the vermin moving along his legs, and the first bites at his ankles were already itching fiercely.

  Outside the cell and echoing from the ventilation ducts, he could hear a steady babble of voices, mostly in French but a few in English, often American English. Through the verbal exchanges he overheard, Fred learned that he was in a Gestapo-run prison, housed with a mix of other airmen and members of the French Resistance. Nobody knew what fate awaited them, but each day, prisoners were selected for removal to a place of interrogation and sometimes execution.

  Late that evening, with the light still on, Fred found it impossible to stay awake. Against his better judgment, he left the chair for the “bed” hoping to get a night of recuperative slumber. Instead, he found that the bedding was infested not only with fleas but with lice, and the most he could manage were periods of fitful dozing separated by frantic scratching, or exploring sleeves or seams to find and crush offending vermin.

  Each morning at 0630, a guard using a cart with a distinctive squeaky wheel stopped by the door and opened the inspection port. Fred passed out his cup, to have it returned half-filled with a liquid that looked like a cross between tea and coffee (made primarily with acorns). Lunch was delivered sometime around noon, and Fred passed both the bowl and the cup through the door slot. When returned, the bowl contained a watery, potato-based soup, and the cup another round of ersatz coffee. He also received a chunk of hard, dark bread. With his jaw still tender and aching, the soup was ideal, and he found that he could deal with the bread as well if he first soaked it in either the soup or the fake coffee. But it was hardly a filling meal, and when he finished, he found he was almost as hungry as he had been before the meal started. And those were the high points of his day, other than another half-cup of coffee that arrived around 1500. This particular hotel had no dinner service.

  His mornings were marked by bursts of gunfire from the courtyard below, where executions were being carried out. The airmen were clustered in cells on the third and fourth floor, and each day, he listened for news and comments relayed from cell to cell. In that way, he learned bits and pieces about the progress of the Allies and heard other airmen speculate about their fate. Some feared they were to be executed, whereas others felt they would be removed to a POW camp. Fred could also hear the sobs and moans of French prisoners, and sometimes Allied airmen, returning from Gestapo interrogation sessions.

  Fortunately, he was only taken from his cell once, a few days after he had arrived. An armed guard beat heavily on the door and shouted “Raus“. Upon emerging, Fred was taken downstairs and along the corridor to a room holding a rather dapper Luftwaffe officer in an immaculate, blue-gray uniform. Fred stood at attention and again related his name, rank, and serial number. The officer, who spoke excellent Eng
lish, responded quite equably, simply posing a question about hatch operation to verify his claim to being a B-17 crewmember. Fred could not see any possible military use for this information — they had plenty of wrecked aircraft to look at — so he answered the question but gave no further information on follow-up questions about his unit or his mission. The Luftwaffe officer made a few notes on his clipboard and then signaled the guard to take Fred back to his cell. Perhaps it was good luck, or perhaps it was because he had already been severely beaten by the Gestapo before arriving at Fresnes Prison, but this was his only interrogation, and he spent the rest of his time in solitary confinement. From listening to conversations called between cells, he realized that he was one of a lucky few, for many other airmen had been severely beaten.43

  In the second week of August, distant rumblings were heard, and soon the entire prison population knew that the Allied artillery was nearing the city. Speculation ran wild over what the German response would be. Ominously, there was a noticeable increase in gunfire from the courtyard area, and word was passed that the SS guards were executing prisoners. On 12 August, thirty members of the FFI were executed by machine guns. Fred heard the roar of the guns, the moans, and the individual coup-de-grace shots, in his dreams thereafter.44

  Early on the morning of 15 August, the airmen knew something unusual was happening, as they could hear trucks and shouted orders as well as the clear sounds of an ongoing artillery exchange. Word was soon passed that the prison was being evacuated, although opinions differed on their fate. “Breakfast” never arrived, and at around 1000 (Fred’s watch had of course been confiscated), SS guards were on the walkways, opening cell doors and ordering everyone into the corridor. The prisoners were herded in a crush along the walkway, down the stairs, and along the corridor until they reached the open area just inside the prison entryway. There followed a period where the prisoners waited for something to happen. Although adjacent cells had exchanged names, no one had an idea of how many airmen were held in the prison. Fred took the time to see if he recognized anyone. He soon spotted Sam Pennell in the mob, and worked his way through the crowd to reach him. It felt like the reunion of two brothers, and Paul Wilson soon joined them. Such reunions were not unusual, and many other airmen found comrades they hadn’t seen since bailing out of their crippled aircraft.

  It was a hot, still August day, and everyone was soon perspiring freely. The heat only added thirst to the discomfort caused by hunger and maltreatment. All of the airmen looked worse for wear. There were vivid facial bruises, black eyes, torn scalps, and odd postures resulting from unseen injuries. The men were also still wearing the clothing they arrived in days or weeks or even months before, and they had neither bathed nor shaved while confined. They stood packed together in the atrium, each man hoping that the delay meant they were awaiting evacuation, rather than execution. At that point, Fred would have welcomed evacuation, as he felt certain that conditions anywhere else would be more hospitable. Neither Fred nor any of the other airmen would have believed that they would soon wish they could return to Fresnes Prison.

  31 Between 1941 and the liberation of France in 1944, approximately 22% of downed airmen who survived to reach the ground evaded capture. The ratio for Crashwagon’s crew, 2 out of 9, or 22%, was representative. Fred and Sam avoided capture primarily because they waited to open their chutes. Sam landed near St. Denis le Ferment, roughly 7 miles from where Fred touched down.

  32 See Appendix 1 for a glossary of important individuals, terms, and agencies.

  33 See Appendix 2 for a discussion of the German intelligence services looking for downed airmen.

  34 There were at this time roughly 1,400 men in the FFI active in Normandy, plus innumerable others who either assisted or ignored resistance activities. Lt. Raulin’s base in Hacqueville was the hub for the Normandy network, with communication originating from Chartres traveling first to Hacqueville and then on to agents in Ecos, Les Andelys, Puchay, Gisors, Etrepagny, and Lyons-le-Foret.

  35 This was risky because the Germans sometimes dashed to a supply drop, swapping London’s pigeons for their own before the FFI got there.

  36 In 1944, the SS had one million troops, and the German Army had twelve million.

  37 On 17 June 1944, Hitler ordered that any uniformed British personnel parachuting into France were to be executed.

  38 One of the organizational changes made at that time was that the Abwehr would thereafter report to the SS, rather than the Army. Another was an order issued on 22 July 1944 stating that Allied military personnel captured out of uniform were to be executed as commandos.

  39 All traces of legality and due process were suspended inside Germany, and the SS detained and executed more than 5,000 German civilians considered either to be insufficiently committed to the Nazi agenda or to pose a potential security risk.

  40 Lt. Coffman, another airman sheltered by Max Raulin’s resistance network, was lured to Paris by promises of a flight to England. He too was delivered to the Gestapo on 5 August 1944.

  41 It became the second largest after completion of the Fleury-Merogis Prison in 1968.

  42 SOE agents parachuted into enemy territory as undercover agents. Only a few Allied airmen, generally those who had been held and interrogated for long periods, were kept in Division 2.

  43 Among the US airmen, Sgt. Donald Leslie lost two front teeth, Sgt. Leo Grenon was severely beaten, and Sgt. Charles Roberson lost hearing on one side. RCAF Flight Lieutenant (F/L) Art Kinnis had his right eardrum ruptured; among the RAF airmen, Flight Lieutenant (F/L) Tommy Blackham, struck across the throat with a baton, had difficulty speaking and swallowing, F/L Stan Booker had been beaten repeatedly, and Flying Officer (F/O) Philip Hemmens, who had a broken arm, was left in chronic pain with a makeshift splint.

  44 The dead included Suzanne Spaak, who was killed for saving Jewish children from deportation to German concentration camps.

  CHAPTER 6

  Striving for the Fatherland

  ON 13 JUNE 1944, WERNHER attended the launching of the modified V-2, both to see how it worked and because he always enjoyed watching his rockets take off. The launch preparations went without a hitch. The rocket was brought to the stand, placed in position, and then fueled with great care — the combination of ethyl alcohol and liquid oxygen was explosive to say the least. The launch itself had gone perfectly, the rocket leaping skyward with a deafening roar on a plume of fire. As it ascended, an engineer with a joystick made small, deliberate changes in the flight path, operating servomotors by radio control. By the time the rocket was out of sight and out of control range, the test was viewed as a complete success.

  At that point, the rocket was left to its own devices, and they had expected it to complete its flight arc and impact somewhere well out to sea. However, that wasn’t how things worked out. Thanks to a slight trajectory change inadvertently made during the test phase, the rocket headed for neutral Sweden rather than the empty North Atlantic. Fortunately for the Swedes, the stresses on the descent proved too much for the structural modifications made to the rocket, and it broke apart before it reached the ground. The Swedish government was furious, and Berlin called Dornberger, demanding an explanation. Such things roll downhill, and Wernher knew he would have to shoulder much of the blame. He didn’t think it would be a major problem — thank goodness it hadn’t killed any Swedish citizens — and he doubted anything useful could be learned from the debris field.45

  For the rest of June and into July, Wernher continued to travel to the Mittelwerk to monitor production and to Blizna, Poland, where mobile launch crews were being trained and test launches conducted. The tests weren’t going well at all. Only 40% of the V-2s launched were reaching the ground, the rest disintegrating in the upper atmosphere or on descent.

  The accuracy of the surviving rockets was nowhere near satisfactory either. When Wernher attended a test, he would stand in the center of the target — he felt confident that, under the circumstances, that was the saf
est place to be. The rockets that managed to complete their flight path typically impacted several miles away. He was in position, watching the sky and waiting for a missile to descend, when he realized that he could see one coming right at him. All he could do was drop to the ground and hope for the best. The rocket struck perhaps a hundred yards away, the force of the resulting explosion blowing him into a ditch. He had learned how it felt to be on the receiving end of one of his creations. What a story he had to tell!

  From the test results, the design team was finally able to sort out what was causing the air bursts. The primary problem turned out to be the lack of insulation between the shell of the missile, which air friction heated to over 900°F, and the underlying liquid-oxygen tank. When the tank wall overheated and failed, the rocket exploded. The solution involved adding insulation and a reinforcing ring, modifications that had to be incorporated into the production and assembly lines at the Mittelwerk.

  Few V-2s could be produced at the Mittelwerk in June or July, since there was no use building them until the problems causing rocket failure were solved. And Germany’s enemies weren’t making it easy. On 18 July, hundreds of American B-17s bombed Peenemünde and damaged Test Stand VII, where V-2s were launched. Fifty Peenemünders were killed in that raid, and the only luck they had was that the attack came before the next rocket scheduled for testing had been moved into position.

  Two days later, the German government was thrown into turmoil by the unsuccessful attempt on Hitler’s life. Both the Army and the Luftwaffe fell from grace, as conspirators were identified in their ranks. Himmler, charged with the protection of the Führer and the Nazi Party, henceforth operated with few restraints. Wernher found himself spending more and more time dealing with SS personnel and regulations at Peenemünde. But despite the increased paperwork, he finally managed to schedule his trip to Buchenwald after one of his regular visits to the Mittelwerk.46 The trip to the concentration camp was unusually productive, and he had found Commandant Pister very accommodating. With Pister’s help he at least temporarily solved the shortage of skilled labor. Within a week of his visit, 636 skilled laborers were shipped to the Mittelwerk, and more would follow. He was not sure whether or not he could rely on Pister to select the best possible workers from the available pool. If not, he would have to return to Buchenwald periodically.