Escaping the Gestapo over the Pyrenees Part 2

Chuck Yeager’s words:

Having been shot down March 5, 1944 and hidden for several weeks, we pick up the story close to the Spanish border in the Pyrenees.

We found a dead sheep part of which we ate.

Later, we found a hut and took some refuge from the snow and cold. The other airman made the mistake of leaving his socks out to dry. A German patrol caught sight and started shooting. We jumped out the back window. I hauled him over to a chute, shoved him down, and followed him.  We ended up in a frozen river. He couldn’t walk so I dragged him up the incline over the next ridge.

Every time there was a downhill, I shoved him so he could slide.

A day of this and by nightfall I was exhausted and hungry. Fortunately, that evening we came upon a dead sheep part of which we ate.

We continued on – no telling if the Germans were following us. Someone wrote to me years later telling me what I already suspected: We were climbing the steepest, most treacherous part of the Pyrenees. That was the bad news. But the good news was: The Nazis probably thought we would perish here anyway and did not want to themselves perish pursuing us. But we couldn’t be sure. We trudged along. Or I did, dragging the airman.

It would have been so easy physically to leave him. But then he might be captured, tortured and shot – or die of exposure. Either way, his only hope was my carrying, dragging him, pushing him….

We would sleep a little and then climb some more, me carrying or dragging the airman. On the downhill, I’d push him down the hill and slide afterwards if I could. Three feet of snow, almost vertical climb sometimes. If we got lower, the trees were thick. It’s a darn good thing I grew up running around in the hollers of West Virginia and that Gabriel had sent me out with Raoul moving camp, staying in shape somewhat.

Even when I was shot down a few weeks prior, I headed for some woods, grabbed a sapling and rode it to the ground. We used to swing through the trees for miles it seemed without ever touching the ground in West Virginia.

We came upon a Spanish farm in a mountain valley and espied a Spanish couple working the farm. Hunger and exhaustion versus the possibility of being turned in. What to do?

c. GCYI