1
25
6
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1525/27360/SNewtonJL742570v10039-0001.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1525/27360/SNewtonJL742570v10039-0002.2.jpg
e51bfccf387f5ca1bfce32935f236bce
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Newton, Jack Lamport
J L Newton
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Newton, JL
Description
An account of the resource
83 items. Collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Jack Newton (742570 Royal Air Force) who was a Sergeant air gunner on Wellington of 12 Squadron. His aircraft was landed on fire at a German occupied airfield in Antwerp in August 1941. He was the first airman to escape back to England via the Comète escape line. The rest of his crew were captured and made prisoners of war. The collection contains accounts of his escape, letters of research from Belgium helper, other official correspondence from the Red Cross and the Royal Air Force, photographs of places and people, newspaper cuttings propaganda leaflets and maps of airfield and escape route. In addition there is an interview with Jack Newton about his experiences in the wartime RAF.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jackie Bradford and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Emile Witmeur
Description
An account of the resource
Head and shoulders portrait on an man wearing dark coat. Captioned 'To my friend Jack L Newton in remembrance of the passing of a bridge in Liege four years ago, signed Emile Witmeur, 15 Aug 1945'. On the reverse Witmeur, 195 1 de Camp[..] 57 Avenue de Luxembourg LIEGE'.]'.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
E V Witmeur
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-08-14
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SNewtonJL742570v10039
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Belgium--Liège
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-08-14
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
evading
Resistance
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1525/27327/EWitmeurEVLangloisRB451207.2.pdf
50f422cb69f4a5721ecc2832f8132117
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Newton, Jack Lamport
J L Newton
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Newton, JL
Description
An account of the resource
83 items. Collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Jack Newton (742570 Royal Air Force) who was a Sergeant air gunner on Wellington of 12 Squadron. His aircraft was landed on fire at a German occupied airfield in Antwerp in August 1941. He was the first airman to escape back to England via the Comète escape line. The rest of his crew were captured and made prisoners of war. The collection contains accounts of his escape, letters of research from Belgium helper, other official correspondence from the Red Cross and the Royal Air Force, photographs of places and people, newspaper cuttings propaganda leaflets and maps of airfield and escape route. In addition there is an interview with Jack Newton about his experiences in the wartime RAF.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jackie Bradford and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
7 December 1945.
My dear Roy,
I did not succeed up to now to find out how you have been arrested in Belgium. From rumours it seems that Vandenhove has been betrayed by somebody who watched the house. Baron Dong was taken in the same way, and sold to the Germans by a maid-servant who wanted to get money. I have been arrested myself after somebody had sent an anonymous letter but I never knew who it was.
You will find enclosed the report I wrote about the case. It is well known that your landing rendered the Germans so mad that they issued special warnings in the newspapers after it, but we did not know at the time.
Tell me a little about your life now. Did you fly again, and what kind of ship. How are you getting on?
I left the airfield [sic] in August after the Atom got hold of the Japs. Since then I am out of work though I have so many things to do that I am glad to be free for the moment. I have left the Army definitely. They did not accept to take me back as pilot as I am 38 years old and that I belonged to the reserve. May be that I shall get a new job soon.
The economical situation in Belgium is growing better but the political one is far to be favourable. Compared with France and Holland, we are recovering faster but our problems are not so hard to solve. Moreover, a small country like Belgium, even prosperous, will never weigh in the universal balance and that is why the big nations let her recover and help her. There is no need to speak of competition on foreign markets when speaking of Belgium, as the volume of business will never be big enough in the same branch to trouble a competition of the big nations.
The problem is more political than economical and the communists work a lot. They are very active and take profit of all disunions to win some ground.
I am sending this letter to your club, as you very probably did not receive the ones I sent to the Officer’s Mess. What is your address where I can always reach you? Did you go back to the Channel Islands? I think that you once lived there.
I wish you and your folks a very merry Christmas and a Happy new Year
Cheerio
[signature]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Emile Witmeur to Roy Langlois and report of crash landing and subsequent attempted escape of crew aided by Belgian escape line
Description
An account of the resource
Writes that he had not found out how Langlois was arrested but it seem that the Belgian he was with had been betrayed. Asks about his activates after the war and tells a little of his own. Says he is enclosing report. Report covers the crash landing of Wellington W-5423 G", the climate in Belgium in August 1941. Development of the escape line in Belgium, Germans air defences and combats with RAF bombers, Germans warnings to Belgium about hiding downed RAF aircrew. Chronology of people and places who helped crew initially. List of crew and some addresses and current situation of surviving Belgian members of escape line. Continues to describe the parts others played in helping the Langlois's crew including to ascertain that they were really downed aircrew. The six were divided into two groups of three and Newton got back to England but the two in his subgroup were captured.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
E V Witmeur
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page handwritten letter and ten page typewritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EWitmeurEVLangloisRB451207
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Belgium--Liège
Belgium--Antwerp
Belgium--Brussels
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-08
1945-12-07
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-12-07
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Text. Memoir
Text. Personal research
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
crash
escaping
evading
navigator
pilot
prisoner of war
Resistance
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1525/27326/EWitmeurEVLangloisRB451014-0001.1.jpg
43eb2c9b4ace663aa5eba6aa7f657a9b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1525/27326/EWitmeurEVLangloisRB451014-0002.1.jpg
9847b6cba6f37b1eabd65a15167cdc78
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Newton, Jack Lamport
J L Newton
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Newton, JL
Description
An account of the resource
83 items. Collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Jack Newton (742570 Royal Air Force) who was a Sergeant air gunner on Wellington of 12 Squadron. His aircraft was landed on fire at a German occupied airfield in Antwerp in August 1941. He was the first airman to escape back to England via the Comète escape line. The rest of his crew were captured and made prisoners of war. The collection contains accounts of his escape, letters of research from Belgium helper, other official correspondence from the Red Cross and the Royal Air Force, photographs of places and people, newspaper cuttings propaganda leaflets and maps of airfield and escape route. In addition there is an interview with Jack Newton about his experiences in the wartime RAF.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jackie Bradford and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Liège, 14th October 1945.
My dear Roy,
Thank you so much for your kind letter of 9th inst. Unfortunately I have not been helped at all in Belgium by the escape service. I wrote several letters and got no answers so that I have been obliged to do the job by myself and it is very long as the agents have changed of residence.
However I shall not give up until I know the whole chain and I think that I have made a step further with your letter of to-day.
I have traced Baron Dong. He has been shot also, but I know where to contact his widow. The poor man was betrayed by a maid-servant who received money from the germans. [sic] He had been bringing meat regularly for people and airmen, hidden in a house of his friends. This became suspicious to the maid who sold him. He was sentenced to death.
I still want to know the name of the agent who transferred you from the small station Ans (outskirts of Liège.) to Brussels. Were you with Newton or not? Then the name of the Lt. and his sister in Brussels Had she something to do with a Miss TELLIER or LE TELLIER?
At last the name of the man who sheltered you one night before you went to Jean Vanderhove.
Now I have found the line from the beginning.
The man who contacted you there on the road and hid you in a wheat field was Mr. DEMOULIN (presently 14 rue MONTEBELLO. ANVERS).
He led you to the farm of Mr. VAN DE VOEGD, KAPPELLENVELD, BOUCHOUT Antwerp, where you stayed one night and were given civilian clothes.
Next day you went to the house of Mr. DUQUENNE. Avenue de Belgique Anvers. The transfer was accomplished by help of Miss VAN EECKHOUD, living presently 14 rue MONTEBELLO (Anvers) and Mr. DUQUENNE.
Next day, you travelled by train to Brussels with Mr DUQUENNE and miss Raymonda TROCKAY, 32 QUAI ORBAN LIÈGE) who led the way till the house of Doctor de BIE. There you met Mr Pastegu, manager of the rubber factory that you had bombed on your mission, then Hacha, who went with you to his sister (Mrs DE RYCKER). After that the villa François where I met with you there. You know the rest, Debacts who sheltered Newton is also dead in the concentration camp of Bramienburg. His widow still hopes but from information that [two missing words] have been transported to the gas chamber when he was last seen in a terrible
[page break]
I had been surprised to be asked at the end of September 1941, to pass three British airmen belonging to a bomber that had landed on an airfield in the neighbourhood of Antwerp.
I accepted to take them, but in order to be sure they were true British, I gave your three names to my informer so that he could ask them the names of the rest of the crew.
I must tell you that it seemed to me so amazing that I had fears. The three men were MacLaren, H. BURREL and R. PORTEUS. BURREL was your co-pilot, I think. They were all sergeants, (co-pilot, navigator, rear-gunner).
What became of them I do not know thoroughly. They stayed more than a month at Mrs. DE BEUKELAERS, Rue GUEULLINCKS, Antwerp.
When I got the O.K., I was told that they did not need my help, any more.
A little later I was informed that three [inserted] more [/inserted] airmen, belonging to the same aircraft were in Brussels. It was too much. I knew that you were six, all in all. But the three in question were Langlois, Newton and Copley. I had been contacted by another way.
Burrel, MacLaren and Porteous were visited in Antwerp, by Lt. Commander W. GRISAR, Royal Navy, H.M.S. “Royal AHTELSTAN”. This man, who reached England later on, went to the AIR MINISTRY and testified for Newton who had alone had the luck to return.
Your aircraft had not burnt entirely. There was a famous panic among the germans [sic] when you set fire to your bomber. They came with their fire extinguishers and saved only one of the Merlin Engines. Then they sent their police on your track. The whole city knew about the extraordinary story and was high time to send you outside Antwerp. The germans [sic] were absolutely mad. All over Belgium they put advertisements promising a lot of money to the people who would give information and telling that those helping the [inserted] airmen [/inserted] would be sentenced to death. They did the same in all the newspapers and I remember to have shown you the text, cut from our local newspaper.
Within a few weeks, I shall write to you the result of my correspondence with Brussels and I hope to be able to put the final point to your trip in Belgium.
Thank you again for what you do concerning Vandenhove and our men. Life goes on and the families already suffer from the lack of interest shown to those who died for their country. The people here only think to live by all their means.
Cheerio my dear Roy,
I remain yours very sincerely
[signature]
195 Rue de Campine
Liège. Belgium
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Emile Witmeur to Roy Langlois
Description
An account of the resource
Thanks him for his letter and says that he had not been helped in his enquiries by the Belgian escape service. Writes of a member of his group that was shot by the Germans and that he had now traced the escape line from the beginning. List names and places involved in Langlois's attempted escape. Mentions that Jack Newton had successfully evaded but he did not know what happened to the other three crew. Writes a little about their crashed Wellington.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
E V Witmeur
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-10-14
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Belgium--Liège
Belgium--Brussels
Belgium--Antwerp
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-10-14
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EWitmeurEVLangloisRB451014-0001; EWitmeurEVLangloisRB451014-0002
crash
escaping
evading
Resistance
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1525/27325/EWitmeurEVLangloisRB450927-0001.1.jpg
2ecfd7a5bd5d3fdc941035d4c4474fe3
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1525/27325/EWitmeurEVLangloisRB450927-0002.1.jpg
90f0a47570dba7dbff03b488ef00968e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Newton, Jack Lamport
J L Newton
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Newton, JL
Description
An account of the resource
83 items. Collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Jack Newton (742570 Royal Air Force) who was a Sergeant air gunner on Wellington of 12 Squadron. His aircraft was landed on fire at a German occupied airfield in Antwerp in August 1941. He was the first airman to escape back to England via the Comète escape line. The rest of his crew were captured and made prisoners of war. The collection contains accounts of his escape, letters of research from Belgium helper, other official correspondence from the Red Cross and the Royal Air Force, photographs of places and people, newspaper cuttings propaganda leaflets and maps of airfield and escape route. In addition there is an interview with Jack Newton about his experiences in the wartime RAF.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jackie Bradford and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Roy B. LANGLOIS
6, Pall Mall
London S.W.1
Liège
27th September 1945.
[signature]
My dear Roy,
May be you did not receive my two last letters and I am sending this one to London. I am no more at the airfield since the capitulation of Japan and it is doubtful that the new outfit occupying the strip will send over the letters to me. My civilian address is 195 rue de Campine Liège.
I am afraid to bother you with all these things belonging to the past, but I have been doing my best to clear the situation of my men and I want to show to their families that I do not drop them. It is very difficult to find out the chain as we nearly all have been arrested during the occupation and many have died, leaving their relatives without the names of the people they contacted.
Since you wrote to me in your first and last letter I immediately tried to ask your questions and it is only yesterday that I had an answer from the home of Jean Vandenhove who was sheltering you 66 rue Washington, Brussels and was arrested on 2nd October 1941. He remained till July 1942 in the prison of St Gilles, cell 174. From there he was transferred to the prison of Essen (Germany) where he was to be sentenced. Somebody said he got eight years of hard labor [sic] but his two comrades sentenced at the same time were obliged to carry him out of the court as he had been tortured and he died two days later. I got this information from his father, Mr Vandenhove, 23 rue GRISAR, Bruxelles. (Anderlecht).
The brother of Jean Vanderhove and his wife had a narrow escape. His name is Freddy. He hid himself for some time and escaped with his wife in 1942. He arrived later in Belgian Congo and is still there. So that I do not know yet how you arrived there.
Jean Vandehove’s father, to whom I gave your address, will probably send to you a friend of his living in England, in order to get a statement from you that his son actually helped you because up to now, nobody seems to know that he was arrested for a patriotic deed.
So many people have been arrested by the Germans and claim now that they belonged to the service, that the “Suete de l’Etat” has been obliged to make thorough inquiries because they realised that many gangsters, working for their own, and attacking for instance post offices to get money, were trying to pass as victims of their patriotism.
In the case of Vanderhove, there is no doubt he was a “pure” as we say, but I have not been able up to now to link him to our crew as I need the name and address of the man who contact him. The agents had friends who were not [indecipherable word] and who were helping. If the agent died, nobody knew what the others had done. So that I should like that you notify officially that he actually helped you.
Here is now a summary of what I know. Copley helped me a lot because he recalled some names but he did not spell them properly. However he gave me the address of Vanderhove. The house was closed and that is why it took so much time.
You landed with a Wellington W. 5423 G, on the 6th of August 1941 at 2.10 A.m. on the aerodrome of DEURNE (outskirts of Antwerp), after a mission in the neighbourhood of Achen.
You set fire to the aircraft and climbed the fence surrounding the airfield. There was a tremendous panic among the Germans and that is why you escaped. You will hear about that another day. The crew of six was split into two parties. Yourself, Newton and Copley walked all night in circles and the three others went in the direction of Ostende where they were contacted by an officer of the navy Ct. Commander W. Grison, Royal Navy, Quai Ortéliuse, Antwerp. Next morning you were contacted by a man on the road. You hid in a wheat field all day and were supplied with food and cigarettes. In the evening taken to a farm, given civilian clothes and taken by a lady to the house of Mr. DUQUENNE, 146 Avenue de Belgique Antwerp. Slept night there and travelled to Liège under the guidance of Miss Raymonda TROQUET 32, QUAI ORBAN LIÈGE. She delivered you to the old Doctor DEBIE, Rue de la Station, CHENEE Liège He has died since. You stayed some days in that house from which parcels were dispatched to P.W. in Germany
[page break]
There you had the visit of CHEVALIER A.G. PASTEGER, living in “LE BERCAIL” Embourg LIÈGE May be you recall him well. He belonged to the Royal Flying Corp during the war 14 – 18 and was manager of the rubber and tyre factory Englebert in Achen before the war. You had just bombed that factory during your mission and it is one of the funny angles of the story. He talked with you something like two hours and as my friend Pierre HACHA, Inginieus OUGREE-MARIHAYE, (Prov. De LIÈGE) was there also, they decided to find another shelter. HACHA took you to the home of his sister, married to Professeur à l’Universtie HENRY DE RYCKER, EMBOURG par CHENEE LIÈGE. You went there with HACHA and DE RYCKE took Newton and Copley. You stayed three days there and listened so a speech of H.M the Queen of England at the B.B.C. on the first night there. As they were afraid that their children notice something and speak, you went to the house of Mr. FRANÇOIS, BOIS LE COMTE, GOMZÉ ANDOUMONT (Prov de LIÈGE).
In the meantime Hacha was trying to contact a crew for your evacuation. One of my indicators, Mrs. HENRY MASSON, 34 Quai Mativa, LIÈGE came to see me and I told her that I would do the necessary. I was belonging to the service known at the War Office under the name of “BEAVOR-BATON”. I contacted my chief and went to see you.
Doctor Genges Gilles, rue des Guillemins Liège, who has been shot since, looked for a shelter for you, together with FERNANCE CARLIER, 48 rue Albert DE CUYCK, Liège (he died in the concentration camp of SONNENBURG, June 1944) and found a house at Mr. and Mrs VANDEWEERDT, rue Albert de Cuyck, Liège. Both of them have been killed in 1944.
We came down town together, crossed the bridge on the river Meuse on 14th August 1941 6.30 P.M. and contacted PAUL DONEUX, 30 rue Louis JAMME, LIÈGE (He died in October 1944 for the service). At that time we were on the Boulevard along the river. I was walking under the rain in front of you and was bothered to see that Doneux was not alone. I passed by him and the other man, who was Vanderweerdt, told me to stop and said: “what have you done [missing words] that the Germans had [missing words] papers of the three airmen who crashed and killed the [indecipherable word] at the harbor [sic] of Liège and may try to find out the service of evacuation. I will not take them at home. Everything will collapse. Where are the men now?” Twenty yards behind us I said, but I am sure they are British. I cannot trust you he said and I go away. Doneaux, who was his brother in law, trusted me but was at a loss because we had not shelter available at that very moment. Let them come at my home, I said. Doneux refused, specially when having walked a little in the direct of my home we saw two German Officers waiting at the corner of the street. It is not safe there. [indecipherable word] luck and go to a hotel. So you were taken at the Hotel de Provence owned at that time by EUGENE DEMEURE, presently living RU ROSLEAU, 12 Liège. Then you were asked a lot of questions and they realised that I had not been wrong by telling you were British. From there you were split again You went to Mr. Jean HUFKENS home Place St. Paul in Liège, Newton was sheltered at Mr RENÉ DEBAITS, rue du Coq, 82 Liège and COPLEY at Mr. Arnaud LOVENFOSSE RUE DU LAVEU 732 Liège. All three were arrested later. Hufkens came back from Buchenwalde Lovenfosse passed two years in Orianburg and Debacts died there.
You stayed about a fourtnight [sic] in Liège and were visited by the chief of the service Beaver-Baton, Mr. Nicolas MONAMI (nickname Gilbe), he conferred to another member of our crew, Commissaire LOUIS RADEMECKER, rue Auguste DONNAY 47 Liège, who sent you three to Brussels. Louis RADEMECKER has been shot also and from here, I am in the dark because nobody up to now can give me the further link. Where did you stay during the month of September I do not know. Newton separated from you arrived and had a lot of difficulties at his arrival. You two with Copley and the three others who had come back from Ostende were arrested. Monami, living presently rue de Campine 232 Liège went to England, was parachuted in June 1942, betrayed, arrested at his landing and sent to Dachau. He came back but cannot explain. As to me I was also arrested, so that if I know something more in the future, I shall let you know.
I shall end by asking you if you can send a photo of you as a souvenir.
I am very much hoping to see you one of these days.
And remain your sincerely
[signature]
95 rue de Campine
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Emile Witmeur to Roy Langlois
Description
An account of the resource
Writes of his investigation into Belgian people involved in trying to help his crew escape after they had crashed in Belgium. He gives names and locations of those involved and notes that many had been arrested by the Germans. Gives detailed chronology of events starting with the crews escape after their Wellington crash landed and then links in the escape line. Notes that Jack Newton got home but two crew who had been with him were arrested.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
E V Witmeur
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-09-27
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EWitmeurEVLangloisRB450927
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Belgium--Liège
Belgium--Antwerp
Great Britain
England--London
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-09-27
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
crash
escaping
evading
prisoner of war
Resistance
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1525/27324/EWitmeurEVLangloisRB450819-0001.1.jpg
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5361f04c398c574f198b25a4edd0a853
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fafbf0aa826353bce61883611cac370a
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Newton, Jack Lamport
J L Newton
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Newton, JL
Description
An account of the resource
83 items. Collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Jack Newton (742570 Royal Air Force) who was a Sergeant air gunner on Wellington of 12 Squadron. His aircraft was landed on fire at a German occupied airfield in Antwerp in August 1941. He was the first airman to escape back to England via the Comète escape line. The rest of his crew were captured and made prisoners of war. The collection contains accounts of his escape, letters of research from Belgium helper, other official correspondence from the Red Cross and the Royal Air Force, photographs of places and people, newspaper cuttings propaganda leaflets and maps of airfield and escape route. In addition there is an interview with Jack Newton about his experiences in the wartime RAF.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jackie Bradford and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Liège, August 19th 1945.
To
Flight LT. R.B. LANGLOIS
My dear Roy,
I have seen a few people since I last wrote to you and I hope that I shall be able to give you soon some information and precisions about your stay in Belgium
I was alerted by Mrs. Christiane Masson, 34 Quai MATIVA, Liège, that three airmen were hidden in the neighbourhood of Liège. She introduced me to Mr. Pierre HACHA, Ingénieur Societé OUGRÉE-MARIHAYE, Ougré – Liège who accompanied me to the villa of Mr. L. FRANÇOIS, BOIS-LE-COMTE, GOMZÉ – ANDOUMONT. I met you there. Hacha was already an old friend of mine but he did not belong to the service. He led the way to Liege with an other boy, GEORGES MARCHAND Ingénieur à Ougrée – Marihaye. OUGRÉE LIÉGE who left you at the entrance of the town. You met with me again and crossed the bridge and we met the man with the French cap, Mr. PAUL DONEUX, 30 RUE LOUIS JAMMES, LIÈGE, and his brother in Law, Mr VANDEWEERT, RUE ALBERT DE CUYCK, LIÈGE. (DONEUX and VANDEWEERT are dead now).
As they were not sure to hold true British, they placed you in the HOTEL DE PROVENCE, rue des GUILLEMINS LIÈGE (the owner has dissappeared [sic]). You were again asked several questions by DOCTOR GILLES, who was shot in 1943 and whose widow lives RUE DES GUILLEMINS 28 in LIÈGE, and DONEUX. They sent a radio in order to check your names. You were O.K. and left the Hotel de Provence. MR. JEAN HUFKENS, Place Saint Paul 7B LIÈGE took you in his home for about a fourtnight. [sic] You were visited there several times by Mr. MONAMI, BOURGMESTRE DE BASSENGE, LIÈGE, whose name in the service was probably GILLES. It is probably this Mr GILLES that you mistake for Doctor GILLES. Mr MONAMI transferred you to Brussels.
P.T.O.
[page break]
So that if we resume Mrs Masson contacted the crew by me.
François [brackets] Langlois – Newton – Copley [symbol] Hacha – Masson [symbol] Witmeur [symbol] Doctor GILLES [symbol] Paul Doneux
First transfer from the villa: 14th Aug. 1941
Langlois – Newton – Copley [brackets] G. Marchand – P. Hacha [symbol] WITMEUR [symbol] DONEUX + VANDEWEERT [symbol] Doctor GILLES + Hotel de Provence.
Up to now you travel three together.
Then you are separated.
Hotel de Provence [brackets] 1O Langlois – HUFKENS (14 days) – MONAMI
2O Newton – 3O Copley – [brackets] were hidden in two other places. I’ll send you soon the names.
Mr. Monami knows probably the name of the man who was arrested with you. Monami, at that time was the chief of our gang. He passed to England, came back here by parachute and was taken by the Germans in 1942. He was sentenced to death but not executed. He just came back from a concentration camp and is in England for a fourtnight. [sic] I do not know his address there but as he knows your addresses from the papers I sent to the Sureté de l’Etat, it is possible that he will contact you directly. However I shall certainly see him later on. When he was arrested, the crew was taken over by Paul Doneux till the end of the war. I worked with Doneux till April 19th 1942. I intended to go to England and was taken by the G.F.P. an hour before departure with an other agent of the ZERO SERVICE, Mr. Paul POCHET + was kept in Saint GILLES. Mr. Monami was the leader of the service BEAVER-Baton. He has been one of the first to organize the rescue of airmen and was really doing a good job. He is now the President of the POLITICAL PRISONERS for Belgium. I met him once.
From a conversation I had with Mr HUFKENS, you have not been arrested with SCOHIER. The latter was arrested with his father and has come back.
But, a man of our crew, arrested by the Germans has spoken about you and the Germans showed to Hufkens the
[page break]
half of the snapshot with your picture that was taken on the rear balcony of the house of Mr. Hufkens. Hufkens never admitted that he knew you.
That man, whose name I shall find is now arrested and in jail in Brussels.
May be that his affair is connected with yours.
Now you can help me also by telling me the date of your unfortunate arrest in Brussels.
About the three other members of your crew, it is funny to say that I traced them in 1941.
Five days after I had transferred you to Doneux. I received information from Ostende via Mr Hacha.
They held three airmen of a Wellington that had crashed near Antwerp.
I thought immediately of your three other fellows and gave the number of the plane Wellington W. 5423 G with your names and the locations of three airfields Syston, Scampton, Swinderby (?). I am not sure of the spelling.
The three others admitted that they were part of your crew and I gave the O.K.
A few days later I received another information concerning three airmen belonging to a Wellington wearing the same number 5423. That time, I thought they were German. They had arrived in the neighbourhood of Brussels. I knew that you were six and not nine. At last, I got the news that the three men in question were the same as before, but they had contacted me through an other channel. What made me think that the world was not so extended. I should like to know something about them. I never saw them but did my best.
I should like to have a photo of you and I hope that you will be able to come once and visit us. It would be swell.
Within a short time I shall send you the results of my inquiry with the names and addresses, and if you come we shall have a meeting. It is already amusing to see the people who have known you at that time. Of course they know ROY. There are so many funny angles that you do not know that I’ll write that when I have more time.
[page break]
Now that the censorship is over we can write and it is a good thing.
I hope that you have passed a good V. day and that everything follows according to plan (without joke).
Here it is raining, for a change.
Thanks again to have written.
Yours very sincerely
[signature]
195 RUE DE CAMPINE
LIÈGE
Belgium.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Emile Witmeur to Roy Langlois
Description
An account of the resource
Letter to Jack Newton's pilot providing more information about the Belgian people who had been involved in the escape line to help his crew. Includes places they stayed and show linkage of the organisation. Includes information on Belgian resistance and escape line and members who had been arrested. He is trying to find out how Langlois was arrested and asks for information about his activities and others in the crew.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
E V Witmeur
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-08-19
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EWitmeurEVLangloisRB450819
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Belgium--Liège
Belgium--Antwerp
Belgium--Brussels
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-08-19
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
crash
escaping
evading
prisoner of war
Resistance
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1525/27323/EWitmeurEVLangloisRB450815-0001.2.jpg
10603726116e965dc8cf6bf958edd2bd
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1525/27323/EWitmeurEVLangloisRB450815-0002.2.jpg
812ddeade2acfb5cbe7e8d91889e2dda
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Newton, Jack Lamport
J L Newton
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Newton, JL
Description
An account of the resource
83 items. Collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Jack Newton (742570 Royal Air Force) who was a Sergeant air gunner on Wellington of 12 Squadron. His aircraft was landed on fire at a German occupied airfield in Antwerp in August 1941. He was the first airman to escape back to England via the Comète escape line. The rest of his crew were captured and made prisoners of war. The collection contains accounts of his escape, letters of research from Belgium helper, other official correspondence from the Red Cross and the Royal Air Force, photographs of places and people, newspaper cuttings propaganda leaflets and maps of airfield and escape route. In addition there is an interview with Jack Newton about his experiences in the wartime RAF.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jackie Bradford and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Robert B. LANGLOIS
Wittering
Peterborough
August 15th 1945.
My dear Friend,
I am so glad to receive your letter. It took nearly one month to come here. You have had quite an experience during the war and I hope that you will be able to make one trip to Belgium and see calmly the city and some of your friends.
I still do not understand how Newton succeeded and not you. I heard also about the three others of your crew who had gone first in the direction of Ostende and were contacted afterwards by our organisation. What happened to them? Did they succeed?
I shall send you a complete report of what I know but I tell you directly that it is hard to find out your trail. I could trace you because I had kept the paper written by your own hand. I did not know the other links. At that time, the agents I knew were following like this: de BECO – Felix JEANJEAN – myself – Doctor GILLES – PAUL DONEUX – Mr. MONAMI, HUFKENS. Did you know Mr. SCOHIER? Marcel LECLERCQ? HOFMAN?
If you give me a little time, I am sure to give you better information. Unfortunately, four years mean a long time in the life of out-laws and we have had tremendous losses.
Mr HACHA was not an agent. He helped occasionaly. [sic] Mrs. MASSON who told me that you were hiding in the villa of the FRANÇOIS (BEAUFAYS) became one of my best informers. Mr. MARCHAND who helped in your transfer to the villa, entered the service later on. He went to England and was parachuted. He did a good job with the Group “G”.
Doctor Gilles was executed on the 8th of May 1943. He had blown up a big transformer in the heavy industry plant of Ougrée. I send you his photo. I read your letter to his widow and she was also very glad to hear that you were at home again.
I hear that you have been in St. Gilles also. I remained there four months and a half, solitary confinement, with the red spot in the cell 309 Abteilung C in 1942. They released me for lack of evidence.
Of course I have heard of the Luft III. The belgian [sic] fighter pilot Picard one of our young comrades was shot in the tunnel affair. He had already had a narrow escape when he had been brought down over the channel. He was injured and floated in his rubber boat for a week before landing at the French coast. Taken and nursed by the Germans, he was sent to Germany.
[page break]
Now, the war is over and I am glad for you all who did such a magnificent job. No words are able to render our gratitude for what you did and it was but a great honour for us to meet you on our soil during the occupation. I shall never forget you because I had been waiting so long to help a British friend and you were the first. You did not succeed but I thought you had, and when I was in my cell, hearing the RAF passing over, I imagined that you were among the crews and that I was not there for nothing.
I have received big blows during the war, like you have. I have passed through metaphysical fears, but now that it is over, I find that, for me, it has been grand. If you come here, I shall tell you long stories, tragedies also. But never again shall we be pure as we were then. Most of my friends have been shot or did not return. That is why I should like so much to speak to you of their work, because you would certainly understand, after what you have lived, that if we were quickly defeated, we have never been slaves.
I am no more pilot. I was taken on the day of my departure to England. When the liberation came, I had been hiding myself for one year and a half. The Belgian Air Force did not want me, because I was more than 36 and reserve pilot. I worked with an American Air Depot Group and flew a lot pickaback in P. 38 and I had once an opportunity to fly alone in a Cub. I enjoyed it very much. I quitted my job last week because the Group was moving to the States and that the war is over. I do not know yet what I shall do. Before the war I travelled a lot. I was professor in Alexandria (Egypt) but I do not intend to go back, because my parents are old and I prefer to remain in their city. I hope that your wife and children are in good health and that you feel the joys of home.
Do not remain too long before writing to me.
Wishing you all the good
I remain
Yours very sincerely
[signature]
my private address is
E.V. WITMEUR
195 RUE DE CAMPINE
LIÈGE
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter from Emile Witmeur to Robert [sic] Langlois
Description
An account of the resource
Letter to Jack Newton's pilot from a member of the Belgian escape line He says he still does not know why Jack Newton was the only one of the crew to get successfully back to England. He goes on to describe in details his research into the trail of people involved in the escape line. He mentions one member who was executed by the Germans and that he had been held in solitary confinement for over four months. He goes on to describe the effect that the war had had on him.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
E V Witmeur
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-08-15
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EWitmeurEVLangloisRB450815
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Belgium--Liège
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Peterborough
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-08-15
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
crash
escaping
evading
prisoner of war
Resistance