Memorial to the Guides and Escapees |
Despite the German's cruel and heavy handed efforts to crush the resistance movement here in the mountains — they were merciless when locals were found to be helping Allied soldiers escape — statistics tell us that 33,000 French and about 6,000 servicemen escaped over the border, using these secret escape trails.
The walk is referred to nonchalantly by the gallant man who organises (and for years lead it), as a tough, sporting challenge.
Scott Goodall, MBE, has written a marvellous step by step guide to the whole adventure. The Freedom Trail is a terrific read, full of stories of forged German documents, of burying parachutes and swapping clothes with peasant guides in the dead of night, or hiding in a room above a restaurant in Toulouse, (the place still there today), being in a wooden cart full of vegetables, on the way to the escape route, then stopped in the market beside a barking Alsatian held by a German soldier. These stories recount bravery and nerve of the highest order, from both the soldiers and the guides who risked their lives to help them.
For anyone thinking of attempting this walk, the book describes in absolute detail, but easy to follow, one of the scariest escape routes of all. The one that goes over the top; literally up and over a part of the enormous, daunting Pyrenees.
The Freedom Trail
by Scott Goodall, MBE
Published by Inchmere Design, UK and online from Amazon UK, etc.
©2011 Jane Shortall for SeniorWomen.com
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