Art32 Tragedy in the Pyrenees

This story appears elsewhere on the web but I wanted to repeat it here as a reminder of the risks taken,
the hardships endured, and the price sometimes paid by evaders in their attempts to escape to freedom.

Tragedy in the Pyrenees - The High Cost of Freedom

by Warren B Carrah

This is the story of seven American aviators who were shot down over occupied France in 1943. After being supported by numerous helpers throughout France, the aviators from several different units found themselves together on the platform of a railway station on the south side of Paris. They were to complete their dangerous journey home by crossing the Pyrenees into Spain. Here is their story:

For many evaders, the final and most formidable obstacle to their escape from occupied Europe is scaling the Pyrenean mountains that separate France from neutral Spain. The hazards are numerous, and in winter the mountain range can be deadly for the unprepared.

On 1 Sep 1943, after months of inactivity and marginal food, Lt Olof M Ballinger and S/Sgt Francis "Bud" Owens left the countryside of the Department of Orne, for Paris, and prepared to cross the Pyrenees. On 21 October 1943, Ballinger and Owens joined five other allied airmen and seven Frenchmen at a train station in Paris for the trip south to Toulouse and then St Girons. The other Americans included Major William T Boren (387BG), 1/Lt Keith W Murray (95BG), 2/Lt Harold Bailey (379BG), 2/Lt Charles H Hoover (381BG), and T/Sgt William B Plasket (306BG). Each airman has his own guide for the train journey; all were female members of the Resistance. The Frenchmen in the group, all military officers, were risking the trip so they could join Free French forces in North Africa.

The climb up the mountains began on 22 October 1943, the route chosen transiting the small principality of Andorra before turning southeast towards their ultimate destination of Barcelona. However, trouble haunted the expedition from the very beginning. Lt Ballinger found that his legs would not do what he wanted them to do and he experienced severe cramping. The group was barely into the foothills of the Pyrenees at Suc, southeast of St Girons, and Ballinger could go no further.

Ballinger was instructed to hide and wait for the guide's return in eight to ten days. Ballinger spent the next week and a half at a farm near Suc, waiting for the guide's return. On 29 Oct he was warned that the Gestapo were in the area and that he had to move. On 30 October, Ballinger decided to try crossing the mountain range alone without a guide. He had no compass and so was forced to navigate by the sun and stars. He eventually reached Spain through Andorra, but he was in poor condition. He was briefly taken into custody by Spanish authorities and spent several weeks in Manresa and Barcelona recuperating from his ordeal before moving on to Gibralter and returning to England on 3 December 1943.

For the remaining climbers, the going was even more difficult because German sentries seemed to be everywhere. Climbing for 30 hours, progress was very slow as the group avoided enemy soldiers which forced them to take difficult passages through the mountains. As they reached the summit, a fierce storm struck, bringing bitter cold and deep snow. One of the Americans could no longer walk and he collapsed in the snow. He was carried by the others, but the effort was exhausting.

Shortly after beginning the descent on the Andorran side of the mountains, two more Americans fell to the snow-covered ground, utterly drained by their ordeal. The lack of food and exercise plus the severe cold had drained away all of their energy. Their feet were frozen due to the disintegration of their French "ersatz" paper shoes which were hardly suitable for the wet climb through several feet of snow and sharp rock.

The guides were furious at the delays and they went to great lengths to get their American charges to stand up and move on. At one point a guide pointed his weapon at one of the airmen and ordered him to get up. The airman seemed not to hear and the guide fired his pistol next to the head of the dazed evader. It had no effect. The group had to move on and they reluctantly left the fallen men and proceeded down the mountain. Thus no one witnessed the final hours of Lt Bailey, T/Sgt Plasket or S/Sgt Owens, which probably came on 25 October 1943, at Port del Rat, Andorra.

In the spring of 1944, the bodies of the three airmen were discovered by local mountaineers and buried at Arinsal, Andorra. The remains were exhumed by the U.S. Army in 1950 and positively identified in June 1951. The family of S/Sgt Owens elected to have his remains interred at the Ardennes American Military Cemetery in Belgium, while they simultaneously celebrated the requiem high mass at their parish church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on 1 October 1951. Earlier during the war, the Owens family was presented with the Soldiers Medal that their son Francis has earned saving the life of a fellow airman during the bomb loading accident of 23 June 1943 at Ridgewell Field.

In the spring of 2006, the Owens family were presented with Bud Owens' dog tag which had been held by the McConnell family over the years while they searched for his survivors. Francis Owens left the dog tag with the Duval family of La Coulonche [Normandy] when he departed for Paris in September 1943. In 1983, former navigator Paul McConnell was visiting La Coulonche with his wife Marie and given the dog tag by the elderly Duval family in the hopes that Francis Owens' next of kin could be located in America. Despite a concerted effort, Mr McConnell passed away before he could locate the Owens family. Warren Carah, son of 42-29928's co-pilot, John M Carah, finally located the Owens family in the Pittsburgh area in early 2006 and arranged for the transfer of the artifact. And so, a part of Francis "Bud" Owens finally returned home some 63 years after he left to fight for his country in the skies over Europe.