I started planning for Andorra 2008 quite soon after finishing Andorra 2007. The route out was a good one via Port de Siguer but the return by bus, train and 14 kilometre road march would have to be changed. The solution was simple - walk back the way we came. I had rejected that idea for 2007 since I wasn't sure I would be fit enough to make the return journey straight after the tough walk out, but last year's experience showed me the going wasn't as hard as I'd feared, and the return should be easier as it's mostly downhill. Then I wondered if we could make Andorra 2008 a little more special.
The main route is the one that evaders W/Cdr John Embling, Sgt Cyril Penna, Sgt Eddy Canter, Sgt Henry Ord Robertson, F/O Prince Werner de Merode and F/Sgt Jack Dawson RAF, and Lt John Trost, Capt Richard Adams and 2/Lt Grady Roper USAAF, attempted in February 1943. Conditions were so harsh that de Merode, Dawson and Grady turned back. The rest of the party carried on but Penna, Trost and Adams were so badly frost bitten that on arrival in Andorra, they had to be left in a farmhouse while the remainder of the party continued to Spain. Penna, Robertson and de Merode later wrote books about their evasions, Penna (Escape and Evasion) and Robertson (Dangerous Landing) describing the horrific crossing in great detail with Robertson including the deaths of two other American airmen in the party. De Merode and Jack Dawson later joined 'Cockleshell Heroes' Major Blondie Hasler and Marine Bill Sparks to cross the Pyrenees further east the following month courtesy of Pat O'Leary and the Ponzan-Vidal organisation.
Early in 2008 I published a copy of an account of three American airmen who had perished in their attempt to cross the Pyrenees to Andorra in October 1943. They had died close to the border at Port del Rat, and I knew where that was having passed it on previous walks to Andorra via Port d'Arinsal. Thanks to American researcher Warren Carah, I got very interested in the story of the three men (click here to read the account in full) and thought they should be remembered formally if possible. There was just one problem - Port del Rat is not on the route that we were going to walk this year. Then I realised that we could do a third day walking up to Port del Rat, place our memorial and come back the same day. Usually Boris and I only have two days free to do our pre-Chemin walk but if we could arrive a day earlier, on the Friday, we could fit it all in and still get to St Girons on the Tuesday to join the other walkers for the Chemin. As it turned out, Boris had already decided to fly out rather than drive - he was going to do Andorra and the Chemin before flying to Holland for the four day Nijmegen March (which started the following Tuesday) as a fund-raising triple event - and the extra day wasn't a problem for him.
Then, to make it more special still, I noticed that another man I had written about, a New Zealand soldier who had been captured on Crete and later escaped from the German POW camp in Poland, had also died in a similar attempt at crossing to Andorra. His party used a different route again, via Collada de Juclar and we couldn't go there as well, but he had died on the same day as the three Americans. Now we had ample reasons for making that third day.
The three Americans who perished in the snow were 2/Lt Harold W Bailey (navigator of B-17 42-5827 Lakanuki) T/Sgt William B Plasket (radio operator of B-17 42-30163) and S/Sgt Francis E Owens (waist gunner of B-17 42-29928). All three airmen had bailed out over northern France and been helped, at least some of the way, by Georges Broussine's Bourgogne escape network. The New Zealand soldier was Driver Frederick Geoffrey Williamson RNZASC. Following his escape from Poland and Germany he was helped by the Marie-Claire escape line.
This year I decided that we'd stay in a hotel in Tarascon. One reason was that veteran widow Dot Collins and her daughter and son-in-law would be staying there, and we'd already agreed to meet them for the Saturday evening meal. The cost was only about eleven euros a night more than the hostel we would otherwise have used - and it would save us a lot of driving. As a bonus, by starting in Tarascon, we had to pass the Boulangerie Saint Roch, our favourite café, to get to both start points, which meant we could pick up lunch on the way.
Accommodation for Saturday night in Andorra was a separate problem that our friend Claude Benet offered to solve for us. Most hotels at or near El Serrat are closed at that time of year and the nearest place I could find was several miles away, so Claude's kind offer was particularly welcome. He booked us into the four-star Hotel El Serrat.
In retrospect Andorra 2008 was an ambitious plan - three hard days walking with just two days' rest before the Chemin de la Liberté was not something I would have considered a few years ago but somehow it seemed like a good idea to really push my luck this year. What was the worst that could happen ...
Well for starters, we could get caught out by the weather. A couple of weeks before we were due to go, there were reports of heavy snow in the area and torrential rain. Despite advertising the walk on the ELMS website, there had been no interest so it would be just Boris and me this year but a small group has some advantages when it comes to travelling in bad weather. Assuming the routes were actually passable, it would simply be up to me to keep up.
We were up early on Saturday morning and, only pausing to pick up sandwiches and coke, drove up to Bouychet to start the walk. The weather was fairly kind to us and we soon overtook the very few other walkers we saw that day. Three hours later and we'd gained a thousand metres to the Etang de Peyregrand where we had our first stop. Then it was on to the frontier. Last year we had somehow missed the turning for the Port de Siguer, and this year we missed it again. So it was a hard climb to the top with several false crests before we finally made it to the border at about half past two. The weather was still warm and clear and so it was a fairly easy descent into the Principality.
Three hours walking and this is Etang de Peyregrand
where we had our first break of the day
Two and a half hours later, on the final climb to Port
de Siguer, I paused just to take this picture
For some reason there was no water at the refuge at Rialb this year and we couldn't top up our supplies until almost at the road above El Serrat. We made it to the town at about five o'clock and settled into the nearest bar to top up on cokes before walking down to our hotel, which is unfortunately quite a long way down from the village itself. However it turned out to be worth it with excellent rooms, brilliant buffet meals and very reasonable prices.
Looking back to France from Port de Siguer
Looking into Andorra from Port de Siguer
Next day we had a forty-minute road walk back to our start point before the ascent to Port de Siguer. It seemed quite steep, and I was still tired from the previous day, but in fact we made it to the border in about two and a half hours. From the top we could see the proper path back down into France and that turned out to be so much easier than the route we had used the previous day. It came out at a crossing point on the Ruisseau de Peyregrand that runs all along the valley bottom but there seemed no safe way to cross without getting our feet wet - so we got wet feet. As we had descended, the clouds had came up to meet us so we were wet already, and there were several more boggy areas to wade through anyway. The rest of the walk was spent in mist and rain, making the final descent down the rocky path to Bouychet particularly unpleasant.
Half an hour down from the top and you can see the clouds moving up the valley
We've just crossed the river and it's a good three
hours to the finish - we got soaked
Monday was to be the big day for me. We knew the route wouldn't be too hard, although I was still concerned about the final ascent. More sandwiches and coke and we set off from the Etang de Soulcem at about nine o'clock. Although we started in cloud and rain, this cleared as we rapidly gained altitude and the final climb to Port del Rat was not as bad as I had feared. We reached the top before noon and spent some time arranging the four ELMS crosses before holding a minute's silence for the men we had come to remember.
Just a few minutes from Monday's start point and you can see for yourself what the weather was like
The route to Port del Rat is marked but finding the way through mist and low cloud was not so easy
Climbing to Port del Rat you can see the route to
Port d'Arinsal in the distance
Port del Rat from the French side - we placed the
ELMS crosses on the other side the cairn
Please remember that no matter how hard these walks were for us, war-time evaders would not have our advantages. Evaders would have been walking for several days through the heavily guarded zone interdite before the actual mountain ascent. Although mostly young men, they would not have been very fit after evading for weeks. They would have travelled by night, with poor rations and minimal protective clothing, and often in the winter months. The surprise is not so much that men died in these mountains - but that many more did not.
Each ELMS cross has the man's details on the back. We put rocks around them to give some protection
The crosses were placed on the Andorran side where
we thought they would be better sheltered
All photographs are copyright property of the editor
Thanks to Warren Carah, the families of the American airmen were all notified in advance of our trip and had given their approval. Although one of Dvr Williamson's family members was notified of our trip in advance, I was not able to contact his next of kin until after the visit