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Françoise – Partis vers 30 Mai
In various files for Françoise Dissard, there is a list of evaders helped by her organisation in Toulouse, together with dates that one might assume referred to their departure dates from Toulouse.
There are four names under the date 30 May but Ronald Hoare and James Smith joined a party dated 22 May for the actual crossing of the Pyrenees, setting off for Canejan (Catalonia) on 26 May.
The other two men, Jessse Hamby and Joel McPherson, have quite separate stories, and although Hamby actually crossed the mountains in the same party as Hoare and Smith, McPherson crossed with a different group altogether, setting off for Canejan on 16 June.
This page first posted 20 Feb 2021
P/O Ronald George Hoare (2003) from Hayes in Middlesex, was the 21-year-old flight engineer of 12 Sqn Lancaster JB650 (Grannum) on a mission to Berlin on the evening of 27 January 1944. They were just leaving the target when they were hit by flak, getting as far as Belgium before running out of fuel, and abandoning the aircraft south-east of Liege.
Hoare landed in a wood north-east of the village of Banneux at about half-past midnight, and after burying his parachute, Mae West, harness and jacket, began walking south-west until he found a haystack to sleep in. He stayed there until the following evening, when he approached a small farm on the outskirts of Banneux. When he knocked on the door, he was invited in, and that found his bomb aimer, P/O David Murphy (LIB/1670), who had arrived there that morning, and was in the house next door being sheltered by Henri Charleseche and family. Hoare joined him there, and they stayed that night and the following day until two men, Emil Quintart and Arthur Defay, took them to schoolmaster Emil Quintart's house, a few miles away at 24 rue de Damré in Sprimont.
Hoare and Murphy lived with Emil Quintart and his wife for the next ten weeks, during which time they learned that their pilot, F/O E Grannum, was also being sheltered in Sprimont, their mid-uuper gunner Sgt K Singleton was in Aywaille, and navigator P/O Richard Taylor (MB/1486) in Liège.
On 7 April, an unnamed 19-year-old man took Hoare and Murphy to Liège, where he passed them on to a Flemish doctor named Maurice Appeldoorn who took them to his home just south-west of the city at Tilleux, where he lived with his two sisters and two sons at 138 rue Horloz. Ten days later, on 17 April, Maurice took them, along with F/Lt William W Foster RCAF (LIB/1767) - the Canadian pilot of 169 Sqn Mosquito HJ711, who had been sheltered in Liege since 18 March - and another (unnamed) RAF man, by train to Rienne, close to the French border, where they stayed with Desire Paquay, his wife and two daughters.
On 26 April, Desire Paquay took the four airmen to Alle, where they met Joseph Brasseaur, who took them further south to his house in Corbion, about a kilometre from the border with Champagne-Ardenne. They stayed at Corbion for three days, being joined there by 2/Lt Herbert T Swanson (pilot of B-17 42-97124 The Joker), and on 29 April, a guide took them all by car across the border to Sedan, and the Café de la Gare. Whilst at Sedan, they learned that F/O Grannum and their radio operator F/Sgt J Quinn were also in the town, and intending to go to Switzerland.
They left Sedan on 1 May, using tickets that were bought for them but the five airmen travelling on their own by train to Paris, where they stayed overnight (and the unidentified RAF man left them), and on to Vierzon (Centre) the following morning. From Vierzon, Hoare, Murphy, Foster and Swanson took a bus to Graçay, and then walked the last few kilometres to Orville. Before they left Sedan, they had been given the address in Orville of Andre de la Roche, where they stayed until 11 May, being joined there by F/O James Smith (1998). They were also given an address in Tarbes and 1,000 francs each, apparently from a British intelligence agent who they never met.
F/O James Arthur Smith (1998) from Pymble, New South Wales, Australia, was the 21-year-old pilot of 9 Sqn Lancaster LM361 on an operation to Paris on the evening of 18 April 1944. They were hit by flak almost immediately after dropping their bombs, and Smith gave the order to bale out.
Smith landed in open countryside somewhere near Paray-Vielle-Poste (site of modern-day Orly Airport), and after hiding his parachute and flying kit, walked south for about ten miles before hiding in some trees near a farmhouse. He was found there next day by a woman, and after Smith explained in his “schoolboy” French who he was, she brought him some food. The woman brought more food that evening before Smith set off to walk a further twenty kilometres roughly south before stopping to spend the rest of the night in a field. The following morning, he declared himself to the first farmer he found, a man who took Smith back to his house in Saint-Michel-sur-Orge.
Smith stayed at Saint-Michel for two days, and on 22 April, his host gave him a ragged coat to put over his uniform, and told him to take a train (south-west) to Dourdan. At the station, he was unable to produce the required identity card but on telling the girl in the booking office that he was in the RAF, she gave him a ticket without charge. From Dourdan (which was as far as that particular train went), Smith walked (south-east) to Etamps, and on finding the town full of Germans, turned right to the village of La Foret-le-Roi, where he spent the night in a haystack.
Next day, he walked to Méréville, where he slept out in the open, and next day took a train to Vierzon. He wandered around the town trying to find out where the demarcation line was (not knowing it was no longer patrolled) and eventually asked a woman if he could have a drink of water. She took Smith into her house where her 19-year-old son immediately realised he was an Allied airman. The son brought a bottle of wine, and offered to shelter Smith – the boys mother telling him that she knew someone in Paris who she thought could help get him back to the UK.
Nine days later, the son was on a bus going to market when he spotted four men he thought looked like British airmen. He approached one of the men, who turned out to be Canadian F/Lt William Foster (LIB/1767), who admitted they were all airmen. He agreed to try and help Smith, and would come back in two days time, and meanwhile, would send him a telegram. When no telegram arrived, Smith and boy set out to try and find the men. They had just about given up when they met the Canadian who said he was on his way to to fetch Smith. Foster took Smith back with him to Orville, where they joined Ronald Hoare, David Murphy and Herbert Swanson, and Smith travelled with Hoare from this point.
On 11 May, the five airmen (Hoare, Murphy, Smith, Foster and Swanson) walked back to Graçay and took a bus to Issoudun, and then a train to Toulouse. They missed their connection for Tarbes that day, and so slept out in a wood, and it's not clear whether they did take a train or found some other way to get to Tarbes next day. On arrival however, the address they had been given – Jean Tarbareau at 6 rue des Ecoles - turned out not to exist. They decided it was too dangerous to remain in such a large group, so leaving Murphy, Foster and Swanson at Tarbes (where they were captured at the railway station that afternoon), Hoare and Smith made their way south to Bagnères-de-Bigorre.
Hoare and Smith had no address to go to in Bagnères but they took a room in one of the cafes, and that night told the proprietor they were English. He was friendly enough but offered no help so the airmen decided to try and cross the mountains by themselves. They failed however (no details given) and they returned to Bagnères on 15 May. This time the café proprietor brought a friend who “boarded them out” in different houses in the neighbourhood, and they were joined by American 2/Lt Jesse Hamby.
On 21 May, a guide took the three airmen by bicycle to a small place east of Bagnères, where they stayed overnight in a deserted refugee camp. Next morning, they were taken by truck to Saint-Gaudens where they met some maquis, who took them by car to Arbon (Midi-Pyrenees).
2/Lt Jesse M Hamby (#762) from Fairfield, Alabama was the 23-year-old co-pilot of 389BG/564BS B-24 42-28763 returning from Strasbourg on 1 April 1944 with fuel leaking from the damaged fuel tanks. They were south-west of Arras, and all the crew baled out (including Command Pilot Colonel James K Thompson, who was killed when his parachute failed to open properly) except for the pilot, 1/Lt Alan J Teague, who had a broken leg and crash-landed the aircraft at Adinfer, Pas-de-Calais – he was still in his seat when he was captured by German soldiers, who sent him to a hospital.
I am guessing that because there were three extra officers on board (a command pilot and two additional navigators from 448 Group), Hamby had been stationed at the rear of the aircraft because he says that when their engines ran out of fuel, he followed the tail-gunner (Dutka) out of the waist exit at about 6,000 feet.
Hamby landed in a tree, hanging from his parachute until a man appeared with a knife in his mouth, which he passed up to Hamby so he could cut himself free. Once on the ground, the man took Hamby's flying boots off so they could run about a mile to a hole in the ground where Hamby was hidden with another man, an escaped Russian POW.
That night, the Russian left, and the first man returned and took Hamby to a farmhouse where he joined S/Sgt John Dutka (#2157). They were then fed, given civilian clothes, and taken to another house to be hidden in the attic, where they joined their radio operator S/Sgt Simon Cohen (#2156). The airmen were told they would leave in a couple of days but in the meantime, had to stay hidden.
Hamby reports that they could see their aircraft from the attic, and as it appeared to have been crash-landed, were concerned that some of secret equipment may not have been destroyed. Their helpers were unwilling, or unable, to help so the three Americans decided to do something themselves. There were only two German guards, one on the tail with a machinegun and the other walking the perimeter, and with Hamby being the smallest of the three, it was decided that he would sneak on board while Cohen and Dutka dealt with the guards - their report saying that Dutka disposed on the man on the tail while Cohen got the other – and Hamby proceeded to smash much of the secret equipment with an iron bar, and then “broke up” the radio room.
Next day, Ernest Chretien took charge of them but as their helpers had no actual means of getting of them away, tensions rose as the Americans were impatient to move on. Finally, on 23 April, Ernest took the three airmen on a morning train to Paris, where a friend took them to the railway marshalling yards and arranged for them to go by freight train to Chartres, where they arrived the following morning.
They spent the first night sleeping out while Ernest made some contacts, and next day were moved to a shop, where a woman spoke English and sheltered them overnight. Next day, pharmacist Raymond Picourt (born 21 October 1900, of 15 avenue Jehan-de-Beauce) came with another man, a stout fellow who wore glasses, and told them they would have to be separated, and Dutka was taken to stay with a farmer named Foreau just outside the town at 7 rue de Poiffonds, Luce. Hamby describes these people as having real connections but these soon broke down for reasons he was never told.
On 4 May, Cohen (who was particularly anxious to leave) was moved from the shop to stay with an elderly schoolteacher, a widow whose husband had owned a vineyard, and on 8 May, he went to meet Picourt on a farm but Picourt was apparently busy helping Mahurin at this point. This is a reference to P-47 pilot Major Walter Mahurin (#617), who was picked up by Lysander from a field near Outarville (about 50 kms SE of Chartres) on the night of 6-7 May.
It's not clear where Hamby was sheltered in Chartres but he was also impatient to leave, especially after hearing that another American had been kept in the area for the past six weeks, and having acquired a bicycle, he set off on his own on 8 May.
Hamby found shelter the first night after approaching a couple in a field, and next day, using his escape map, he established a routine of trying to find relatively poor places to spend each night, as isolated as possible and with no telephone lines. He also tried to keep himself looking as respectable as possible, shining his shoes each morning and dusting down his clothes, and in this way cycled through Poitiers, Civray, Angoulème, Libourne, Cadillac, Bazas and Luxey to Mont-de-Marsan, where he planned to cross the demarcation line by heading north-east, which he did on the fourth day after cutting through some woods to bypass the guard post.
Hamby cycled all the way to Bagnères-de-Bigorre before deciding to try using the trains again, and put on the railway workers armband he had retained from his earlier experience. The first time he showed the armband to a man at the station, he was immediately accepted as a comrade, at which point Hamby declared himself as an American. His new friend booked him into a hotel, where he found two RAF airmen who had recently discovered for themselves just how hard it could be trying to cross the mountains unaided at that time of year.
On 26 May, Ronald Hoare, James Smith and Jesse Hamby set off for the mountains with two guides and four maquis members. They joined F/Sgt Albert Jackson (1995), the mid-upper gunner of 514 Sqn Lancaster DS815, and a party of fourteen Americans before walking to Canejan (Catalonia), where they arrived on 29 May. They were arrested by Spanish police at Canejan, and taken next day to Les, and then on to Viella and Sort (where they are all recorded as ariving on 5 June), and from there to Lerida and Alhama before being released and taken to Madrid, and on to Gibraltar - Hamby on 19 June, and Hoare and Smith on 23 June.
Hamby left Gibraltar by overnight flight to RAF Whitchurch (Bristol) on 21 June 1944, and Hoare and Smith on 24 June, also by overnight flight to Whitchurch.
1/Lt Joel W McPherson (#849) from Lakewood, Ohio, was the 25-year-old pilot of 352FG/HQ Sqn P-47 42-75532, flying a bomber escort mission on 29 January 1944 which he was forced to abort when his aircraft suffered a short-circuit. I presume this meant his instruments failed because he says he then got lost in the overcast “on the Channel”, and after flying over water for forty minutes without sighting England, and knowing he must be low on fuel, turned back for France, shortly before his engine stopped, and he bailed out. The fact that he landed near Rouillac, Charente seems to suggest he was indeed seriously lost.
McPherson landed “easily” near a farmhouse but with his parachute caught in a tree, and on asking a woman and young boy for help, was taken into their house. They were soon joined by numerous other people until the grandfather insisted McPherson leave because the police were expected to arrive. McPherson kicked off his flying boots, and having found where he was on his escape map, set off running south in his GI shoes, leather A2 flying jacket and ODs. He soon came to his crashed aircraft, by then surrounded by a crowd of people, and so cut across country to avoid them, covering an estimated six kilometres before stopping to rest in a wood. Later he saw a man herding cows, and whistled to get his attention. The man told him to stay in the wood until dark when he would come back with food and civilian clothes, but returned half an hour later to report a German search, and moved McPherson to a culvert under a main road.
That evening, the man and a friend brought food and a coat, and took McPherson to a farm where he spent the night and following day in a hayloft. Sunday night (30 January) he was given a hot meal and civilian clothes before being guided out of the area, after which he got completely lost.
McPherson managed to find another farm, where he hid in another hayloft for the rest of the night before setting off walking next day. After a while though, his leg, which had caught when he bailed out from his aircraft, began to trouble him, and he went to hide in another barn. He was found there that evening, and allowed to stay but the owners were too frightened to help him further. He carried on walking all next day, and found shelter that night at Barbezieux (assume Barbezieux–Saint-Hilaire) with a man whose son was a P/W.
The following day, after walking and hitching rides, he found shelter that night at Montlieu (assume Montlieu-la-Garde) with a carpenter, who spoke English. The man said that if McPherson would be patient then he would find help for him, and five days later, made contact with a maquis group.
On 5 February, the carpenter took McPherson by bicycle some 30 km to La Fanage (query) where they met an elderly man, a former French intelligence officer who was the maquis contact. He told them to go to Echourgnac (Dordogne) and contact Marcel, the local baker. The carpenter cycled into the village to see Marcel, and then someone who worked at the bakery came and told them a truck would pick McPherson up.
Marcel and two men armed with machineguns, arrived in a Citroen car, and took McPherson, first to Echourgnac, where they dropped off Marcel, and then to Saint-André-de-Double, where they picked up a maquisard called Georges before driving on another five kilometres to a chateau. The chateau appeared to be deserted, until they arrived, when more armed men appeared, including their chief, a man called Achille, who looked like a prize-fighter. Two days later, word was received that the Germans were on the way, and the group quickly packed up and moved to a farm south of the town at Les Mignots, where they built themselves a hideout in the woods.
McPherson soon became disillusioned with group, which spent more time looting other chateaus on the pretext of the owners being collaborators, than actually fighting the Germans, so when another maquis chief arrived, a man (also) known as Georges, McPherson asked if he could help get him away.
On 3 March, Georges took McPherson back to his camp at Clermont-de-Beauregard, where he was interrogated by the unit's intelligence officer, and told he would have to wait for a while because of heavy snow in the Pyrenees. Georges told him they had helped other Americans, first name of one of them being Lawrence - this was 2/Lt Lawrence Grauerholz (#439) and 2/Lt William Foley (#440), the navigator and co-pilot of B-17 42-31164 Lucky Lady, who had been helped by Georges and his maquis in January. This group's interpretor was a rabid communist Yugoslav called Andre Doublemetre - previously a Paris lawyer, his real name was Andre Urban (of 5 Passage Doisy, Paris XVII). Meanwhile, McPherson dressed in the same blue uniform as the rest of the Dordogne maquis.
Grauerholtz says that Georges was aged about 20, 6 ft 1 or 2 ins tall, and wore horn-rimmed glasses. He had an “innocent stare” and was apparently a well-read university graduate from a cultured family. He describes them as a highly organised, patriotic group, where Georges was the boss with Pierre (the oldest at 32) as his corporal.
The following evening, some of the group went raiding but were ambushed, with several men being shot, and next day they packed everything into trucks. The eighteen remaining men stayed that night but there was a sudden alarm, and McPherson heard machinegun fire. He was trapped in a room with only one exit, and after a grenade was thrown through the window, McPherson came out and surrendered, one of eight men to be captured, not by Germans, but by French soldiers.
After spending the rest of night loading stolen equipment into trucks, they were driven to a town, where the maquis were put into cells. They had already told their capturs that McPherson was an evading airman, and he was treated separately, eating in the officers mess, and spending the day in the guard room. One of his guards spoke enough English to describe the best way to go if he escaped, and a lieutenant arranged for him to have room to himself but this was changed after the sergeant of the guard called the captain who had led the raid, and he made McPherson sleep in the guard room with the sergeant and a corporal. However, when the Vichy police came in, the sergeant made sure they didn't see McPherson.
Next day, the police drove them all to Perigueux, the maquis in a van and McPherson in a car with the captain. McPherson reports that the maquis men, especially Georges and his second-in-command (Pierre), were beaten and jabbed with bayonets – George later being turned over to the Germans and shot. Another maquis man was also shot, and the rest charged as thieves and deported.
However, before this happened, McPherson received a package of tobacco, aspirin and a message that “friends” were waiting for him in the hospital. The note gave instructions on how to mix the aspirin with the tobacco before smoking it, which would give him a fever, and then make himself vomit, and feign appendicitus. This apparently worked well enough for a doctor to send him to hospital in an ambulance where, despite his protests, his appendix was removed that Saturday evening under anaesthetic.
The rescue attempt took place early the following Monday when two men brought a stretcher, claiming a doctor had ordered McPherson downstairs for an examination. The nurse insisted he was too sick to be moved, and on being told why, the two men hastily left. News of this incident soon spread, and that afternoon a German ambulance took McPherson to a German military hospital, and a ward with two soldiers, where he was the only officer.
Eight days after his operation, McPherson was up walking, although still very weak, and six days later, his stitches were removed and he was pronounced ready to be moved. That night, McPherson made a difficult (and painful) escape through the window and over a wall into the street (he had already been given details of the street patrols by Jacqueline Braillard, a young French girl forced to work in the caserne kitchen), and wearing his blue maquis uniform and American GI shoes, he had covered about ten kilometres by mid-day.
That night he found shelter in a small house near Coursac where the family was able to contact a maquis group next day. Unfortunately, the maquis failed to appear, and so five days later (on 29 March), McPherson set off once more, walking south-west and spending that night in a house on the outskirts of Grignols. The people there were able to contact another maquis group, and this time he was collected, much to his surprise, by Doublemetre (Andre Urban), Alfred (Achilles intelligence man), and Alejandro (a Spanish maquis chief known to the French as Gerard).
They stopped at a house near Jaure where a man promised to get McPherson out, before going on to Saint-Jean-d'Estissac, where their headquarters was on a farm. Three days later, they heard that the man at Jaure had been killed, and next day, the maquis group McPherson had known at Saint-André-de-Double arrived. The group was now led by Roland, with Jimmy as his second-in-command, and they told McPherson that after being driven out of Saint-Andre, they had been hiding out in Lot-et-Garonne.
McPherson went with them to Saint-Aubin-de-Cadelech, where he stayed for two days with a Swiss family called Dopat (query writing), who had come from Paris where the father had been a Vichy official. The group them moved to la Capelle (query), where McPherson stayed with Roland.
On 5 May, a man arrived from Saint-André-de-Double who said he could get McPherson into the same organisation that had helped Robert Martin (#724) and Lawson Campbell (the pilot and co-pilot of B-24 42-100414). Alfred (Achilles intelligence man) and his boy were supposed to drive him to Lunas but went instead to nearby Saint-Jean-d'Eyraud where they contacted a man who was either an electrician or garage man. He knew Martin and Campbell (Martin describes him as a former motor mechanic, and I believe this was former SOE helper Albert Rigoulet (aka Le Frisé) born 25 May 1906), and was in contact with a man called Philippe, and on 6 May, took McPherson to Lunas to meet him.
Philippe (Françoise guide Jean Henri Bregi, born 27 November 1898) put McPherson in the nearby house of Mme Schiffelers, wife of Belgian dentist Emile Schiffelers, because she spoke English. McPherson was supposed to go to Toulouse in two or three days but says that Philippe “had an accident” which delayed matters. A note was sent to André (sic) in Toulouse to collect McPherson in ten days time but meanwhile, he had gone north to collect a group of US airmen, and been killed in an Allied air raid on Creil.
McPherson was sent to Perigueux (which he was not happy about) to be sheltered at the house where Joseph Sutphin and Melvin Porter (the navigator and left waist-gunner of B-24 42-100414) had stayed before leaving for Toulouse in April, and reports that two RAF boys had also stayed there, one of whom may have been named Anderson. He says the owner of the house was in the trucking business, and that A ndré 's wife picked him up from there and took him to Toulouse.
McPherson seems to have got slightly confused here. I believe that in Perigueux, he was sheltered either by Roger Couturoux at 3 Cours Fenelon, or in the Lamy home at 85 boulevard Petit Change, although Françoise guide René Lamy (aka Copain) (born 12 September 1912) had been killed in an Allied air attack on Creil on 10 May, and his widow Andrée (born 27 October 1911) and their three children had moved to the villa Pamplemousse, just outside Toulouse at 27 Chemin Cazals, Croix-Daurade.
McPherson arrived in Toulouse (probably on 6 June), and stayed overnight in a woman's apartment where six other evaders (including Martin and Campbell) had stayed before. McPherson also reports that “Jean the Florist” (Jean Bovis of 15 rue Job, Toulouse), who had a house of his own, sometimes stayed there, as did a former news reporter, and another man, who looked like “a skinny Englishman”, who took McPherson to Boulogne-sur-Gesse next day.
At Boulogne, the skinny man took McPherson for a drink in a hotel where they got friendly with the proprietress, who told them there were three Americans hiding upstairs but they turned out to be Dutchman - I am presuming this was the Hotel Moderne where Sagan escaper F/Lt Bram van der Stok (2032) says that he, Rudi Schreinemachers and Lodewyk Bleys stayed overnight on 9 (sic) June. At lunch, McPherson says they met Charbonnier (Jean-Louis Bazerque), the man who was to guide them across the Pyrenees, who then left, saying he would be back in twenty minutes. The skinny man then left but Charbonnier didn't return for several days. Meanwhile, McPherson and the Dutchmen made so much fuss that the proprietress moved McPherson and one of the Dutchmen to a farm. Two days later, Frisco (Joseph Barrere) arrived, and he took them, along with the other two Dutchmen, to another farm where they joined twenty-five refugees. Frisco brought them food at regular intervals before finally moving them to Arbon, near Aspet (van de Stok says Vignaut, which is just north-west of Arbon), where they joined two Canadians - Sgt Gerard Shaughnessy (2017) and F/O Hugh Thomas (2018) - along with American 2/Lt Gilbert Stonebarger (#846), French nurse Mlle Eugenie Roby (born 2 December 1907, of 33 rue Henri Barbusse, Bezons), and Yves Atalli, who was on his way to Algiers.
On 12 June, Charbonnier finally arrived and explained that he had been busy "hauling maquis". McPherson says they were to leave with him on 14 June but on that night, they were joined by man called Antoni Poney, and Nan, a Scottish girl from Saint-Gaudens who told them that Charbonniere and Frisco had been killed the previous night while running a German barricade. Nan promised to find them another guide, and two days later Jean Duval came to tell them they would leave next day. He returned as promised and led them to a “real” guide, and as he (Jean) was going to Algiers himself, he remained with the party (which Stonebarger says included thirty-one Jewish refugees). They set off walking on 16 June, and two days later, the unnamed guide left them within a few miles of Spain. Jean Duval led them the rest of the way, McPherson adding (and Stonebarger confirms) that by the time they crossed the border at Canejan later that day (18 June), Poney and Duval were carrying Stonebarger.
I am presuming they were arrested at Canejan, and taken to Bossost and then Vielha (where Thomas says they spent two days), then Sort (where they are recorded as arrriving on 21 June, with Duval, Poney, Attali and Eugenie Roby all claiming to be Canadian), followed by five days at Lerida and then to Alhama de Aragon.
Gerard Shaughnessy (2017), Hugh Thomas (2018) and Bram van der Stok (2032) reached Gibraltar on 8 July, and two days later were flown overnight to RAF Whitchurch (Bristol), arriving there on 11 July 1944.
For some reason, McPherson and Stonebarger didn't reach Gibraltar until 28 July, both leaving two days later - McPherson being flown to the USAAF base at St Mawgen in Cornwall, and Stonebarger to Bristol, both arriving on 31 July 1944.
Thank you David Harrison for information on Albert Rigoulet. Corrected names of of the two Engelandvaaders from Megan Koreman's 2018 book “The Escape Line”.