Sydney Horton (left) and Bob Parkinson (right)
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The story of Bob Parkison and Sydney Horton has been pieced together from letters from their relatives detailing their journey (PH-01 and RW-01) and sections from Denys Teare's book "Evader".
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Unbeknown to both men, Bob and Syd landed close together in a wooded area near the crash site. Shortly after landing Bob saw a German motorcycle that had seen the plane crash but it did not search the area for long and soon disappeared. The crew had been taught a special whistle that would be useful to contact fellow crew members which Bob used and after a few attempts received a whistled reply nearby. The whistle had come from flight engineer, Syd Horton. After the two men reunited they opened their "emergency" food pack in search for a cigarette! Due to the darkness and shaking hands to their extreme frustration, the tobacco fell out of the paper and onto the floor!
They buried their parachutes and set off in a south westerly direction, carefully walking alongside a road in order to get a clue to their location. They soon spotted a bus stop that indicated they were heading towards a village called Bar-le-Duc.
Two hours later they were taken prisoner by two German soldiers who took them to a guard house where they were handed
over to two young soldiers (17 or 18 years old) and told to go with them by the corporal in charge. The two guards were very casual
and after 10 minutes or so near a ditch, Parkinson asked if he and Horton could smoke. They gave permission and Bob asked for a
light. At this time Bob hit one of them whilst Syd knocked the other one over. They then pushed the guards into the swampy ditch and
ran for the woods.
After many exhausting hours of walking through woodland having only seen and dodged two woodmen collecting logs they emerged from the wood on to a road south west of St Mihiel, where they spotted a Public House and decided to go in for a drink!! The bar maid served them but seemed to get increasingly agitated with the two aircrew! It was when she started to speak in German, that they decided to drink up and find shelter for the night. About 02.00hrs on the 7th they stopped at Villotte-Sur-Aire where they slept on top of a haystack that night and much of the following day.
After resting they struck out for Rupt-St. Mihiel making every effort to keep just off the road to avoid being seen when they encountered an elderly farmer who after giving them bread and water soon made off apparently not wanting to be seen with them. On reaching Rupt-St. Mihiel they came across a French lad walking with a horse and cart and beckoned to him. Being still in battle dress and flying boots he obviously recognised them as RAF and told them to lie low as there was a working party nearby whose supervisor would give them away if he saw them. The boy with the horse and cart left and they eventually heard the supervisor leave on his motorcycle but stayed where they were for a while.
Soon a young French couple with two children appeared, having learned about them from the lad with the horse and cart, with food and took them to a house where they received a cooked meal and beer. They were given civilian clothes and a haversack containing hard boiled eggs, bread, butter, sugar and milk in their own water bottle.
At 21.00 hrs on the 8th they decided to move on and walked to Bar-le-Duc . They did not see anybody along the way and lay low until daylight the next morning when they went into the town intending to catch a train to Paris. Seeing a German guard at the station they withdrew to their hidingplace just outside the town.
Safely back at their hiding place they later saw a cyclist who when beckoned stopped and after enquiring if they were ‘Engleesch’
agreed to get them tickets to Paris for which they gave him French francs from their purses. An hour later he was back with not just
tickets but shaving kit, fruit and wine. He came back again later in a car driven by a well dressed man and brought them civilian shoes
into which they changed before being driven to the station in Bar-Le-Duc.
At the station they were introduced to the station master, ticket collector and signalman as being English. The train was not due until
02.20 hrs the following morning so they were hidden in the control room of the signal box where they slept until 01.20 hrs. With their
haversacks having been filled with fruit they were taken by a porter to a carriage in which there were some French civilians to whom
he seemed to explain their identities.
The train went straight through to Paris which they reached at 09.00hrs on 10th September. They left the station with no difficulty and,
as taught in their lectures, attempted to reach the suburbs. They walked the streets of Paris, until finally at about 06.00hrs in an
area near a large race course, saw and approached a Roman Catholic priest. Luck was certainly with them as the priest took them to
what seemed like a sort of school and after fetching another priest who could speak English inspected their identity discs and verified
they were indeed British.
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The priests helped them obtain railway tickets to Brittany from Paris and they eventually arrived in Quimper in Brittany, where they were hidden beneath the deck among the fish of a small fishing boat called the "Ar-Voualc’h" which was operated by the resistance under code name Dahlia. The pair held their breath as they could hear the boots of German solider inspecting the boat before allowing it to set sail.
After a day or two in the water, they heard an aircraft and instinctively dived for cover! It was however, a Hawker Hurricane that seemed to be expecting the fishing boat. Upon sighting them, it immediately performed a "victory roll" and headed back home. The fishing boat was then escorted by the Royal Navy into Falmouth to a hero's welcome on the 18th September 1943 just 13 days after the crew left Elsham Wolds.