I've mentioned my interest in and
involvement with a local association " Les amis du réseau Comète"
("The Friends of the Comet Line") in earlier posts here. The Comet Line was a network set up during WWII by Andrée De Jongh, a 24 year old Belgian
woman, with the aim of enabling Allied aircrew who had been shot down in
northern France and the Low Countries to be repatriated back to Britain
from Gibraltar. This laudable aim was achieved via a
thread of courageous volunteer helpers that stretched from Brussels,
Paris, the Pays Basque and on into
Francoist Spain.
The history of Comète contains
many individual stories of heroism, courage and adventure by innumerable brave
souls - both civil and military. These shining examples of 'grace under
pressure' were counterbalanced by many unspeakably brutal acts by an enemy whose savage deeds were a barbaric throwback to medieval times. Several books
have been written on the subject and there are also many personal accounts
available online.
During the course of the annual
commemorative weekend, "Les amis" retrace the old wartime routes over the Pyrenees.
Before other inland routes were pioneered, the original route taken by the
Comète guides and the evaders led from Ciboure (close to Saint-Jean-de-Luz) up
into the mountains before descending to cross the Bidassoa, the river that marks the
frontier between France
and Spain.
After crossing the river, the evaders would make their way to a safe farm where
they would be fed before taking a well-deserved rest.
During the course of reading
the accounts of these crossings (one of which is Peter Eisner's excellent
" The Freedom Line"), I became aware that two men were tragically drowned during their attempt to ford the wintry Bidassoa during the night of 23-24th December 1943.
 |
2nd Lt James F Burch, USAAF
(taken on 6 Oct 43, 4 days
before being shot down) |
 |
| Count Antoine d'Ursel |
One was Count Antoine d'Ursel,
a Belgian civilian who had formerly been the head of Comète in Belgium.
The other was 2nd Lt James Frederick Burch, USAAF, a 27 year old co-pilot from Terrell, Texas, who had been shot down in his B-17F over Holland
on 10th October 1943.
Trying to ascertain the facts of
this tragedy with any degree of reasonable certainty at this remove (70 years after the event),
at a time when little or nothing was committed to paper (for obvious reasons),
is made more than usually difficult by the circumstances of that night. 'After
action' reports were written - but given the darkness, the
language difficulties, that the river was in flood, the fact that the evaders came under fire from the
Spanish side, the fear, the stress and the fatigue, it is not surprising that the accounts
differ in the detail. Both the bodies were swept away and were recovered by the Germans but their final resting place remains unknown to this day..
 Count d'Ursel's widow later
caused a memorial ( right) to her husband to be erected on the banks of the
Bidassoa and, as an example of how we can sometimes be blind to the obvious, I didn't think to question initially why there was no memorial
to Jim Burch. It was only after reading more into the events of that night that caused me to ask myself "Why no memorial to Jim?".
The reality was that Jim's widow was told only that he'd disappeared while crossing from France into Spain. She had no names of those involved, no location - and worst of all, no body to bury. While those who survived the crossing were sworn to secrecy, one of the survivors (2nd Lt Lloyd Stanford, USAAF) did visit Jim's widow - Mrs Olga Burch - on his return to the US and told her what he knew.
I put this short video together to shed some light on what happened that night - best viewed in full screen:
We, in "Les Amis..", decided that even 70 years on, that Jim's sacrifice and his passing merited a memorial so that future generations may be prompted to ask who, what and why. Accordingly, we started a project to provide a memorial on the river bank to Jim Burch, the only aviator to lose his life while in Comète's hands.
We found a stonemason who furnished us with a granite memorial stone, engraved a suitable inscription and set it up at the riverside. We launched an appeal for donations to finance this project.
On behalf of the committee of the " The Friends of the Comet network" - our heartfelt thanks to all those who donated so generously for this worthy cause.. I will post news of the project here as and when it happens.
31st May 3016. Edited to add: thanks to many generous donations we hit our target inside 2 months. We inaugurated the 2 memorials at a new location during a moving ceremony held on the banks of the Bidassoa on 16th April 2016..
|
