The First Journey

In July 1941 Andrée and Arnold took a party of 10 Belgians and an Englishwoman, Miss Richards who feared internment by the Germans, down the route Arnold had travelled a month before. Once they reached the small town of La Corbie near Amiens, on the banks of the River Somme, which formed a line known as Zone Interdite or Prohibited Zone, they had to find a way of crossing the Somme, without being detected, as it was regularly patrolled by the enemy. Most of the men and Miss Richards couldn’t swim and therefore, the innertube of a large tyre was used with Andrée having to make several return trips pushing them across before they could rest and sleep in the farmhouse of a women named Nenette in the village of Hamelet on the opposite side of the Somme. ‘Next time’, Andrée thought, ‘we will need the use of a boat.’ The following morning the party made their way to Paris and then by the overnight train to Biarritz and the home of Madame Elvire DeGreef. A Basque guide was then employed to guide them over the Pyrenees, and to the Spanish side of the boarder, where they were left to make their own way to San Sebastian. The journey had been a success, or so it was thought until Andrée and Arnold returned to Anglet and learnt that their party had been arrested in Spain and taken back to the boarder and handed over to the Germans. ‘Next time’, Andrée said, ‘evaders must be taken direct to the British Consulate in Bilbao.’