Veterans thank those who led them to freedom

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RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFPN) --  A Belgian woman risks her safety to help more than 130 airmen avoid capture by Germans.

A bombardier survives a crash landing with his crew behind enemy lines and escapes with help from members of the French Underground.

A tail gunner bails out of his badly damaged B-17 Flying Fortress and parachutes into a field on the French border where a young boy leads him and others to safe harbor.

These World War II survivors and others gathered recently near Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, to thank those who helped them escape capture, torture and possibly death. They exchanged hugs and memories, shared tears and renewed bonds at the Air Forces Escape and Evasion Society annual reunion in Wichita Falls.

The purpose of the AFEES is to encourage airmen aided by resistance organizations or patriotic nationals of foreign countries to continue friendships with those who helped them.

"Our organization perpetuates the close bond that exists between airmen forced down and the resistance people who made our evasion possible at great risk to themselves and their families," said Larry Grauerholz, editor of the quarterly AFEES Communications Journal and a B-17 navigator who evaded escape in France and crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into Spain.

"My mother performed many of the dangerous tasks. She was often out at night or escorting an airman down the streets of occupied Brussels," said Yvonne Daley-Brusselmans. "My father's role was to keep the facade. He worked for weeks on a farm every year of the war to provide food for our family and the airmen we sheltered. He also had to cope with my mother putting herself, and sometimes my brother and I, in danger."

Those risks did not go unappreciated the Americans who remained out of enemy hands.

"I was issued an escape kit on every mission containing maps of France, French money, water purification tablets and a small compass," said Virgil Marco, the downed tail gunner. "I also had the desire not to become a (prisoner of war). I met some very nice French people who I kept in touch with. I was lucky to receive help soon after I parachuted."

AFEES has more than 600 “regular” members from most wars, primarily World War II. To be eligible for membership, a person must have been a United States airman and must have been forced down behind enemy lines. Members also must have either avoided captivity or escaped from captivity and returned to allied control.

“Helper” members are people who either directly aided the airmen or are family members of helpers.

For more information on AFEES, call Grauerholz at (940) 692-6700 or e-mail afees44@hotmail.com. (Courtesy of Air Education and Training Command News Service. Compiled by 2nd Lt. Ellen Harr, Airman 1st Class Pamela Lampert, Airman Jacque Lickteig, Mike McKito and Master Sgt. Jerry Taranto)