Operation Marathon (World War II)

Operation Marathon in World War II helped allied airmen who had been shot down or crash-landed in Nazi-occupied Europe evade capture by the Germans.

The British intelligence organization, MI9, created the operation to gather downed airmen into isolated forest camps where they would await their rescue by allied military forces advancing after the Normandy Invasion of June 6, 1944.

Tens of thousands of allied aircraft were shot down or crash landed in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II.

However, in 1944, heavy allied bombing of railroads and other transportation infrastructure made escape to neutral counties increasingly difficult in the run-up to the Normandy Invasion of France.

To coordinate, British authorities met in Madrid, Spain in February 1944 with three surviving Comet Line leaders: Elvire de Greef (Auntie Go), Marcel Roger (Max), and Michelle Dumon (Michou or Lily), 22 years old but with a forged identity card that gave her age as 16.

The Comet Line jealously guarded its independence from MI9 and cooperation required both persuasion and an infusion of cash for expenses to gain its participation in the operation.

[5] In April and May 1944, de Blommaert and another Belgian, RAF officer Lucien Boussa, set up a headquarters in the town of Cloyes-sur-le-Loir near the Freteval Forest.

De Blommaert persuaded the local armed Resistance group to avoid any activity in the area as it would attract German attention and jeopardize the airmen in the camp.

The American army, suspicious of Neave and the "exotic crowd of armed patriots" that he gathered to effect the rescue, declined to provide him transportation.

With difficulty he finally gathered together 16 buses and trucks, "decked with flowers and French flags and guarded by civilians with rifles," plus a few British SAS soldiers.

[14] From Le Mans, Neave, de Blommaert, and a crowd of armed men "in jeeps loaded with flowers and champagne" set forth toward Paris.

At least 109 allied airmen stayed in these camps from June till September, thanks to the Marathon agents, helped by elements of the local population.

The agents in charge of the camps were : Beffe : Vincent Wuyts and his wife Marie Ghislaine Denis; Porcheresse : Emile Roiseux; Villance : Walter Haesebrouck; Acremont : Georges Arnould; La Cornette : Germain Servais and Gaston Matthys; Bohan : Hubert Renault.

[18] On June 11, 1967, Jean de Blommaert and Airey Neave returned to the Freteval Forest to dedicate a stone column commemorating the rescue of the allied airmen.