ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS NOVEL WAS INSPIRED BY THE WORLD WAR II EXPERIENCE of my father-in-law, Barney Rawlings (1920–2004). He wrote his memoir, Off We Went, in 1994, to leave a record for his family. Our conversations and his book were the springboard for my imagined story.

I was also inspired by the wartime experience of Michèle Moët-Agniel, who as a teenager was an escort for Allied airmen shot down in Occupied Europe, 1943–44. Her family worked for the Bourgogne escape network and directly assisted Barney Rawlings. Mme Agniel graciously welcomed me at her home in Paris and shared her memories with me.

I read widely in memoirs by American airmen who were evaders, and I also read books about Europeans who aided Allied airmen. Essential to my story was the captivating diary of Virginia d’Albert Lake. She was one of the few survivors of the slave-labor camp—a satellite of Ravensbrück—outside Koenigsberg-sur-Oder in Occupied Poland. After her release, she wrote a vivid account of the ordeal, published in An American Heroine in the French Resistance in 2006. Michèle Agniel, also a prisoner at Koenigsberg, wrote an emotional account of her return visit to the site (in what is now Chojna, Poland) in 1995. In her conversations with me she recalled the camp at Koenigsberg, which I imagine was far more brutal than she was able to tell me. She refers to Koenigsberg as “Petit-Koenigsberg,” to distinguish it from the Prussian city of Koenigsberg, which became Kalinigrad under the Soviets. She was imprisoned at Ravensbrück and Koenigsberg with three British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents—Violette Szabo, Liliane Rolfe, and Denise Bloch—who were executed by the Nazis as spies. These agents have been memorialized and celebrated for their service to the French Resistance in preparation for D-Day.

I am grateful for the cooperation, conversation, correspondence, published interviews, reminiscences, and friendship of Michèle Agniel.

I am thankful also for conversation and the unpublished memoir of Jeannine Fagot, who aided American parachutists in 1944.

Thanks to other generous friends in France:

Francis and Marie-Isabelle Agniel, Jean-Marie and Nicole Moët, Elise Agniel, Geneviève Camus, in Paris.

Jean and Marie-Therèse Hallade and their large, welcoming family in Bichancourt.

Catherine and Andrew Smith in Cognac.

Winnie Madden and Philippe Chavance in Paris.

I am grateful to the residents of Solre-Saint-Géry, Belgium, and its environs who generously welcomed me in 2008. Several of them had witnessed a B-17 crash landing there in 1944—the G.I. Sheets, co-piloted by Barney Rawlings—and they had assisted the crew, at the peril of their own lives. In 1987, local citizens honored the crew by erecting a handsome memorial at the crash site. Benoit Dorignaux and Françoise Stiernet graciously hosted me during my visit. Roger Anthoine, whom I met elsewhere, told me how members of his family had risked their lives by sheltering two members of the crew.

The Air Forces Escape and Evasion Society is active in preserving the memory of those times and in honoring the special friendships formed between aviators and their European helpers. I am grateful to members of AFEES, including Larry Grauerholz, John Katsaros, Roger Anthoine, and the late Clayton David, who shared their memories with me.

In this novel, Georges Broussine (1918–2001) and Dédée de Jongh (1916–2007) are historical figures. Georges Broussine was the mastermind of the Bourgogne network, which sheltered and convoyed more than three hundred Allied aviators to safety. In reading of his brave exploits, about which he was extremely modest, I am in awe of his courage.

Several books, such as The Freedom Line, by Peter Eisner, recount Dédée de Jongh’s heroism and bravery with the Comète escape line, which she founded.

My husband, Roger Rawlings, was named for the #3 engine of his father’s B-17, the G.I. Sheets, which crash-landed in Belgium on January 29, 1944, two years before Roger was born. Roger owes his life to the brave Belgians and French who helped his father successfully evade the Nazis. This book owes its life to Roger’s careful eye and loving support.

Thanks to Jim Alpha for the cars, Roger Rawlings for the airplanes. My sister LaNelle Mason was my enthusiastic companion on several exciting trips to France. Lynne and John Drahan and Catherine and Trevor King were my excellent guides over the Pyrenees mountains.

I want to thank Millicent Bennett and Beth Pearson at Random House for their tireless attention to the manuscript. My appreciation also goes to Robin Rolewicz, formerly of Random House, for her early encouragement.

Thanks to Karen Alpha, Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, and Sharon Kelly Edwards for emotional support and critical reading of the manuscript, Cori Jones for friendship and Paris, Binky Urban for her enthusiastic encouragement, Kate Medina for her generous readings and enduring confidence in the story, and Monique Roman, professor extraordinaire, for the French language. Any mistakes in French are mine. Special thanks to Philippe Chavance for his careful reading and pertinent advice.