DOWNED AIRMEN

THE ADVENTURE OF A DEAF AND DUMB NEPHEW
Author: André Vandenameele
Translator: Albert Demuyer
With the first sentence of Paul Verlaines poem: "Les sanglots long des violons de l'automne” - The long sob of the autumn violets, the BBC in London transmitted a message to the Underground resistance that the Allied invasion would be very soon. Hardly five days passed before a second sentence from that same poem of Paul Verlaines came from the BBC: "Blessent mon coeur d'un longeur monotone" - Hurt my heart with a monotonous dullness.
(As the saying goes: the wheel was upon the car.)

At last, the Allies were on the beaches of Normandy, to the joy of the population which had suffered four long and fearful years of occupation, hardship and arrests. For those involved in "Cometé" - one of the most important escape lines for Allied Pilots and Crewmembers - it was also a great relief because they were already fully booked up with Allied crewmembers and it was too dangerous for those men to make the journey in an occupied country like Belgium. It was wiser to keep those Allies secured in hiding places where they already were until the arrival of the liberators.During the invasion, one of those Allied Crewmen was brought to a hiding place on the farm of MauriceDebosschere at Geluveld, near Yper. His adventure posing as a deaf and dumb nephew is recounted here. His name was Alvin Casey of the Royal Canadian Air Force. On the night of 8/9 May 1944, 123 heavy bombers took part in an air-raid on a railway junction at Haine St. Pierre, near by La Louviere, Belgium. Eight of those heavy bombers became lost between our land borders, namely at Bon-Secours, Estinnes-au- Mont; Grand-Reng; Kortrijk; Leuze; Rance; Wevelgem and Zwevezele.

This is the true story of the wireless operator named Alvin Casey, one of seven crew-members of the last Halifax III of the Canadian 431st. Squadron, 6th Bomb Group. This heavy bomber with the number MZ521 and SE-T marked on the fuselage came from the air-base at Croft, England. It had a bomb loading of 15 x 500kg bombs. After the heavy bombing run at Haine St.Pierre, Alvin Casey saw something on his radar which he could not identify because it immediately disappeared from his radar screen. That was until the tail gunner saw the night fighter again and yelled over the intercom that they needed to move fast. But it was already too late. The German night fighter attacked the Halifax from the underside, the most vulnerable area of the Halifax in which the gunners were powerless, where he was able to spray the fuselage with bullets. A second attack from that German pilot hit the engines of the Halifax which was on fire by now. To avoid further attack they lost a lot of height and the crewmen had to bail out immediately if they were to land safely in their parachutes.The Captain, William Wilson, watched all the crewmen leave the burning Halifax, but for him it was too late to escape. His aircraft crashed near Zwevezele.(This brave pilot, William Wilson, would later be buried at the local cemetery at Zwevezele.)Three of the crewmen who landed safely were captured quickly - Sgt. Bill Grant; Sgt. Lee Jack and Sgt. Harry Walker.The navigator, P/O Mac Stoker, broke his leg when he hit Belgian soil, and was taken by local people to a doctor named Verscheur for the first aid. But he was surprised and arrested by German soldiers.The bombardier, P/O Ken Schubert, had more luck. He came down in the street where Emiel Duyck lived, and Emiel was already awake from the noise of the dog fight between the German night fighter and the Halifax III. He saw Schubert come down and without hesitation took the Canadian into his house. Schubert stayed in the Emiel’s house for four month's until his town of Zwevezele was liberated in September 1944.Finally, Alvin Casey, who profited from the driving force of the wind, came down in the inter-city coastal canal of Roeselare-Izegem, luckily close enough to reach the bank. After he removed all his heavy gear, he consulted his compass and looked for the direction South to France. After two nights of living rough and eating whatever he could find in the fields, he arrived at the airfield of Wevelgem where he overheard the Germans on guard duty talking. He wanted to cross the major road of Menen-Kortrijk but it was too dangerous with all those Germans on the road. After some considerable time he successfully crossed the road and arrived on the North side of the stream Leie at the town of Lauwe.

Hiding in the brushwood, he waited until the next night to cross this stream, so he had a lot of time to observe the other side of the stream and see where he can hide on a farm.
"That little farm over there. Yeh, that’s going to be the one", he said to himself. Eleven O'clock was the right time to cross the stream he thought, so after he took all his clothes off, he slipped naked into the ice cold water of the Leie. In the middle of the stream, the current was so strong that he lost the small packet with his clothes in, and was concerned that it might turn up in a other town. Casey arrived at the other side of the stream in his birthday suit. Wearing nothing other than his birthday suit, he arrived a little later at a farm where he knocked on the door. After a while, someone opened it. YES, it had to be the young daughter of the house, Maria Verraest, because she was the first one awake.She was scared to death when she saw before her the reincarnation of Adam.She yelled like hell and ran back into the kitchen. Meanwhile, her brother Marcel, who heard his sister yelling, came down the stairs and ran to the front door, where he too saw the same Adam.
"Je suis seul" (I'm alone) stammered Casey, desperately embarrassed by his lack of attire, but Marcel realised who he could be because he was aware that another heavy bomber had crashed near Wevelgem and he immediately thought that Casey was one of this bomber’s crew. As fast as Marcel could, he took him in and put the trembling Casey in bed. Marcel then contacted the leader of the underground group of Maurice Dewildeman from the town Moorslede, and talked about hiding Casey on his farm. When Casey had sufficiently recovered, Maurice Dewildeman and Maurice Vankeersbilek took Casey through the German guard's post and over a bridge of the Leie to the house of Maurice Dewildeman. The local Commander of the Secret Army of Moorslede, Francois Bonduelle, called the Commander of the Secret Address “The Silent Raves” at the village of Beselare who then sent the courier André Vandenameele to take a photo of Casey and create a false passport for him. From now on Casey was to be a new member of the Village Moorslede.After Moorslede, Casey was taken to a new address because he was by now a teacher called Platteuw from the Town of Passendale. This was the home of Alfons Volckaert whose wife Stella had been a war fugitive in England during the First World War. As a result, they could talk fluently to one another. With the invasion on the way it was too risky for the Brussels escape line “Cometé” to send Casey on a train to his freedom, so he would have to stay where he was until the liberation. But in the town of Passendale, the stress was becoming unbearable. In such a community where everyone knew one another, in war time Casey stood out like a strange duck. Then Charel Vaneste had a talk with the Commander of the secret Army, Abel Maerten of Beselare, and put pressure on him to find a hiding place for Casey. He told him that he would bring Casey to him at 19.00 hours and that Abel must see were he could hide him. That evening, Casey was left standing on his own at the front door of the Maerten family and when Miss Maerten opened the door, she was confronted with a bewildered Canadian airman and a small cart with a horse disappearing down the street. But having taken Casey inside by his arm, the family still couldn’t find a hiding place for him. Until, that is, Henri Vandamme, a pensioner farmer from the Molenhoek farm found a hiding place for Casey. The only English words the farmer knew were “yes and no” but he made it clear to Casey with hand signs and other things that Henri and his wife would be going out of the house next day and he must be very quiet when they were not at home, in case the neighbour became suspicious. Casey was dependable and reliable but when he decided to use his time in a real washing session at the kitchen sink, he used so much soap that at the back of the house where the neighbour was working he could see the outside waste pipe frothing with soap suds. The neighbour knew that Henri Vandamme was a good Patriot and guessed what was happening, so when Henri and his wife arrived home the neighbour joked, “Henri, If I were you, I wouldn’t go inside because there may be a burglar in your house”.Having faith that his neighbour wouldn’t squeal on him, Henri was relaxed about the joke but when George Crobez from the town of Menen arrived some few days later and took the Canadian with him, he was greatly relieved. At last they found a permanent hiding place for Casey on a farm at Geluveld of the family Maurice and Margriet Debosschere. But from now on, to remain safe, Casey had to play the part of their deaf and dumb nephew!

But would the deaf and dumb nephew be safe there, where he would come in contact every day with members of the "flying brigade"? These Flemish federal police arrested people, took their contraband, and kept a share for themselves to sell on the black market. They also had the permission of Maurice Debosschere to hide their contraband in a place on his farm, so every day they came in contact in contact with this unhappy family member, Maurice’s deaf and dumb nephew. So they came to know Casey’s face as that of a family member of Maurice’s. In fact, over the entire municipality of Geluveld, everyone knew him as the deaf and dumb nephew. Casey played his part very well – or did he? When there were sounds of aircraft, even when they were not visible, he could not resist searching for them with his eyes and with an interested face upturned to the sky! Sometimes he even whistled a well-known English war song, and in the evening he would listen to the BBC radio broadcast – which, for a deaf and dumb person was not entirely normal. With the liberation in view, one day Alvin Casey looked out from his attic window and saw the withdrawing German troops on the Yper-Menen road. He wanted to see this at close hand, which was not a problem. He and Maurice Debosschere both went to the windmill of Antoine Bergkens with a wheelbarrow to collect some fodder. On the way back home, with the Canadian pushing the wheelbarrow, they arrived at a bar called "The Congo" where they saw that the Germans had put a field cannon on the road, pointing in the direction of Yper. This was an obstacle for Casey and his wheelbarrow but the Germans felt some compassion and helped him lift his wheelbarrow over the cannon. Once past the Germans, Casey suddenly recovered his power of speech and said in a broken language "that was so nice of them", then started to laugh. Martha Durnez, who had known the mute nephew, stood amazed and said, "that man was a mute!”On September 7, 1944, 5 days after Casey’s 26th birthday, the village of Geluveld was liberated, and to the surprise of everyone who knew Casey he began to talk… in English!

Three days later on September 10, he took off from Paris in an aircraft and landed one hour later at Hendon, England.
The RAF made good use of his presence.
Even months after the war he was still on duty in Germany.