Pte. Douglas Clarke of the Umvoti Mounted Rifles

Before the war Doug Clarke had farmed in the Nkwalini Valley of Zululand. He joined the Umvoti Mounted Rifles (UMR), a Natal Midlands regiment, when it was mobilized in June 1940. After training, the UMR embarked for Egypt in July 1941 as a unit of the 4th Infantry Brigade of the 2nd South African Division. Then came the disaster at Tobruk. Clarke spent the next 15 months as a POW in North Africa and Italy. He and other South Africans escaped from a work camp immediately after the Italian armistice was announced on 8 September 1943. The escape group spent another 16 months living precariously but undetected in German occupied northern Italy. By November 1944 they could no longer hold out. It was time to think of seeking safety elsewhere.

 

S/Sgt. John J. McGowan & Sgt. Donald E. Lundgren, crew members of the 320th B.G. B-26 Marauder, Baby Shoes

Photo-gunner McGowan and engineer-gunner Lundgren had been fellow crew members of a twin-engine USAAF Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber, nicknamed "Baby Shoes". It flew with the 443rd Bomb Squadron of the 320th bomb Group, Twelfth US Air Force, based on Sardinia.

"Baby Shoes" became a battle casualty in mid-morning 15 September 1944 while flying with the squadron to destroy a railway bridge near Pavia. The bomber sustained a direct hit (which damaged one engine) by a German flak battery. Six of the seven-man crew bailed out. The pilot, Capt. Luther K. Moyer, remained at the controls but was killed when the aircraft, still carrying its full bomb load, smashed into the ground near Mortara and exploded.

Five crew members parachuted straight into the arms the waiting Germans. Three men were injured and had to be hospitalized, but McGowan and Lundgren were unhurt and escaped to the Italian Resistance. The sixth crew member, radio-gunner L. J. Hoyne, had also jumped clear of the crippled bomber and sailed down to terra firma. He gave the Germans the slip and disappeared into the woodwork. Later on Hoyne was reunited with McGowan and Lundgren at a secret partisan hideout at Lake Orta, from where they and other Allied escapers were guided to the Swiss frontier.[3] (Continued)