The Comet Escape Line

The Comet Escape Line tells the story of the most successful escape line of the Second World War. Inspired by the English nurse Edith Cavell, who helped Allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium in the First World War, Andrée de Jongh and a group of young Belgian friends conceived an audacious plan to smuggle downed Allied airmen and other evaders from Belgium, through France and over to neutral Spain. Many incredible escapes followed from safe houses in Brussels, making hazardous train journeys through France, or navigating goat paths through the Pyrenees, evading German and Spanish border patrols. By 1945, the line had aided hundreds of evaders and was a vital part of the escape and evasion picture of the Second World War. In The Comet Escape Line, Alexander Stilwell reveals the personalities and motives of the Comet line founders and the British intelligence organisation that supported it, investigates the Gestapo campaign to destroy it and explores the actions of the Nazi collaborators who infiltrated it. Above all, this is the story of the incredibly brave civilians who risked everything to help the Allied cause.

ALEXANDER STILWELL is a writer and editor specialising in military history and current affairs. He has written several books covering secret operations, special forces and escape and evasion, has an MA in International Peace and Security and served for six years in a British Army reserve forces reconnaissance regiment during which time he was trained in escape and evasion. He lives in Surrey.