LM621 (HW-C) 100 Sqn

Pilot Officer William Kay

Royal Air Force

Pilot

Service Number 171099 : PoW Number 8054

W. Kay was from Bolton, England. He was the Pilot in the LM621 crew. Kay joined the Royal Air Force  in 1940.

On baling out of the burning aircraft, Kay hurt his legs on landing, but started to walk North. About dawn he arrived in the town of La Ferte-Saint-Aubin. His legs had started to seize up so went into a bakery. The old baker hid Kay in a barn above the shop and later brought a man to look at his legs. A note was handed to him, written in English, that said a cart would arrive and take him to a house in the woods. The cart duly arrived and he was transported out of the village. He was then visited by an Englishwoman who was married to a Frenchman who was head of the local Resistance organisation. She said it was very difficult hiding airmen as the Germans had shot a farmer the previous day for assisting Allied airmen. That evening he was joined by rear gunner Sgt Struck and bomb aimer F/O Frink and they were moved to a shack in the woods. The following morning news arrived that a member of the crew (Sgt Dale) had been picked up, and the Germans were combing the area. They were collected by a guide that night and taken to the Maquis resistance H.Q. They lived with them for 13 days during which time the navigator, Sgt Fulsher also joined them. They volunteered to help with the sabotage, but were refused.

On 11 Jul 44 they decided to leave the Maquis and head to Paris. Sgt Struck and F/O Frink went one way, Kay and Sgt Fulsher went another. They were given civilian clothes by the Maquis and they headed North, skirting Orleans.  During the two days on the road they received help from local farmers. Whilst on the road from Orgeres they were given a lift by a farmer in a cart. He hid them until the evening and then took them to the local Resistance Movement in Orgeres on the night of 14 Jul 44. They met the Chief of the organisation and he billetted them in the local butchers shop until 18 Jul 44 whilst they contacted the Resistance in paris.

On 18 Jul 44 they, and an American airman were taken by car to Chatres by a woman who owned the station restaurant and they stayed the night. At 0700 the next morning they continued by cart to Paris, and they picked up an American airman on the way. They were stopped by a German road block and the driver got out, showed his papers and was allowed to proceed. They later thought he may have been a fifth columnist, but he was so frightened of the Germans that he must have been genuine. In Paris they were handed over to a French guide who took them to an empty house, where they were told to destroy all evidence that they were Englilsh. Another man arrived with some interrogation forms to fill in, so they filled in Name, Rank and Number. They were then taken out by the guide to a rendezvous point were they were supposed to have been picked up by a car. Instead a truck arrived and they were taken to the Gestapo H.Q. The guide disappeared and they were interrogated and sent to Fresnes Prison in Paris.

They had been betrayed by Jacques Desoubrie who was a double-agent working for the Gestapo. They were labelled "Terrorflieger" (terror flyers), and were not given a trial. On 15 Aug 44 a total of 168 airmen were transported in over-crowded box-cars to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, taking 5 days to reach the camp. Buchenwald was a forced labour camp of about 60,000 inmates of mainly Russian POWs, but also common criminals, religious prisoners (including Jews), and various political prisoners from Germany, France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. For the first three weeks at Buchenwald, the prisoners were totally shaven, denied shoes and forced to sleep outside without shelter in one of Buchenwald's sub-camps, known as 'Little Camp'. Most airmen doubted they would ever get out of Buchenwald because their documents were stamped with the acronym "DIKAL" (Darf in kein anderes Lager), or "not to be transferred to another camp". During their time in the camp they formed a group, the KLB Club (initials for Konzentrationslager Buchenwald).

In late 1944 a rumour crossed inspector of day fighters Colonel Hannes Trautloft's desk that a large number of Allied airmen were being held at Buchenwald. Trautloft decided to visit the camp and see for himself under the pretence of inspecting aerial bomb damage near the camp. Trautloft was about to leave the camp when captured US airman Bernard Scharf called out to him in fluent German from behind a fence. The SS guards tried to intervene, but Trautloft pointed out that he out-ranked them and made them stand back. Scharf explained that he was one of more than 160 allied airmen imprisoned at the camp and begged Trautloft to rescue him and the other airmen. Trautloft's adjutant also spoke to the group's commanding officer, Phil Lamason. Disturbed by the event, Trautloft returned to Berlin and began the process to have the airmen transferred out of Buchenwald. Trautloft, a Luftwaffe fighter ace, reported the Buchenwald affair to Adolph Galland. Galland informed Goering that allied fliers were being held by the Gestapo in Buchenwald, but Goering was not interested, saying it was not Luftwaffe problem. Galland, barged into Erhard Milch's office with Gustav Rödel and Johannes Steinhoff in tow. Galland, Steinhoff and Rödel were all senior commanders and top-ranked fighter aces. They told Milch the airmen being held in Buchenwald needed to be transferred right away. Milch said he would take care of it, but could not put anything in writing. He apparently called someone. At some point, Trautloft notified the commandant at Buchenwald the airmen had better be released in good shape.  Trautloft sent word to Hermann Pister, the Commandant at Buchenwald that he wanted the airmen released to the Luftwaffe, and furthermore, released in good condition. . On 21 Oct 44, seven days before their scheduled execution, the airmen were taken by train by the Luftwaffe to Stalag Luft III at Sagan (famous for The Great Escape), where Kay stayed until 1 Feb 45. He was then moved the Stalag Luft IIIa at Luckenwalde until he was liberated on 22 Apr 45.