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Wartime Memories: Refugees from France.

My name is Roger Jameson and, in 1940, at the age of 4, I was involved in a forced evacuation from Pau in the South of France ahead of the advancing German army.

My own memories of the event are necessarily few but I was lucky enough to come across a newspaper article from the Worthing Herald on the events. The newspaper article from The Herald, dated the 12th July 1940 is written by the Revd. A. de Horne Robinson.

Aged 4, I was on that ship, the Konigan Emma, with my parents, Hohvannes Andrew
and Ethel May Hagopian (renamed Jameson back in the U.K.).

My parents had emigrated to Pau in S. France with me in (I think) 1937/38. My
father taught English in an American school there and was fluent in French, We
lived in a second floor apartment in Pau owned by Mme. Castain.

After the war began there was a lot of disturbance in the region between rival
French factions and all the money in the bank was frozen. My father told me
that the Consulate in Pau had closed about 6 weeks before we left as refugees in
June 1940.

The German advance had reached Bordeaux. I can remember leaving the apartment
and catching a bus for Bayonne which had a rear door entrance. We had to
leave everything behind except the clothes we had on, one small suitcase per
person, a rug and a loaf of bread. I remember the dock at Bayonne and the
yellow super-structure of the boat we boarded. I remember the crowd being
shoulder to shoulder on board, packed like sardines.

I have never seen a report, other than the article enclosed, of this remarkable
escape - truly a deliverance! I believe that the Captain of the vessel,
together with the crew, should have been awarded a medal for bravery and
compassion! I wonder whether there are any other survivors of this remarkable
escape. I am now aged 70 and elements of this story are still etched on my
memory.

Once in England we lived in Summerfield Road, Ealing during the Blitz and life
was hard as we had left most of our possessions in France. Because we were
refugees from France it took quite a time to get any assistance from the
authorities and any coupons for food or clothes.

The newspaper article follows:

THE HERALD, FRIDAY JULY 12TH 1940

FORMER WORTHING VICARS HAZARDOUS ESCAPE FROM FRANCE

THE REV. A de HORNE ROBINSON, formerly Vicar of Goring for 21 years, and chaplain at the English Church at Pau, in the South of France, is back in England after a hazardous escape from French soil.
Below he tells the story of his adventures.

When the crisis fell we were bathed in peace at St Jean de Luz, near the Spanish frontier. Our consul at Pau, 90 miles east, telephoned: Stay on the coast; get away if you can. But we could not desert our friends or the flock of St. Andrews, Pau, so we drove to that dear Pyreneean town, where our hearts and all our wordly possessions dwelt, and reached it at 10p.m. on Monday, June 17th.

There followed two packed, bewildered days. We made all the contacts we could, took farewells of our French friends, had a final celebration of the Holy Mysteries, queued up at the bank to get what money we could, returned to it for more, since the doles were rationed, and found it closed. I have never smuggled, but I ingeniously packed 1,000 francs in the fold of my clerical collar, for I hoped not to leave France penniless. That night we roughly packed 2 suitcases, all the possessions now left to us for sure, my library, a Bible and Prayer Book, and at 6 am on Thursday, June 20th, we got into the Peugeot and streaked for the coast.

On the road we bought loaves, but we reached Bayonne at 8am travelling at 60mph. Bordeaux, the better port, was taboo; it had been already bombed and its channel mined. Thence the refugees had fled to Bayonne; many had come from Paris, 500 miles to the north, abandoning cars by the way, biking, walking,sleeping in ditches, Persecuted in one city and fleeing to another. So Bayonne seethed.

First we sought the Consulate, but it would not open till 10am! So we looked for a ship, but there was none, and we began to feel like rats in a trap. All under 65 years would be interned it was said. We knew what concentration camps meant for Germans. How would they deal with us?

We returned to the Consulate at 10am, but could not reach it through the vast, unregulated crowd, many of whom had no claim on it as British at all. Next, in a shattering thunderstorm, we searched for more stores. Many shops were already sold out and closed. Still, we got a little, but most of it was subsequently lost or stolen on the quay. Then we lunched.

In the Queue

From 2 to 5.30 pm we queued at the Consulate again, and actually got, by painful inches, near the door. Then it was shut until the following day. So did this inhuman man keep us who were in peril on the strain. He was not of British birth. Still it thundered! What mercy we had the car. At worst we could sleep in it. Bayonne had never a bed - at best we could seek them at St. Jean de Luz. We did so, picking up a passenger whom we found had there a sister to whom he had not spoken for years. But peril heals sores! She, though on the flit herself, fed and housed us. There was a scheme we found for a train to Lisbon and we registered our names. But as we sank to troubled sleep at midnight a telephone rang, the door was thumped and we heard, the Alleco Maritime, at 8am, it is the last chance. We got there; there was a ship, Konigan Emma, and our eyes feasted on her grey sides. But not yet! We were driven away; first to the Customs, then to the Consulate again. The Consul had flown! B.A.F. Officers, however, at last formed a recognisable queue, whence we emerged with embarkation slips, drove back to the ship and abandoned 7617NM3 (of how many adventures) to its fate!

STOLEN PASSPORTS

We sat on our luggage till a voice from the ship cried; Women and children first - make a gangway - men to the back - be British! Many in the crowd, whatever their passports, were evidently not of British birth, nor, it seemed to me, of British phlegm.

I, at all events, kept back, with no overplus of hope, till, at the gangway, my wife refused to board without me and my name was shouted over the crowd.

Aboard at last! We little reckoned what still lay ahead. At length the gangway door clanged and separated us from the still seething quay. There were white upturned faces which we knew, and many aliens who loved the Bosch no more than we. This was not their ship. Would there be another? We could not sail till full tide, and, with permission, I sought the quay and our baggage once more.

Soldiers, gendarmes, helped me, but as I returned with the spoil the gangway door was closing to. I sprang for it; a hefty Frenchman gripped me by the throat and tried to throw me down. I have the soiled collar still. Yet desperation gives strength; I got my hand round the door and struggled through.

There was a sequel. Next day and oficer of Marines asked me for my passport. You are on board without authority, he said, and then, reading the document: What did you do in Germany? My holiday in 1937. He twinkled, twigged and I was free. But in that atmosphere it was a nasty jolt, in spite of the many aboard who knew me, one from school days, nor, under the circumstances, was my collar much help.

Later the officer apologised: But you used force! he said. What would you have done? I rejoined. Yes, the same, but its an anxious job: I have already several passports I shall not hand back. I heard, too, of passports which were stolen. Perhaps the fifth column was with us even on the ship.

3,000 On Ship

Three thousand on a ship, swift and well equipped, but meant to accomodate 400. We sat, lucky if we had a chair, ate, talked, prayed - were it our habit - slept, if we could, all on the same spot. How late the June night fell; how long it seemed; I slept no wink. Nerves could be felt in the dark, not mine, for though my belly was as jelly interiorly I felt calm.

We had been forbidden to smoke after dark, but lights flickered, and a strident womans voice insisted Lights, lights! This did get on my nerves, and at last I shouted vociferously through the night: Push him through the window. Laughter ensued, and dark and peace.

By 5 a.m. we were alive, though with little room to kick, and soon had the first snack. It was difficult to move, but somewhere I found a cold tap to fill our thermos. That helped down the stale bread which I carved with a pocket knife, and when some kind soul contributed jam we felt it was a feast.

We did not know then that two torpedoes missed us in the night, but we sat in lifebelts, saw a tanker severed at the waist and the ship listed as she zig-zagged along at 27 knots.

Interminably we talked, yet of old far-off and happy things, far from the fateful ship.

Disembarkation

England at last, staunch swallow of a boat! Some of us - not all were asked - threw 16,000 francs into a paper bag for the crew, who said Thank you, but gave it to the Red Cross! Who runs may read! The disembarkation of that motley 3,000, however, was not swift.

Wounded soldiers, rescued when a transport sank, women and the young went in the first tender. For the rest selfishness and unselfishness stood as light from dark, as from dawn almost to dawn again we waited, and only to see the Customs door shut in our faces with a laconic 鈥淣o more for 2 hours.鈥�

We sat on a blood stained stretcher on the station floor and drank tea from soldiers脮 billies. How good those soldiers were, cheering us with folk songs, and the St. John鈥檚 Ambulance - people were fainting right and left - and the dear calm nuns. One of them deserves a halo. Midnight, and by painful inches, we had won to within inches of the door again when authority shouted: No more tonight.

But a nun pressed in: You cannot do that to them (not herself) it wouldn鈥檛 be human. So the kind, weary officials held on till all had claimed their exiguous luggage and formed for admission to passport inspection two by two.

My haversack had hit a lady behind me whenever I turned an inch. To her protest I offered apologies. I could not see more than her skirt. In the freedom of the Douane I recognised that skirt and said 鈥淚 was your tormentor, now hit me!鈥� How she laughed! Thank the Giver of all good things for humour. What fools we be without it. A soldier who brought a chair and tin of water to my grateful but half-fainting wife said: Yes, Mum, and when I offered that to one lady she asked for a cup and saucer.

Tragedies
But there were tragedies. A child I knew stood on the Bayonne wharf: We can鈥檛 come; Daddy has gone out of his mind. One of whom I knew had jumped from a balcony; was almost, not quite dead, and his wife knew not whether to go or stay. Another jumped overboard in Plymouth Sound. Thank God we had neither such problems nor such inclinations.

At 2 a.m. faint though pursuing, I presented my passport to an urbane official who told me his uncle had been Dean of St. Patrick鈥檚, the one ecclesiastical note of that unique long-drawn Sunday.

At 8 p.m. on Monday, June 17th our exodus began, 2.45 a.m. Monday, June 24th rang the curtain down. On what? Thanks to God for deliverance; and yet an experience I shall hold precious to the end, in part for reasons locked with my own soul, but also because my faith in British morale has been tested and rung true.

Does Hitler know, I wonder, even yet.

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