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This biography follows the wartime career of Group Captain Bob Allen, a fighter pilot who had a very varied career. He entered combat with No.1 Squadron, which was taking part in the costly campaign to ‘lean over the Channel’, in the summer of 1941, but was soon posted to West Africa, where the RAF had an important outpost at Freetown, surrounded by Vichy French territory. While he was here Allen combined defensive fighter duties over the British base with photo reconnaissance missions over Vichy French bases, including Dakar, where he faced heavy AA fire and some fighter opposition. He spent a year and a half in West Africa, before returning to Britain where he became a fighter bomber pilot, flying the Hawker Typhoon. He supported the D-Day landings and formed part of the ‘taxi rank’ system that played an important part in the Allied victory.
His war changed dramatically in late July when he was shot down and captured by the Germans. We follow him to Dulag Luft, the transit camp that most air crew went through before moving to a permanent camp. Allen was subjected to poor treatment at Dulag Luft, spent two weeks there, an unusually long period. After a brief time at a second camp he ended up at Stalag Luft III near Sagan, the site of the famous ‘Great Escape’. However he arrived after the fate of 50 of the escapers had been announced, and on his arrival he was informed that escaping had been banned by the senior British officers in the camp. At first it looked like he would spend the rest of the war at Stalag Luft III, but in 1945, as the Soviets approached from the east, the Germans decided to move most of their POWs west to prevent them being liberated. As a result Allen took part in the ‘long march’, which saw poorly prepared POWs forced to march through bitter winter weather, with limited provision made for food or shelter along the way. In Allen’s case the German efforts failed, and his final camp was eventually liberated by the Soviets. This led to one final adventure, when Allen and one comrade decided not to wait for the Soviets to arrange to transport them to the Allied occupied areas but instead headed west under their own steam. This led them to some nervous encounters with Soviet forces, and with those German civilians who hadn’t fled west and who were often hiding from the Soviets, before they were finally able to reach American held territory from where they finally returned to Britain. One interesting topic that is covered here are the plans put in place to get POWs back home at the end of the war. For most of the war it had been assumed that Germany would surrender with a functioning administrative system, which would handle the return of POWs. Once it became clear that wouldn’t be the case, a different plan had to be developed rather quickly, which does explain why most POW stories end rather chaotically!
This book was written by Allen’s daughter, so we also get a view of the impact all of this had on his wife, from the separate caused by the year and a half he spent in West Africa to the problems caused by their different life styles when he was at home. The most stressful time must have been the weeks after he was shot down, when at first it was believed he had been killed in the crash and it took several weeks for news of his survival to be confirmed. The family connection gives this book extra impact, and adds to the interest of an already interesting RAF career.
Chapters
1 - Head in the Air
2 - Overseas
3 - At war in West Africa
4 - Eyes in the sky
5 - This island home
6 - Summer in France
7 - Behind the lines
8 - A prisoner in Germany
9 - ‘Raus raus’ -‘out out’
10 - Last lap to freedom
Author: Suzanne Campbell-Jones
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 310
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2018