Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine Second World War escaper’s M.M. group of five awarded to Sergeant W. R. Jewitt, Royal Artillery, a hardy Yorkshireman ‘as strong as a horse’ who was captured at St. Valery in June 1940: after three failed attempts - including a train jump - he made a successful bid for freedom via the sewers of a prison camp at Bourges, crossed the Pyrenees and reached Gibraltar in March 1941 - a remarkable adventure retold in the hitherto unpublished wartime memoirs of his fellow escaper

Military Medal, G.VI.R. (4386259 Gnr. W. R. Jewitt, R.A.); 1939-45 Star; Burma Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, the first edge nicks and contact marks, otherwise very fine and better (5) £1600-1800

M.M. London Gazette 26 August 1941.

William “Bill” Jewitt, who was from Richmond, Yorkshire, enlisted in the Royal Artillery in April 1934, and was posted to the 1st Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery (R.H.A.), as a Driver, on the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939.

Embarked for service in the B.E.F. in France in October 1939, he was captured at St. Valery-en-Caux on 12 June 1940, the beginning of a remarkable chapter of escape work, the bare bones of which are described in his subsequent M.I. 9 debrief from May 1941 - copies included. Fortuitously for posterity’s sake, however, his friend and fellow escaper, Driver G. E. Currey, also of 1/R.H.A., later wrote an account of their time in captivity and on the run, from which the full story of their many adventures emerges - a photocopy of the hitherto unpublished manuscript of 218pp. is included but remains the copyright of the author’s estate.

First Escape

Currey, who describes Jewitt as ‘very dark featured and as strong as a horse’, had shared driving duties with him Bren carriers and other vehicles of the unit prior to their capture. And early on, during their forced march to Rouen, they quickly agreed on making an escape. Thus, on 17 June, they broke away from their column between the towns of Formerie and Grandvillers and hid in the rafters of a barn from which, at midnight, they emerged - ‘taking our bearings from the stars, we set our course in the direction of the coast, but kept to the country as much as possible ... up hill and down dale we went, though hedges, over ditches’. Alas, they were recaptured a couple of days later, when ‘a dozen or so ruddy Germans came dashing over to us with revolvers drawn. Bill gave them some glorious language. We were prisoners again’.

Second escape

Notwithstanding this early setback, and having passed through St. Pol on another forced march, they made a second bid for freedom on the last day of June, when they ‘dashed off the road and hid behind a thick Hawthorn hedge’. This time they remained at large for over three weeks, and were unlucky to walk straight into a camouflaged enemy gun position near Dannes on 23 July - a German sentry was equally surprised and ‘began shouting for all he was worth ... He took his rifle from his shoulder and pointed it at us, then lowered it and moved away, still shouting as loud as he could’. The battery C.O. spoke good English and was a ‘friendly sort’, who indirectly assisted the would-be escapers by revealing the existence of the Vichy demarcation line further south. But such intelligence would have to wait in the interim, for they were carted off to a civilian prison at Lille, and thence to an old cavalry barracks at Tournai.

Third escape

A few weeks later, in mid-August, Jewitt and Currey were among many other prisoners crammed into the goods wagons of a train bound for Germany. During the journey, and having passed through Brussels, Currey noticed some apertures to the side of the wagon door which, by means of a stick and hard graft, he was able to force, thereby freeing the sliding door. Moments later, Jewitt led the way, jumping from the moving train, with Currey hot on his tail, the former cutting his head open on landing but, with true Yorkshire grit, made light of his injury.

This time, as before, the two gunners were fortunate to receive much assistance from the local populace, initially being taken in by a family in the village of Oude Baan. Thence, in a journey that lasted over two months, with intermittent periods spent at farms and elsewhere, they made their way back into France, frequently having encounters of the hair-raising kind with enemy troops, thus the occasion they escaped from a barn as ‘several Jerries, flashing their torches and firing wild shots from their revolvers’ tried to head them off.



Alas, their next encounter with enemy troops, near Vierzon, led to their capture and, in short order, the threat of execution. Fortunately, in one of those strange twists of fate so common to war, they were next introduced to a German officer ‘who knew Blackpool well and had used to go dancing every Saturday night at the Tower - he had lived in Bolton for several years, he said, and added that he liked the British people and had many friends in England’. Their immediate future secure, the two gunners were marched off to a prison camp in Bourges, the German officer wishing them good luck and warning them not to try and escape again - advice that fell on deaf ears.

Fourth escape and home run

Barely three weeks later the industrious gunners made their exit via the prison camp’s sewers and, with French assistance, boarded a train for Marseilles. Here they remained until 17 December 1940 and, having obtained money and new clothing from the American Consulate, boarded another train for Perpignan on the Spanish border where, ’at no great distance we could see the dark silhouette of the Pyrenees, and as we drew near the foot of the mountains, Bill raised his hands and said softly, “Spain, here we come.” ’ And so it proved, after a challenging climb over Pyrenees. Next day, with the assistance of a local priest at Figueras, they managed to contact the British Consulate in Barcelona by telephone, prior to setting off down the railway track on the final furlong of their journey to freedom - a journey cut short by a Civil Guard when they were 20 miles from the city. Incarcerated in the military prison back at Figueras, their hopes were raised by a visit from the British Consul in Gerona in early January and thence, via a further period of internment at Miranda, they were indeed released into British consular hands. Their final journey was by road to Gibraltar, via the British Embassy at Madrid, from whence they were embarked in H.M.S. Argus for Greenock on 9 May 1941. Both men were duly awarded the M.M.

Jewitt died at Barnard Castle in May 1986; also sold with a newspaper obituary and two photographs, one of the latter taken in Burma, where he finished the War as a Sergeant.