War hero remembered
‘‘If they got caught they wouldn’t say a word. They would rather be shot.’’ Pat Hickton remembers those who helped him in WWII
Frail and desperate for freedom, Pat Hickton knew if he tripped or collapsed from exhaustion, his time was up.
The young Kiwi was running for his life, escaping what was meant to be an inescapable World War II prisoner of war camp.
Physically, he was doing it tough.
Sixty days in solitary confinement for spitting at a French guard saw his weight drop from about 70 kilograms to a thin 45kg.
Hickton’s weary body carried a determined soul and he and four others slipped out of Fort de la Revere in France.
Through a sewer, they made it to safety, knowing that if one fell or couldn’t keep going, he would have to be left behind – a death sentence.
And this wasn’t Hickton’s first brush with death.
He signed up to go to war when he was 19 and served with 101 Squadron from 1940 to 1944.
On September 11, 1941, Hickton was on his ninth mission as a gunner in a Wellington bomber plane.
Disaster struck as it headed over France on its way to bomb Turin, Italy. Shrapnel hit one of the engines and a propeller fell off soon after.
Too low to eject, Hickton and the crew stayed on board and survived the severe impact of a crash landing into a tree.
Hickton was dazed and suffered a cut to his head, but he was alive.
He and the other survivors destroyed anything that could have been of value to the Germans and walked the countryside for two days, before finding shelter with the resistance.
Locals questioned about the downed aircrew denied all knowledge, risking their lives to protect Hickton, a gesture he would never forget.
‘‘They all said ‘no’, even the kiddies that were three and four – they looked them straight in the eye and said ‘no’,’’ Hickton told the Manawatu Standard in a 2012 interview.
‘‘When they take you in... nothing was ever too much for them.’’
Hickton and his crew went to Paris and parted ways. The Germans finally caught their downed airman on the Spanish border and threw him into Fort de la Revere.
He endured months of suffering, the worst of which was his period in solitary. Left with just his thoughts, and water to drink, Hickton reflected on his childhood memories.
He was also planning how to get out of the hell hole of a prison, something he and his fellow escapees managed by distracting guards and running for their lives. They were a New Zealander, an Australian, a Scotsman, a Brit and a Canadian – together crossing the European countryside.
The resistance movement again helped Hickton and he finally arrived back to England on October 2, 1942, more than a year after his plane was shot down.
Like the everyday French people who hid him, the resistance movement, an unofficial collection of all comers in Nazi-occupied countries, were unsung heroes of the war, Hickton believed.
‘‘Many were killed. Many were tortured...
‘‘If they got caught they wouldn’t say a word. They would rather be shot.’’
One of the resistance’s fiercest figures was tiny New Zealander Nancy Wake, the elusive Wellington-born nurse turned journalist who, known as the ‘‘white mouse’’, topped the Gestapo’s most wanted list.
Hickton met her in a French village when he was on the run. When she died in 2011, Hickton voiced his disgust at the New Zealand Government never formally recognising her inimitable work.
Henry Thomas ‘‘Pat’’ Hickton, was born in Taumarunui on January 26, 1921.
He was one of three siblings who moved to the All Saints Children’s Home in Palmerston North after the death of their mother Edna when Hickton was