Heroic f ighter pilot who escaped from a military hospital with a one-legged Kiwi
Guy Pease, who died in December in Australia at the age of 100, was typical of those of his generation – reticent about discussing his war record, which included capture as a POW and two daring escapes.
In 1941, he enlisted in the RAF, and by April 1943 became an army co-operation and tactical reconnaissance pilot flying the North American Mustang, being posted to No.268 Squadron RAF.
He soon gained a reputation as a reliable and aggressive pilot, and undertook operations as the leader of a pair of Mustangs on low-level tactical reconnaissance sorties and attacks against ground targets in the Netherlands, Belgium and northern France. He had a few scrapes.
The first was in July 1943 with his partner, Flying Officer RJF ‘‘Mitch’’ Mitchell, flying low in rough weather over the Cherbourg Peninsula, taking reconnaissance pictures. He noticed his engine temperature had gone ‘‘off the clock’’. With the cockpit soon boiling hot and filling with smoke, his only choice was to bail out.
Pease climbed out but his life jacket quickly became entangled. Mitchell saw him climb back inside, flip the plane upside down and drop out. The parachute opened just in time before it hit the turbulent water.
Pease uncoupled the heavy parachute but also inadvertently released the inflatable dinghy. In his full woollen battledress and flying boots, he trod water while Mitchell circled overhead reporting his position. A Spitfire of a rescue squadron eventually arrived and was joined by Typhoons of a Royal New Zealand Air Force squadron to provide cover to the rescue operation.
A Supermarine Walrus flying boat arrived to pick Pease up. After several attempts the pilot dropped a dinghy and Pease managed to clamber in, exhausted. He had spent almost six hours treading water in full combat gear. Finally the Free French Navy picked him up.
A month later, when landing, a sudden unexpected burst of wind picked up the plane and dumped it nose first to the ground. He was uninjured.
On September 26, 1943, he and Flight Sergeant Walter Mell took off for Rouen in France on a train-busting sortie. As they completed an attack on a goods train, they found themselves ‘‘bounced’’ by eight Focke-Wulf Fw-190s from up high. Pease’s plane was strafed with 20mm explosive cannon shells, forcing him to crash-land. Mell was killed.
Pease suffered multiple pieces of shrapnel in his side, a broken arm and a smashed hand. He had several operations at the military hospital in Rouen to remove the metal and set the arm and hand, none done with anaesthetic.
In his ward was a 24-year-old New Zealand Spitfire pilot, Flying Officer MG ‘‘Mac’’ Sutherland, who had his leg amputated. Despite this, he had plans to escape and recruited Pease to join him. While the guard was taking Pease to the toilet, Sutherland grabbed the padlock keys left on Pease’s bed and traced the outline on a piece of toilet paper. Using an aluminium spoon and a nail file, he eventually managed to forge the key.
Early on a late December day, they opened the padlock and gained access to the next-door public ward, which was full of snoring German and Italian wounded. They located their uniforms and returned to their room.
They were three storeys up and had been able to unlock the window. On December 21, they tied their bedsheets together and climbed out. Sutherland went first with his crutches on his back, leaving his peg leg strapped to Pease. Eventually, they got out and scaled the perimeter fence, but both spiked their hands badly in the process.
They evaded the Germans for four
days but their wounds became badly infected. Eventually, they were led by two young women on bicycles to a chateau in a nearby village, where the owners – Georges and Alice Berry – fed them and let them sleep. Rather than put the couple and their two children at further risk, Pease later asked them to phone the hospital and tell the Germans about their ‘‘guests’’.
The two pilots were put into solitary confinement before being sent to Stalag Luft III in eastern Germany. Sutherland was later repatriated to Britain because of his wounds and was returned to New Zealand.
Pease remained in the camp for a year before the Germans marched thousands of Allied prisoners westwards in early 1945. He was taken to a camp south of Berlin, which was ‘‘liberated’’ by the Russians, who nevertheless confined the prisoners to the camp.
By this time, he had had enough. With another New Zealander, Bruce Cunningham, a RNZAF Lancaster bomber pilot, he broke out of the camp and reached the American lines on the Elbe.
Guy Edward Chaloner Pease was born at Gisborough Hall, Yorkshire, in 1922. His father, Major Herbert Pease, had been highly decorated on the Western Front. Pease was educated at Eton. He was an outstanding cricketer and played for Yorkshire as a colt, but the war interrupted that path.
After the war, Pease studied Arabic and returned to Sudan, where he became Lands Inspector for Khartoum Province for 10 years and was appointed MBE.
He met his future wife, Eileen, in Jerusalem. They married in 1947 and had three sons. After his marriage dissolved, he moved to Sydney, and in 1971 married Robin Root. They had one son.
Always supremely modest, he always felt bad about losing ‘‘three kites in as many months’’. Pease remained in touch with ‘‘Mac’’ until the New Zealander died of cancer in 1969. They exchanged letters and phoned each other every year on the anniversary of their escape.
Shortly before he turned 100, Pease flew unaccompanied to London, where he celebrated his birthday at the RAF Club in Piccadilly. He was the last survivor of 268 Squadron.