Us Official Photographs

German prisoners on French airfield

Once they were the captors, now they are the captives -- these German prisoners are ready to go to work on a French airfield from which American airmen and British Empire troops will be put on planes to take them back home after being captured and escaping into Switzerland. Many Allied airmen, who were forced-down or escaped from German prison camps in France, were helped to safety by the French Marquis. The escapees would pass through the hands of the Marquis, French peasants and seemingly innocent villagers who guided them across the French border into Switzerland. After the liberation of France the repatriated men boarded planes at a French airfield and flown back to their bases and then home. October 1944