Warrant Officer Arthur William (‘Joe’) Edgley was the rear gunner of Stirling BK611 that crashlanded near Grubbenvorst. Except Edgley, also the wireless operator, Sgt. Stanley Maxted (E0066) and the navigator, F/Lt Brian E. Cooper (E0064) survived the crash landing. Edgley and Maxted decided to try to evade together and started walking in westerly direction, using their compass. After an hour walking, Edgley and Maxted crossed the railway line from Venlo to Helmond and around 4 a.m. they approached a farm. The farmer didn’t let them enter. He gave the two some bread and cheese but told them also to leave. After a while, they arrived at another farm where they found some sacks in the yard. They took them to a nearby field where they tried to get some sleep.
They didn’t succeed and at 7:15 AM on 26 May they set off again. Soon after the two reached a village. They knock on the door of a house where they are given coffee and some hot food. Continuing on their way, they approached two men working in the fields, one of whom led them to the house of Lambertus van der Bomen at Vaartdijk 1 in Someren, where they rested a bit. Edgley and Maxted were given also a note written in English that stated that about fifteen Germans were searching the region for them and that they should go and try to reach Belgium. According to his Liberation Questionnaire, this note was accompanied by twelve hard-boiled eggs (eighteen in an account by Edgley much later than his 1945 report).
Van der Bomen gave the two enough food for a few days: coffee, butter, cheese, bacon, two loaves of bread and a knife. Well outside Someren, they hid until 8:30 PM in a ditch and then set off again. They stopped a man on a bicycle, who advised them to go to a nearby farm. Here, they received cigarettes, more food and drinks and the direction how to reach the Dutch-Belgian border. At nightfall, they started walking again. Around 6 a.m. op 27 May they arrived in Meijel. Here they stayed the rest of the day. In the evening, L. Smets, a teacher living at Henseniusstraat 11B in Venray (later moved to Maasbree) and whom they had met in Meijel in the morning, brought them civilian clothes.
Soon after they proceeded their travels through the marshy area of Aan Het Elfde. They were soon joined by Smets, who came after them by bike, and helped them cross the marshes. He also gave the two airmen a map of the region and directions how to get to the border. After walking all night, the two men took a rest in a farmyard. After the woke up they saw a farmer milking his cows in a nearby field. First surprised when he saw them coming out of a pile of straw, the man took them into his farm and served them coffee and something to eat.
Later that day (on 28 May), the farmer and his son led them to another farm where they hid in a stable until the evening. At nightfall, they set off again and fortunately encountered after a while some Belgians smuggling wheat. They led them to a point at about one km north of Budel (in his Libertation Questionnaire Maxted mentioned Weert, ± 10 km from Budel), near the border. They then crossed the railway track linking Weert to Eindhoven and spent the night in a haystack. At 5:30 AM on 29 May, they headed, avoiding the village of Budel, towards the border. When they neared it they were stopped by a Dutch border guard who asked them for their passports. Edgley and Maxted played open card and told him who they were. The guard let them pass (in his Liberation Questionnaire Maxted told his interpreters that this guard, who had seen their uniforms under their civilian clothes, ordered them to hide in the bushes, after which he went to see if it was safe at the other side of the border. On his return, he showed them the way through the wood to Belgian soil).
Edgley and Maxted thus arrived in Belgium and soon approached Achel. To the north of the town, they approached a farm and, while they were eating, an English-speaking man arrived who told them to follow him to another man who was going to join them. This was Richard Allen from the Kolleberglaan in Achel. Soon after Allen arrived on a bicycle and guided the two airmen to Neerpelt. In this town a priest (who, according to Maxted, he had told them not to talk to him) guided them to the outskirts of Overpelt before leaving them, telling them that they were now on the main road to Antwerp. From there, Edgley and Maxted walked to a farm south of Lommel where they spent the night. The next morning, the farmer handed them train tickets to Antwerp, advising them not to talk at all during their journey, as many Germans also used this line. In his own report, Maxted indicated that this farmer near Lommel, after having lodged them, accompanied them to the station of Lommel and bought them tickets for Antwerp. After the train had arrived, they entered a wagon marked 'Wehrmacht' and pretended to sleep the whole way.
The two men therefore arrived in Antwerp around 9:30 AM on Sunday 30 May and now tried to find a bridge to cross the Scheldt River without success. According to Maxted they were stopped once or twice by the police during their four of five hours walk in the city but managed to get away with declaring that they were French workers. In the afternoon, while in a city park, they approached an old man and told him who they were. This man escorted them to a café where the owner spoke English. They exchanged the French francs of their escape kit against Belgian francs. They were served drinks, received cigarettes and the customers of the café hugged them, telling them they feared for the safety of the two airmen. One of the customers then guided them to Madame Philomène's second-hand clothing store where they were given civilian clothes and where they their hair was cut. Then they returned to the café, After a while a man arrived who took them to his home at 129 Merksemsesteenweg in Deurne. This was Seraphin Cornelis. He and his wife Marcelle Tanghe hosted the two men until 8 June. During their stay, Séraphin (whom they called 'Jim'), who operated a laundry, took care of providing them with clean linen on a regular basis. Another man came ascertain their identities in order to verify with London the veracity of their statements.
Around 6:00 PM on 8 June Mariette Merjay and a young man arrived from Brussels and escorted Edgley and Maxted by train to Brussels. After arriving in a suburb of the capital, the young man handed him over to a man who was waiting at the exit of the station. This was probably Paul André Boutet alias 'Captain'. He was a captain in the Salvation Army at 31 Rue Duquesnoy and manager of a clandestine restaurant at 65 Rue du Lombard. Boutet took them (by tram, journey about ½ hour) to Paul Calamé-Rosset (a Swiss citizen, architect by profession, employee at the Swiss Legation in Brussels) at 71 Dieweg in Ukkel (Uccle). According to Maxted this was also the hiding place for a Jewish family and two young Belgian Resistance fighters. According to Edgley, on 22 June Maxted was moved for a day to another house. The next day bpoth men were reunited and brought to the center of Brussels where they ended up in the apartment of a young nurse named Louise. They remained there until 26 or 28 June when they went to the house of an elderly lady, a midwife, with whom they stayed for three days.
In the first days of July a woman picked them up. By car they were taken to 'the Captain's house' which was the hideout of the traitor Prosper Dezitter and his false escape route, the 'Pensionnat', at 369 Avenue Slegers in Woluwé-Saint-Lambert, Brussels. Several other airmen were already assembled here. After their false ID's were made, Edgley, Maxted and four other airmen: Walter Mullaney, William Cole, Frank Hugo and John Smith were taken to the Gare du Midi in Brussels on 7 July by a Belgian doctor and a man. From there, they took a train to Paris. Arriving in Paris around 15:00 hours, the group took the metro to the suburbs of the city and was split up. Edgley and Maxted went a hotel. The next day, 9 July, Edgley and Maxted joined the other four airmen again and marched with their guide to a train station from where a train was to take them to Bordeaux. Strolling through Paris, the group was suddenly surrounded by six to eight men in civilian clothes armed with pistols. They were arrested and sent to Fresnes jail for six weeks. From there they were taken to Frankfurt, Germany, where they were interrogated and the sent to Stalag IV B for the remaining two years of the war.
After the war Edgley took up his prewar job again, farming.
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