Studiegroep Luchtoorlog 1939-1945

						F/O. Robert Duncan MacFayden was the navigator of Halifax HX320. During a bombing raid to Aachen this aircraft was short down by a night fighter. The whole crew survived and five of them managed to evade capture for a shorter or longer period. MacFayden was one of them. After bailing out he landed near Lieshout. On the ground he contacted the Dutch resistance after a few days, when he approached the farm of Leonardus van der Sande at B.74 Gerwen (mun. Nuenen) in the evening of 26 May. Van der Sande: 'pilot came to the house at 10 o'clock in the evening. He was very hungry and so he got sufficient food. In the meantime they warned the underground people.' At around 1 AM at 27 May G.J. van Kampen (Nuenen F.150) arrived at the farm of Van der Sande and transported the Canadian to P. Kuijten at Nuenen C.117. Here he was picked up - probably - on 28 May by resistance worker Frans van Dijk. Shortly he ‘teamed up’ with another airman who was shot down the same night: Sgt. Bruce Alexander Fraser (E0509). Van Dijk brought the two to Piet C. Couwenberg (Heuvel, Waalre). They were hidden above the pigsty at his farm for about ten days. From here they moved probably to the attic of the house of his father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Anna van Dijk-Coenen, on Markt 6 in Waalre. In the night of 8 July they were picked up by a police car (DKW F8) and the resistance workers Henricus Marinus Johannes (Harry) Aarts, Jan Willem (Jan) Brunnekreef and Petrus Jacobus (Piet) Haagen. While on their way to the house of Coby Pulskens in Tilburg the car was halted by the Germans near Moergestel. There was no chance to escape. The underground workers, Fraser and MacFayden were all arrested. Fraser and MacFayden were separated from their Dutch helpers and were transported via Eindhoven, Venlo and Frankfurt to Stalag Luft I Barth. They survived the war. Aarts, Haagen and Brunnekreef were murdered by the Germans in Kamp Vught on 19 August 1944.