Studiegroep Luchtoorlog 1939-1945

						Sgt. John Hanham (Jack) Dougherty was the bomb aimer of of Halifax LW433. The bomber was shot down by a nightfighter and crashed near Rucphen. Dougherty was one of the four survivors. He made a hard landing west of Tilburg and suffered a slight sprained ankle, a bleeding ear and two paralyzed fingers for weeks. Luckily there were no Germans around, so he buried his parachute and then walked all night on his compass. In 1945, after his return to England, he reported: ‘I baled out W of Tilburg on 17 June and landed in a grain field. Hid my chute first. Then I got out my compass and headed south and west. I figured I was nearer the German border than I was. Walked all night, it was spitting rain. Crossed the Belgian border without knowing it. Stopped by a stream for a rest about 4 a.m. A Belgian peasant, his wife and a lad out stealing potatoes saw me. Could speak a little French. I asked them where I was and they showed me on the map. Started south and walked till daybreak. Hid in a thick wood till dusk, it rained all day.’ In the evening he set out again. He crossed a highway running to Breda and also passed a town named ‘Westwezel’ (Wuustwezel). He ‘ran across a man in the fields’ who advised him to head for Antwerp. Dougherty took the tram to Brasschaat having already discarded his battle dress tunic and tops to his flying boots in the woods. 

After arriving without incidents in Brasschaat he bumped into a German army camp and German soldiers 'so I made myself scarce in a cave that served as an air raid shelter near the main street'. Some Belgians had seen him entering the air shelter and approached Dougherty. He asked them for food and drinks and how to get away. They left and returned with a compatriot who spoke English. Dougherty: 'They left me and returned with a Belgian who spoke English and he told me he would fetch a very good patriot who would keep me at his house. This man soon came and I followed about 10 yds. behind him till we were safely in his house. He had a blond wife. I stayed at their place two days while they were trying to get me in the underground. Finally the lady announced that there would be two men come to take me to Antwerp. The people I stayed with were called Gilbert (...). This happened around June 20. Two men came for me in a car and they took me to this woman's house in Antwerp.' This was probably the house of Hermine Scheire at Boomgaardstraat 29 in Antwerp. According to Dougherty there were already two RAF-airmen hiding here when he arrived: Sgt. Russell (Russ) Margerison (E1124), the mid upper gunner of Lancaster LM513 and Sgt. Richard Ernest Reeves (E1036), the wireless operator of Lancaster LM513. The following day they were joined by F/Sgt. Edmund James (Ed) Downing (E0555) (who many years later would become his brother-in-law!), the navigator of Dougherty's Halifax. Downing was severely wounded at his thigh. Dougherty: 'the four of us stayed at this young lady's house for three weeks. While there we received the best of care, and a doctor used to come to dress my navigator's leg wounds. We also received civilian clothes here and faked passports.' 

They remained here until 5 July. They then moved for two days to the house of Ms. Marie and Angile Kuppens at Bredalaan 525 I at Antwerp-Merksem. Downing was still treated here for his wounds, this time by Dr. Castel from Merksem. Dougherty told what happened then. 'On July 5th, we were visited by a man, his wife, and daughter supposedly representing the Red Cross. If they were spies, the game was up anyway so we gave them our names, ranks and numbers. The next evening we were whisked away, told that we were on the way to Paris. We split up in two's, and our guide took us to another place to sleep that night. The next day, he came to call for us, and took us on a streetcar to Merken [Merksem] a suburb of Antwerp. We stayed at two old maid's place, upstairs. They ran a dress goods shop downstairs. Their names are Maria et Angile Kuppens, Chausser de Prida, 525 I, Merksem, Anvers. While here we received dinner and a doctor came to dress Downing's wound.' On 7 July Downing and Dougherty were picked up by a certain André Rosseeuw and taken to a café. Here they met a woman who took them across the street where two men were waiting in a car. What they didn't realize was that the escape line they used was infiltrated by the 'Abwehr'. The two were victims of Belgian traitor René Van Muylem ('Alphonse') and his fake KLM-line. Shortly after the war Dougherty reported how he was arrested: 'In the afternoon of July 7, one guide picked us up again where we went to a restaurant where he handed us over to a girl. We walked with her to a park, where two men in a car picked us up and took us to what they said was the underground headquarters. They said they would need some idea who we were and when we were shot down, our route and where we stayed to ascertain that we were not spies, so I gave him my general route but divulged no names because I was suspicious. Finally when he was not getting the information he wanted he got angry and he said he was the German Secret Police and threatened to shoot me for a spy. I showed him my dog tags and he said they didn't mean anything. He was a fairly stocky man with blond hair, blue eyes and a mustache, about 5' 8'. The other man who interrogated my navigator had red hair and he was well built, about 6' 1'. After that we were turned over to the German army who drove us to Antwerp jail where we stayed in a cell for a week. Then we were transported via Brussels to Germany. Both airmen first went as PoW to Stalag Luft VII near Bankau, before being moved to Stalag III-A near Luckenwalde. They were liberated here by Russian troops on 22 April 1945.

After the war Dougherty attended Queen's University and worked at Westclox, Peterborough, Ontario and RCA in Renfrew, Ontario. John Dougherty passed away on 23 December 2017 at the age of 92.