Studiegroep Luchtoorlog 1939-1945

Evaders


Evader chart: E0570
SGLO Date crash Aircraft
T3835 22-06-44 Lancaster
MilRank First Name(s) Name
P/O. Eric James Blakemore
Milregnr. Nationality Born
169156 British
Returned Y/N Evader Fate Date Captured/Liberated Place Captured/Liberated Escape Line
Yes EVD 10 Mar 45 Lage Zwaluwe Pegasus II / Biesbosch Crossing
Evader Story
						P/O. Eric James ‘Ernie’ Blakemore was the wireless operator of Lancaster LL840 that crashed at Oenerbroek near Oene in the early morning of June 2, 1944. He bailed out in time and once on the ground, soon found fellow crewmember, F/O. John (Jack) Craven (E0571). After they got in touch with the Dutch resistance, they were taken to the house of the parents of J.C. ‘Bub’ De Vries in the Frisolaan 5 in Apeldoorn. After a while they were joined here by F/O. Kenneth C. Parsons (E0613). Three days later it was decided that three airmen in the house was one too many. The next day, Parsons moved next door to the house of doctor Stigter and his wife at the Frisolaan 7 and he stayed there for 2,5 months. 

At the end of September everything changed when De Vries and his daughter didn’t come home before curfew. After two hours, daughter Nancy arrived and told that her father was arrested when the Narda resistance group was rounded up by the German SD. Blakemore, Craven and another airman, F/Sgt. George Palamountain (E540) joined Parsons in the house of doctor Stigter. The next day, a quiet Sunday morning, they cycled to the outskirts of Apeldoorn. Here they boarded a fire truck that took them to the fire station in the Hoofdstraat in Epe. They changed cars there and were brought to the ‘De Schar’ hut in the ‘Pas Op’-camp in the woods near Vierhouten. Early in the evening of 26 October, they were taken, together with Americans Tom, Carroll, Al, Jim, Clark Noble and a British glider pilot, to a labor camp near ‘t Harde.

After three days there they were on the move again and ended up on the farm of widow Bakker-Van Essen at the Verlengde Schietweg, not far from the labour camp. Here the group was split, and Blakemore and Craven were taken to a farm near Elburg. Sometime later they joined Parsons and Noble at the farm of H.J. van den Brink at the shore of the Zuiderzee, west of Elburg.  After about three weeks they joined a group of evaders that assembled in the barn of the van Norel family at the Stoopschaarweg in Doornspijk. The plan was that they would be picked up by a truck there, but the truck didn’t turn up. Noble, Blakemore, Craven and Parsons were taken to a farm nearby. However, the next evening the truck did arrive, and the four airmen returned in a hurry to board the truck. After an adventurous ride of about an hour the truck stopped, and a man escorted them to another assembling point for Operation Pegasus II. 

At dusk of November 18, the evaders left as last party for the last stage in this escape operation. While on their way, they heard machine gun fire from up front. An advance party had run into a German sentry and a firefight had started. The guides of the resistance ordered the party into a thick forest to wait there. In the afternoon, after a night in the cold, a farmer turned up with stew and Dutch gin (jenever). In the evening a horse drawn cart appeared as promised and took them to a barn on the land of J. van Essen at the Westerhuisweg in Harskamp. In the night of 24 November, Blakemore and Parsons were picked up here and taken to Piet Christen and his family in the Verlooplaan in Barneveld. Soon they had to leave here for security reasons, and they spent the night in the neighbor’s house. The little farm of Wouter Bouwman at the Wencopperweg between Barneveld and Voorthuizen was their hiding address for the next two nights. From there they went to the ‘Grote Boerderij’ of Cees and Gerrie Overeem at the Parallelweg in Voorthuizen. Around Christmas they had to leave here and returned to the farm of Wouter Bouwman. On 31 December they went to the house of W. van Barneveld Kooy at the Blootekamperweg in Voorthuizen. 

In the evening of 18 January 1945, they left the house in a hurry through the backdoor, wearing their pajamas, when a German officer rang the doorbell. All went well but it was obvious that this address wasn’t safe anymore. In the following weeks both men hid at several addresses in hamlets in the area like Achterveld, Valk and Zwartebroek. While hiding at a farm near Zwartebroek they were joined on 3 February by Charles Ramlow (E1054), an American airman, and English glider pilot Angus Low. Together they were taken to a little summer house where they joined James Branford (E1027), who had escaped from a POW-camp in Germany. 

Mid-February the men finally began on their journey to freedom. They left the Veluwe and cycled through Utrecht to ‘Huis te Maarn’, Arriving there, they were waved away because the house had just been searched by the German Grüne Polizei. The group was split up and Blakemore and Low went to stay with the van Alfen family at the Korte Uitweg in Schalkwijk while the others stayed at different addresses. On 7 March the airmen continued their journey and, after a long bicycle trip, got together again at the farm of H. Rijneveld at the Tiendweg in Willige-Langerak. From this address they were taken across the river Lek by members of the ‘Lekgroep’, a local resistance group. Via Groot-Ammers it went to the house of the van Woerkom family at the Rivierdijk in Sliedrecht. From the back garden of this house, they made the Biesbosch Crossing. First in a rowing boat to go through the creeks of the Biesbosch and then transferring to canoes to cross the Amer river. On 10 March 1945, at 3 o’clock in the morning, they arrived in Lage Zwaluwe where Allied troops were waiting for them. Blakemore and his fellow evaders were taken to Tilburg for interviews with IS9 and two days later they were flown to England.						
Source(s)
* Wolter Noordman, Gevangen op de Veluwe. De ervaringen van ondergedoken geallieerde militairen op de Noordoost-Veluwe 1944-1945 (Kampen 1998), page 15-52 and 176-177
* Eric J. Blakemore, Seven Year Interlude (London 1995)