During World War II thousands of Allied pilots crashed or parachuted into Occupied Europe. Over three thousand were saved through the courageous efforts of ordinary citizens who hid them in their homes, created false identity papers and in many cases evacuated them over the Pyrenees into Spain.
During World War II thousands of Allied pilots crashed or parachuted into Occupied Europe. Over three thousand were saved through the courageous efforts of ordinary citizens who hid them in their homes, created false identity papers and in many cases evacuated them over the Pyrenees into Spain.
Barney Rawlings, author Bobbie Ann Mason’s father-in-law, was one of those men and his story forms the basis for this meticulously crafted page-turner.
TG: Talk about Barney Rawlings, the inspiration for The Girl in the Blue Beret. Was he a southern storyteller?
BAM: I certainly never thought of Barney as a southern storyteller. He was from Kansas City. He was quiet and reserved. When he told about his wartime experience, he downplayed it to a great extent. He was a co-pilot on He was a co-pilot on a B-17 bomber, which was shot down over Belgium in January 1944. They crash-landed and one person died.
Barney made his way over the border to France and members of the French Resistance sheltered him, got him false papers, sent him to Paris briefly, then smuggled him over the Pyrenees to Spain. He wrote an account of his adventures in a memoir in the 1990s. In hindsight he was able to tell the story in an amusing way as an adventure. I thought there had to be more to the story. It wasn’t until I began researching the period for my novel that I learned how dangerous his journey had been and what risks his helpers had taken. In 1944, the Germans had increased their efforts to penetrate the escape networks, and they had destroyed the Comète Line, which had been the most successful. There was a backlog of aviators hidden north of Paris. Some had to wait until September when Patton’s army came through. Barney got to Paris in April, then was sent on to the Pyrenees. On the train down to Pau, on the edge of the mountains, he was almost arrested and had to jump off the train, then somehow find the Resistance guide. He described his trek over the Pyrenees in the snow as a refreshing adventure, but I know now from reading other accounts of the same route that it was very dangerous. Many people died trying to make that crossing.
But in writing my novel, I didn’t stick to his story. It was a point of departure for me, an inspiration. Then I had to discover Marshall Stone’s story and his memory of the girl in the blue beret that draws him back to France in 1980, when the story takes place. It is really parallel narratives–Marshall’s journey in 1980, with flashbacks to 1944.
My father-in-law died in 2004, and I regret that he could not read my novel, for I think he would have been gratified by it. However, in the 1980s, people from the Belgian town where he crashed constructed a memorial to the crew and held a grand celebration, which he and surviving crew members attended. So I think he realized the strong emotional connection that exists between the Allied airmen and their European helpers. It is this bond that I made central to my novel.
TG: That raises a very interesting point. US foreign policy under George W. Bush engendered relations with French governments that could be described as testy at best. I often found myself defending the French and citing personal experiences of French people thanking “me” for the bravery of the young Americans who saved the world. Can you speak about some of the people you encountered in your research and their feelings about Americans and America.
BAM: When I traveled in France, I dealt mostly with people who had been young during the war–and to some extent with their families. The special gratitude they felt toward American aviators from World War II persisted and didn’t seem to interfere with whatever tensions arose in recent times. And by the time Obama ran for president there was a positive surge of good feeling toward America. It was apparent to me all along that the French could disapprove of
American policy without forgetting their kinship with America. Our histories are so intertwined it is well to remember. I am from a state where the largest city is Louisville, and the towns of Versailles and Paris (in Bourbon County) are prominent. I went to school in Fayette County.
TG: It is my impression that most infantrymen from that or any war are reluctant to discuss their experiences, but pilots seem less inhibited. Are they a different breed of cat? And could you talk about the camaraderie that exists between the rescued flyers.
BAM: Airmen are more removed from the war. Unless they get shot at or crash, they don’t see what the infantryman sees up close. Yet both groups experienced an intensity that they would never find again in later life. A Frenchwoman who had been deported during the war told me about the special closeness the deportees felt with each other because they had all been through the same horrors. She said she hadn’t realized that the downed aviators must have felt a similar closeness–the memory of having fallen into a foreign country, without the language, having to hide with the help of strangers. There is an organization in the U.S., the Air Forces Escape and Evasion Society (AFEES), which celebrates the bond between the American downed flyers and their European helpers. They meet every year, and they have reunited many aviators with the people who risked their lives for them.
TG: The mood in the B-17 felt very natural and the avionics sounded correct. I kept seeing Dana Andrews looking out of the cockpit in The Best Years of our Lives. How did you go about gathering the details to create that atmosphere?
BAM: I have for a long time been close to the world of aviation. My husband, Roger, is an aviation buff, and our house is full of airplane models and copies of Aviation Weekly. I was around Barney Rawlings for many years and was well acquainted with his flying career as a TWA pilot. He once took us into a 747 simulator at Kennedy Airport. On another occasion, he took us through a B-17 that was visiting Long Island. Since then I have been aboard three other B-17s–the Liberty Belle, the Aluminum Overcast, and the Nine-o-Nine. Each time I had an opportunity to visit a B-17, I crawled through the tight space, locating where each crewman was stationed and trying to imagine what it was like to be flying the plane in the war. I would look through the cockpit window and notice how you couldn’t see over the nose when the plane was taxiing. The pilot had to make the plane waddle, to get side-to-side glimpses of the ground. Also, I saw lots of documentaries and read narratives by flyers. There were a few common threads, things about the bomb missions and the plane. The temperature–how cold it was on a mission. The beauty of the formation. The wonderful distinctive sound of the B-17. So all that is how I was able to imagine Marshall Stone on a B-17 bombing mission!
TG: Marshall seems to be the Airline pilot equivalent of The Man in the Gray-Flannel Suit who discovers a richer and more textured life through Annette. Were you reflecting on a personal story or portraying his ability to grow after retirement?
BAM: It was not a personal story. Marshall, an airline pilot, is a man who has had his head in the clouds, literally. He needs to get grounded. I saw that Marshall’s single-mindedness had caused him to miss out on a lot. He had flown away from ordinary life, expecting his family to operate on its own while he pursued his true love, flying. In 1980, at age sixty, with forced retirement, he is at a turning point. By obeying the natural impulse to take stock of himself at that time of life, he can rediscover himself, find the young kid in him–who is maybe represented by the character Robert, the French convoyeur he admired so much. He imagined Robert was doing heroic deeds while Marshall was forced to hide in an apartment in Paris during the war. Maybe he was projecting onto Robert what he wished for himself. So Marshall has to come to terms with that fantasy of heroism and with what really happened. And in coming down to earth he has to face the mundane, the little things in life–where there are many thrilling surprises.
TG: And finally what was the most significant thing that you learned while writing this book and what do you hope readers will take away from it?
BAM: I learned about the escape networks organized to help downed aviators during the Occupation. And I discovered the extraordinary gratitude many of these helpers still feel for the Allied war effort. They have held their memories and emotions all these years while Americans like Marshall or myself went blithely along, not realizing or remembering what sacrifices many of these Europeans made for them. I want readers to appreciate this lesser known aspect of the Resistance–the courageous families who were willing to risk everything to help the stranded aviators. And I hope readers will be captivated by the character of Annette–whose lively spirit embodies the courage and resilience of many unsung heroes.
