The Shelburne Escape Line (1944) was a resistance organization in occupied France in the Second World War. The Shelburne Line, financed by the British intelligence agency MI9, helped Allied airmen shot down over France evade capture by the occupying Germans and return to Great Britain by boat from the coast of Brittany. For the Allies, the rescue of downed airmen had a practical as well as a humanitarian objective. Training new and replacement air crews was expensive and time-consuming. Rescuing downed airmen and returning them to duty became a priority.
MI9's first attempt, called the Oaktree Line, to set up an escape line for airmen by boat from Brittany to England failed due to German infiltration and poor leadership. Its successor, the Shelburne Escape Line, helped more than 300 airmen evade German capture. In addition to those airmen evacuated to England, the associated Francois Line in Paris helped airmen escape to neutral Spain or shelter in place in a forest refuge in France.
Background
Tens of thousands of allied airmen were shot down over Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. The majority of them were killed or captured by the Germans, but more than 5,000 in Western Europe were helped by escape lines to evade capture and return to Great Britain. The largest of many escape lines were the Pat O'Leary Line, founded in Marseilles by people of several nationalities, and the Comet Line founded by Belgians. However, by spring 1943 those two lines had been weakened by German infiltrators and the capture of many of their leaders and "helpers," as the volunteers who worked for the lines were called. At the same time the air war over Europe was expanding and an increasing number of downed airmen needed the help of escape lines to evade capture. The Shelburne Line was created and financed by MI9. Most other lines, although they may have been assisted financially by MI9 and other allied organizations, were the product of the efforts of private citizens of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and other countries who resisted the German occupation.
The Oaktree Line
The predecessor of the Shelburne Line was the Oaktree line, created by Airey Neave and James Langley of MI9 as an escape line to evacuate downed airmen by boat from Brittany in France to Dartmouth in England. The leader they chose for Oaktree was Vladamir Bouryschkine, a Russian-American better known as Val Williams, who had previously worked with the Pat Line. Canadian Raymond Labrosse went with Bouryschkine to France as the wireless operator. The pair were parachuted "blind" (not met on arrival) into France on 20 March 1943. Their radio was damaged in the jump and they were unable to communicate with MI9 in London. The pair had been warned not to contact survivors of the Pat Line which had been infiltrated and destroyed by the Germans, a warning Bouryschkine ignored. Bouryschkine went to Paris and set up an organization there to house and care for downed airmen in safehouses and then journeyed to Brittany where 90 downed airmen were awaiting evacuation. Thirty-nine of them were staying in the chateau of an American woman, Countess Roberta "Betty" de Mauduit.
Attempts to organize a sea evacuation failed because Oaktree still lacked a radio. Bouryschkine instead led a group of airmen southwards intending to link up with the Francoise Line of Marie-Louise Dissard and cross the Pyrenees on foot to Spain. Bouryschkine (notoriously careless about security) and his party were captured by the Germans on 4 June 1943 in Pau. Labrosse made it back safely to England. Oaktree collapsed and many helpers in Paris and elsewhere, including Mauduit, were captured. Bouryschkine and Mauduit both survived imprisonment. The Oaktree Line was penetrated and betrayed by Gestapo agent Roger Le Neveu.