Remotely Interesting: Different class of heroes

There is a moment during the documentary Lost Airmen of Buchenwald that says something about the way men thought and spoke when in mortal danger back in the 1940s.

The Lancaster bomber of Napier-born Phil Lamason and his pals had been shot up and was hurtling towards Nazi-occupied France, flames shooting from one of its wings.

The possibilities for the crew were death or parachuting to likely capture. One airmen had been flung across the cabin, and, injured, had to be helped to exit the craft and parachute to the ground.

"You're cutting my time a bit short, Chappy," his rescuer said as he threw him from the plane, little more than 1000 feet from the ground, before having to jump himself and try to get his parachute to open at that low altitude.

Note when watching Lost Airmen the lack of swear words related to forbidden liaisons, note nobody is termed a "candy-assed" anything, and note nobody mentioned the word "closure" while later attempting to recover from this situation.

Things were different back then.

On Prime next Sunday at 8.45pm, Lost Airmen tells the story of remarkable derring-do by pilots and airmen from countries including the United States, Great Britain, Jamaica and, of course, New Zealand, sent to bomb the Nazis.

By American film-maker Mike Dorsey, the documentary includes interviews filmed with Lamason in 2010, when he was 91.

The film was released last year.

It tells the story of Lamason, who took control of the situation when 168 men were caught and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, and treated as spies and terrorists, rather than prisoners of war.

Impossibly heroic, impossibly exotic, and impossibly awful, the story is told through interviews with seven surviving members of the group.

They tell of falling from the sky into a French forest, where, while evading German soldiers hunting for them, one hides under a bush, centimetres from the boot, and the gun, of his hunter.

Some make contact with the French Resistance, and hide everywhere from city apartments to country farms, holding forged documents and trying to sound French.

They were eventually dobbed in by a Belgian traitor, and taken to Buchenwald.

Kiwi viewers can take pride that as senior officer, Lamason instils military discipline into his captured men, and, at great risk, secretly contacts the Luftwaffe to complain about the Allied airmen's captivity.

Seven days before their scheduled execution, 156 of the 168 prisoners were transferred to Stalag Luft III, and most of the airmen credit their survival at Buchenwald to the leadership and determination of Lamason, who, after the war, moved to Dannevirke and became a farmer until his retirement.

 

Add a Comment