Crew of Wellington X3712 VR-D
After take off at 1613 hours on July 29 1942 from Mildenhall Wellington X3712 headed towards its target at Saarbruken Germany. At around 0130 July 30 1942 over Porcheresse, near Ciney Belgium it was brought down by a night fighter . Another version mentions the Wellington being shot down over occupied France and coming down in Belgium between near Namur. It is bit of a distance from the French border to the town of Namur, which is where Orndorff stated he landed South of.
The aircraft still had on board all the bombs when it impacted with the ground, it appears the crew were unable to drop them before the crash. Although if the attack happened at the border then the aircraft flew as far as Namur some miles away fully loaded.
There is not many other details of the attack, only that one gunner Sgt. W.R. Orndorff did manage to parachute to the ground safely. He landed south of Namur. Once he was free of his chute he tried to find others of the crew.
The Evasion Begins
After failing to locate any others of the crew, Orndroff began down a road until he reached a farm at Sinin where he made contact with a young Belgian girl attending the family cow. The girl reassured him that it was safe to contact her father. When the farmer arrived he only would give Orndorff food and would not help.
One of the lectures the airmen had been given was on evasion, in it Orndorff remembered the advice of the evader from the lecture, find a priest. This the farmer would do, he directed Orndorff to the local priest then left.
Feeling uncomfortable with the situation and the farmer, Orndorff instead moved off South towards Marche. As he drew near this village he saw a Belgian cyclist who he approached and identified himself to. The man showed him a place to hide in the woods and told him to stay there while he went for food and clothing and some more help.
The young cyclist returned with two men in a car, they then drove a few miles to a farm where the airman stayed for about nine days. After this long wait one of the two men returned along with the uncle of the cyclist. They took their evader to Marloie and found passage for him on the train for Brussels. It was in Brussels that Sgt. Orndorff was put in touch with Belgian Resistance.
The Comet Line
The Resistance had in place an escape route named the Comet Line which over the war years helped rescue 800 Allied airmen. The group made up of thousands of men and women across Belgium and France provided guides, shelter and food to the airmen as they made their way back to England along one of three main routes. The work was dangerous and three months was the expected length of time the Resistance workers would last before being found out.
By early 1943 the Comet Line and it's brave members had brought Sgt. Orndorff to Spain, then guided by others to Gibraltar and eventually to England.
