In August the following year he managed to leave France, traverse Spain and Portugal and reach Gibraltar, where he was flown to London to link up with De Gaulle’s Free French Forces.
Although possible. It’s just that Portugal isn’t on the route from France to Gib.
Wasn’t Portugal neutral? And not ruled by Franco. Perhaps Portugese might be more inclined to let a Brit go on their way rather than intern them if caught. Maybe a slightly safer way to move south and switch back to Spain after running out of Portugal so to speak.
Ah–he’s French–maybe above still applies. If they’ll take Tim in they must be fairly easy-going.
As Ecks says, probably not in wartime. Perhaps it was safer going that route rather than via BiS country.
I knew a man who was strongly recommended to leave Amin’s Uganda. Get yer arse home, foreign office will help with costs when you get back.
So he packed up the car, drove to Cape Town, and took a cruise liner home to Southampton.
Bet you couldn’t do that journey safely these days.
But if he’d got to Portugal why not just fly to London from Lisbon? Plenty did.
Cdr J: I’ve just watched Michael Palin’s ‘Pole to Pole’ again, and it’s interesting how difficult it was once he left Egypt until crossing into SA. It was made in 1992, I think. South Sudan was off limits and Ethiopia was still bandit country. The ferry on Lake Tanganyika was an old German pre-WWI vessel, though Zimbabwe had still to suffer the later ravages of Mugabe. I don’t suppose it’s much better, apart from a few Chinese-built roads.
It is rather odd, because I imagine that very short border ES/GIB would have been avidly watched by all sorts of people during the war. And the guy was presumably a French national, not Brit. If my hosts here had taken a disliking to him, hew could have found himself being deported to France. Or extradited to France?
A boat could travel from Portugal to Gibraltar without entering Spanish territory.
dearieme, look what happened to Leslie Howard.
For some reason I find myself thinking “Glenn Miller is missing”. Was that Rock Follies?
@ Diogenes
Yes indeed, a delightful TV series adorned by the scrumptios Rula Lenska.