Tom: A Life Saved ~ Lives Lost! with author Goffinet McLaren

Tom: A Life Saved ~ Lives Lost! with author Goffinet McLaren

In the middle of the night you bail out of your stricken plane over Nazi occupied Europe during WWII. You don`t know if you`ve landed in Germany, or somewhere else. A local farmer comes along. He doesn’t know if you are a Nazi, posing as an Allied airman; You don`t know if he is a member of the Resistance who might help you. Later, hiding in a Resistor`s safe-house, imagine your fear at the sound of Nazi jackboots marching outside the home. And feel the Resistor`s fear for himself and his family that the dreaded black car will pull up to the front door and the Gestapo will step out to search for evaders. How can you and your Resistor guide pretend to be unconcerned in a railway carriage as the silver-suited SS officers move along the aisle, checking traveler IDs, while you know that your papers are fake! These were some of RAF Flight Sergeant Tom Hutton`s experiences, now told by his daughter Goffinet. Parts of Tom`s story are tragic, such as the hail of bullets that cut down one of the most famous agents in Britain`s SOE, an agent who had helped her father escape just weeks before. Parts of the story are even amusing, like the Resistor guide who dressed in a flamboyant outfit to attract the Germans` attention to himself, rather than to the two Allied evaders who were following in his wake. Almost seventy years later, Goffinet learns the full story of The Village Priest who was instrumental in her father`s escape, and why she is reminded of this priest every day of her life.