Page 55 - 2016 AMA Spring

Exercise
Cpl Will Barnes-Smith and Cpl Ted Just talking about Louis Barrau, a teenager who aided the escapees and evaders, who was killed by the Vichy Police after being betrayed.
TIGERTRAIL Cpl Ted Just, Soldier Development Wing (Sennybridge)
Exercise TIGER TRAIL was an expedi- tionary trek following the Chemin de La Liberte or ‘The Freedom Trail’. It was, in its time one of the hardest escape routes for allied servicemen and women escaping and evading capture from the Vichy Regime active in France during WWII. The expedition saw members from the Army Training Regiment in Pirbright and Soldier Development Wing (Sennybridge) trek
across the mountains following the route through the foothills of the Pyrenees from St Girons to the foot of Mont Valier and over the frontier over into Spain.
The Freedom Trail was one of the three main escape routes over the Pyrenees used by Allied Serviceman and French Evaders trying to reach the Free French Forces in North Africa. The Chemin de la Liberte was less travelled than the Pat O’Leary line centred on the Mediterra- nean coast at Marseilles or the Comet Line which ran near Bayonne on the Atlantic Coast. Some 782 French evaders and a significant number of downed British and US Airmen made the savagely tough crossing over the mountains of the Ariege to Spain and eventual freedom at its peak in 1943. The trail was used for 113 evasions. Physically, this was by far the hardest escape route of the three. The route was officially re-opened in 1994 but is even less travelled today than it was in the war.
Once undertaken, the trip followed the escape route through the foothills and mountains, forests and meadows with the party being accommodated and assisted by local refuges and bothy style gite d’ Etape. All kit and equipment had to be carried as well as food for the duration,
with water being sourced locally by the thirsty trekkers.
Day 1: Travel to France – The trip to Plymouth was uneventful, Capt Claire Sapwell was picked up on route but the fun started once we arrived at Plymouth Ferry Port. Brittany Ferries rumbled our plan to save the Treasury money by under-sizing our vehicles. A lady with a tape measure discovered that we were over size (and height). Banished to the naughty children’s corner till the ship was fully loaded we awaited our fate. Eventually we skulked onto the vehicle deck as the crew tutted and pointed at the ‘Brits’ who had held up the ship’s departure. The trip over was comfortable, nice food and the magician’s assistant was outstanding unlike the magician. The route from Santander to St Girons was quiet other than the OC’s and Cpl Just’s credit cards taking a hit on the numerous Tolls on route (LI). The overnight accommodation in the Chateau de Beauregard, former Nazi HQ, was outstanding. Unfortunately, time didn’t allow us to enjoy the Chateau but it made a fitting start point for our Chemin de la Liberte expedition as the start point was 300m away under the noses of the Nazi hierarchy that commandeered the building during the war.
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