POSTSCRIPT FROM THE UNDERGROUND
Wim Willemsen, Peter Wijnen, Dr. J. Bussels
(Originally published in Courage, Honor, Victory)
The following additional information was received during July and August 1986 from former members of the Dutch Resistance, Mr. Wim Willemsen and Mr. Peter Wijnen and from Dr. J. Bussels, a Belgian schoolmaster.
In 1981 Dr. Bussels wrote a book (which he published himself) called De Doodstraf Als Risico (The Death Sentence as a Risk), which includes many of the incidents as described in the accounts titled, "Betrayed" by Leroy Lawson and "One-Way Ticket To Munster" by Eldon Broman.
"The chief," or "the captain" as he was sometimes called, was a traitor who, together with his Spanish mistress, betrayed about five hundred Allied air crew members and an unknown number of Resistance members in Holland, Belgium, and France to the Gestapo in Nazi-occupied Europe.
Prosper de Zitter (the chief) and his mistress, Florentine Giralt, worked together with a British Army deserter, Harold Cole, who had fought with the British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium during the summer of 1940. These three were infiltrated by the Gestapo into the escape line codenamed "Luctor et Emergo" and worked for a highly specialized secret service group within the Gestapo code-named MI 9. They also cooperated with other traitors from the organization headed by the infamous Christian Lindemanns, otherwise known as "King Kong,'' a notorious Dutch traitor who was executed after the war.
Leroy Lawson was found by a boy who informed Maurice Cloostermans, a Belgian policeman, who then took him to Dr. Vrancken in Hechtel, northern Belgium, close to the Dutch border. Maurice Cloostermans then took Leroy Lawson to a farm at Overpelt owned by an elderly widow, Mrs. Spelters, a very brave lady, and her sons. From Overpelt Lawson was guided to Bree, also in northern Belgium. At Bree he was hidden at a cafe and bakery owned by Alfons ("Uncle Fons") Bergmans and his equally brave family.
It was at Bree where the American escapees met the chief, who took them to Brussels by car.
The chief was a Belgian who had emigrated to Canada and lived there for ten years before returning to England and being parachuted into occupied Belgium by the Allies in 1940 in order to help in the organization of escape lines for shot-down Allied airmen.
Prosper de Zitter and his mistress, Florentine Giralt, were tried, found guilty of treachery, and executed in Brussels on 17 September 1948. Sergeant Harold Cole was killed during the liberation of Paris in August 1944 when many members of the French Resistance movement in Paris took the law into their own hands.
Eldon Broman, who was shot down 10 October 1943, was hidden by the Loven family at Roermond, southeastern Holland, from 30 October 1943 until 5 November 1943 with William Whitlow and John Ashcraft, (385th Bomb Group) and Ross Repp (91st Bomb Group), who had also been shot down over Holland on 10 October 1943. They all left Roermond for Neeritter to be met by a famous Resistance man, Reinier van de Vin, who hid them until his friend, Theodor Florquin, came at midnight on 6 November and transported the escapers to his home at Geistingen, just inside the Belgian border.
From Geistingen a policeman, Peter Koolen, transported the airmen to Jan Hilven who took them on to Gertrude Hendrikx at Maaseik. Eldon Broman remained in hiding there until 23 November and on that day he was guided to Liege by Leopold and Anna Erkens.