| Sixty years after the victory against fascism, a new book relates the inspiring story of an American flying in England for the Canadians, getting shot down over France – and then escaping all over Occupied Europe... |
The man who wouldn't stay captured
WORKERS, JUNE 2005 ISSUE
If you are reading a book at present, then line up Under The Wire by Bill Ash as your next. And if you don't read books, then change the habit of a lifetime and purchase this marvellous tale. As the words of its blurb say, it is "the wartime memoir of a Spitfire pilot, legendary escape artist and 'cooler king'".
For once, the hard sell is not overdone, as this book is both an education and a joy to read. Moreover, its publication is very timely given that this year witnesses the 60th anniversary of the victory against fascism — memories of those momentous, crucial events dim as the participants and combatants in that conflict dwindle in numbers, so it is vital that personal memoirs such as these are printed to inform and inspire future generations.
"How, I asked myself as I looked for a field in which to crash-land, did an American, flying for the Canadians, fighting for the British, come to be blown out of the sky by a German, somewhere over France?" That reflection opens Ash's book which then seamlessly returns to flashbacks and recollections of his early upbringing in America that were to shape this remarkable man: "Dallas in the 1920s and '30s was a tough, boisterous town with one foot already heading for its oily boom-town future, but the other one stuck firmly in its western past."
Under The Wire is published by Bantam Press, ISBN 0593054083, £16.99.
The opening recreates a series of memorable, anecdotal moments from Bill's early life, such as: his scraps with school bullies; the 1927 parade in downtown Dallas watching the trium-phant aviator Charles Lindbergh; the effect of the 1929 Wall Street Crash on himself and his father who was a travelling salesman selling ladies' hats; accounts of his numerous part-time jobs undertaken to support his way through high-school and Texas University; thumb-nail sketches of his family; declarations of his love of music and depictions of life for ordinary people in the "Hungry Thirties".
Then we progress to 1939, where Bill discovers the wider America as he leaves Texas with not much hope of getting a real job in the depths of the Great Depression. "I drifted from place to place all over the Midwest for the best part of a year, mostly hitching rides in battered cars, but sometimes riding the rails and avoiding the railway 'bulls' who were employed to knock non-paying passengers off the freight wagons to which they were clinging." There follows a fascinating, riveting description of hobo life.
Evidently a quarter of a million men, women and children were riding the rails at any specific time during the 1930s and Bill's revelations convey a real feel for the details of that life, even to advising how and where to pick up a train.
In early 1940 Bill arrives at the Hungry Man diner in Detroit, "a rough 'one-arm joint' where you leant on the counter with one arm and shovelled stew with the other." You could eat all the stew you could get on a plate for fifteen cents, but you were fined a dime if you left any on the plate. From here, Bill walked over the border bridge to Windsor, Ontario in order to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force and contribute to the war against Hitler. (Remember, the USA was not involved at the time.)
Eating well
Unfortunately, Bill did not pass the physical exam and was declared malnourished. He returned crestfallen to the Hungry Man diner where he borrowed 20 dollars from a customer, which he handed over to the cook "and took up residence at one of the tables. Every day, like a desperate man in an eating contest, I consumed everything they could shovel into me."
For two weeks he became something of a local landmark, before waddling back to Canada: "This time, however, when I stepped on to the air force weighing scales like a prize-fighter, the entire office cheered. I was in." His American citizenship and passport were revoked as the cost of enlisting to fight for Britain against fascism.
After a few months and 150 hours in the air training to be a pilot, "the powers that be decided I was safe to unleash on Hitler and awarded me my wings" and in early 1941 Bill arrived in England, a country in flames from the Blitz and under siege from the seemingly all-conquering Nazi army just a few miles across the English Channel.
Prisoner-of-war
These snippets give you a flavour of the first tenth of the book; but this review will only hint at and whet your appetite about the last nine-tenths in which the meat of his experiences as a Spitfire pilot and as prisoner-of-war are dealt with. There's no wish to spoil your read, only to encourage you to pick up the book. Suffice it to say that Bill broke out of one prison camp only to be caught and despatched to the next — in Poland, Germany and Lithuania.
These years of hardship are described along with countless examples of courage, humour, humanity and irresistible desire for dignity and freedom. A wartime autobiography, it is also a moving tribute to the bravery and resolve of an entire generation.
Resonance
To conclude, with the final paragraph of the book, and a message that still has resonance to us today in different but equally dangerous circumstances: "I was back in England and on solid ground — the same ground I had flown over and fought for just a few years and what felt like a lifetime earlier. From up there in the cockpit of a Spitfire with the sun at my back, the land below had all looked peaceful, permanent and still, whether the timeless curves of the River Thames, the medieval spires of Lincoln cathedral or the ancient monolithic circles at Stonehenge.
"It was a rich prize, and worth fighting for, but the real prize had been the people, an entire generation from all parts of the globe who had taken quiet, personal decisions that had shaped their future and sometimes cost their lives. Together they had decided that the world deserves better than fear, stupidity and greed. People can soar as well as any Spitfire."
