Ross Stoner. During the crash I was shot in the head just a glancing blow and shot in the ankle,.

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1 Ross Stoner Initial training at Victor Harbour (1942). I was classified as a trainee pilot but I couldn t fly Tiger Moths. I lived with my parents at Allenby Gardens, in the west of Adelaide until I enlisted. I was 19. I tried to enlist earlier but my father who was a first world war veteran said no. He was with the artillery as a driver driving horse drawn vehicles in France carrying ammunition.. He signed off after Pearl Harbour that was getting a bit close to home. I still had to wait to get in. I got reclassified as a Nav W wireless navigator and went to Ballarat in early I came out of Ballarat with a commission as pilot officer. After a series of stops and starts I was sent to Williamtown near Newcastle to do a course in. but they soon found out I hadn t done a gunnery course. Then I was sent overseas to the UK and in Brighton where I was doing a PDRC course. After several courses around English I ended up doing an operational training course on Mosquitos and teamed up with my pilot Jim Colgan. He was from NSW. Jim died when I was shot down. We were just below minimum height. I was only in the chute for about 10 seconds before I landed in a tree. It was pretty pressure cooker because they were losing so many crews. The role of the two man Mosquito was as a fighter bomber, When I got into 464 Squadron we were doing what they called intruder work into the occupied part of the Continent straffing any troop movements. That was in Germany. We flew in over the Dutch coast and a flack ship was sending everything at us. It was only my third operation. It hit the aircraft and this time we were up over Zeider Zee and Jim said he didn t think we were going to make it. There was an explosion in the back of the aircraft and Jim said he had lost his controls and elevator function. I baled out on Jim s instructions. We operating independently as the intruder group taking over one from the other. The Dutch coined the phrase the night sisters for us. After the place crashed this chap ran at me saying don t shoot, don t shoot, I am a friend. I was armed. After I got out of the aircraft, Jim had to climb up over the controls and go through the same as I had. He actually exited the aircraft just before it hit the ground. The parachute wasn t open and I saw his body go past me it was all a bit of a blur. During the crash I was shot in the head just a glancing blow and shot in the ankle,. 1

2 This Dutch guy ( Dick Zitterstyn). He took me around past a couple of farm houses which were pro German to a farm house which was pro British where he was hiding he was an industrial chemist trainee.. This people at the farm house looked after me for about two weeks and I stayed up in the hay loft of the barn. During that time the Germans searched the house. I was taken inside the farmhouse through a trap door between the first and ground floor. I could here the boots clomping up the stairs. I was the only Australian. After a couple of weeks the resistance movement was contacted and they took over and took me to a safe houses. I was put into a place I called the chicken hut which was a reasonably solid construction two rooms one of which had a shelf on it with straw. While I was there I met up with five other allied personnel. There was a Scottish navigator off a Lancaster, a Canadian pilot, two Americans (Carroll) who was a Mustang pilot and Thomas P Riley Jnr. He was a gunner on a flying fortress. There was also a paratroop captain. This was after Arnhem. The six of us were in this confined space. We were there for about six weeks and this was part of the farm where the Rijs people were. There was a barn and this chicken shed and the Germans never came to this farm, except for one and Jimmy despatched him quickly. He was just wandering around and there was no follow up. In this time we used to be invited on some occasions into the farm house. Part of the deal was to pedal a bike with a dynamo which provided the electricity. (Henk was the one who set it up). We were isolated from German troops. So during any decent weather we had skating races with the Dutch. The only toilet we had was in the back of this old barn with a leaking roof and to use the toilet you had to brush the snow off the seat. There were no bathing facilities and I wore the same underpants for a long time about six weeks. I washed them in the snow. In the chicken shed we had a little stovette thing and it was the only heating, and a few rickety chairs. One of the Resistance guys taught us all to play chess and the Scottish navigator taught us bridge so four would play bridge and two would play chess. We used to get extra food like potatoes from a nearby farmhouse. Many were collaborators. This woman from the resistance group and she was assigned to me. Her Resistance name was Map and after the war we were advised of all the Lek group s names and addresses. She was Ms.Kerling-Dogterom. They split us up into pairs. In the course of this we were moved from farmhouse to farmhouse. I was with the Scottish Navigator. At one house there were these two little kids. They used to chatter away to us in Dutch, but we couldn t respond in English in case they were questioned. 2

3 There were 5 or 6 houses over a couple of months. One of them was in Amerongen and I was given the quarters on the first floor on the main street of Amerongen and the school Over the road was where the Germans were training their cadet officers. We used to sit and watch them being drilled. They never came to search. That is where I met Louise Bentinck. She was a Countess. They occupied the local castle. The Germans had taken over the ground floors and the Bentinck family lived in the upper floors. In the first world war the Kaiser was given comfort by the same family. Louise Bentinck used to bring me English books to pass the time. Louise took me out into the grounds of the castle where the Germans were exercising their horses and through the Germans on the ground floor of the castle. Walked straight through. I was blond at the time which probably helped. On this occasion we were upstairs having tea and speaking in English while the Germans were downstairs. Another series of movements took me down towards the Rhine from the Amersfoort area. We moved by bike at night. Both of us were with this woman. She had to take us past German sentries at bridges. She just breezed through with confidence. There was an aborted effort to get more than 100 of us out by a landing barge en masse. Unfortunately a stray German patrol found us and we all scattered in different directions. Those captured were put into a Dutch prison but escaped the next day. As a result of all that I was separated from the rest and went underground with a vengance. I was in a dug out where we stayed hidden during the day. This was in the forest., Germans were exercising troops in the forest. Then eventually I had to get out on an outgoing tide in a dinghy. Two Dutch guys and two of us. They took as far as the Canadian army, then into a jeep. I was now safe. I was taken to headquarters for interrogation. I was given a leave pass for two hours. In Kelberg. And from there was eventually flown back to the UK. I got back on St Pats day I was in the convalescence depot for a while and then classified as medically unfit and sent home. I left England on VE Day from Liverpool on a freighter converted to a troop ship we went down through Panama and went to Sydney. I got back to Adelaide on 22 nd of June, a day before Mary s birthday. 3

4 MARY: He was in a pretty bad shape when he came back. He never talked about his experience when he came home. A doctor would do it for cigarettes. He would fill his cigarette case before he left and it cost him two cigarettes for the doctor to operate. Diet was mainly spuds mixed with grass. On my 22 nd birthday one of the guys rode past the Germans and brought back a bottle of gin. On another occasion the Scottish guy, Jack, wanted to bake a cake and he reckoned he knew enough of the language but he ended up using soap powder, In 1977 we met Dr Elsa Caspers who was the secretary of the Royal Air Force s Escaping Society. She located Dick Zitterstyn and he met us at a bus stop. In that one day I located my pilot s grave in the war section of the Amersfoort Cemetery and then on to Amerongen for an evening with Dick. 27 of November 1944 was the date that I was shot down. (GOOD PIC) 4

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