ALMOST 65 years after being billeted in the French town of Warloy Baillon, Percy Guscott has returned to commemorate a wartime escapade.

As the town gathered to remember two pilots, one British and one Canadian, shot down during the Nazi occupation, Percy was invited to attend because of his wartime link.

He was surprised when he was contacted by a French official asking for information about his Second World War buddy Harry Wallis.

Percy, who now lives at Three Legged Cross, was stationed in Warloy Baillon in 1939-40 and both he and Harry became friends with the locals.

Soon after the outbreak of war they left the town and headed into Belgium, only to be pushed back by the advancing German army until their convoy was destroyed near Calais.

Percy, Harry and three wounded colleagues escaped and lived rough for two weeks.

Eventually they took shelter in a barn and Harry suggested they would have a better chance of evading the German troops if they split into smaller groups.

But even though Harry was Percy's "mucker" - his best Army mate - he did not want to leave the others.

The next morning Harry had gone. Percy and his three colleagues were then captured by Germans.

That was the last time Percy saw Harry but he later learned his pal had returned to Warloy Baillon and been given protection in a cafe run by the mother of a young woman with whom he had become friendly.

Months later the French Resistance tried to get Harry and other trapped soldiers out of France - but they were arrested in Marseille.

However, Harry escaped again and reached Gibraltar in a fishing boat.

Meanwhile Percy, who served with the Royal Army Service Corp, endured nearly five years as a prisoner of war in a German camp before being released by advancing American forces.

Percy said: "I never saw Harry again. When I found his address in 1984 I went to see him but he had died six weeks before."

Pleased to be invited along to the commemoration event, Percy added: "So many years have passed by and I've many friends in France.

"There are people in the town, in their 80s now, who I knew in 1939 and 1940."

First published: September 15