‘Blighty or Bust’ Tells the Story of a Young Soldier’s 2,000-Mile Escape to Freedom in World War II
An English author has unearthed an amazing World War II escape story in a cardboard box of papers and cuttings he bought via an online auction. The several dozen notebooks have been turned into a 326-page book presenting the story of a young, ordinary British soldier who escaped after the Dunkirk evacuation had been completed.
Raymond “Ray” Bailey of Luton, just north of London, had, after his amazing escape, penned (or, rather, pencilled) his account in the following few years. His is probably one of the earliest written records of escape, and he was certainly one of the most junior of soldiers to write about his daring story during the Second World War.
Leaving school at 14, Bailey worked at the Vauxhall car plant in town and was one of the first men to be called up at the very start of the conflict. He served with the Kensington Regiment (Princess Louise’s).
Bailey and around 10,000 soldiers from several Scottish Highland regiments were captured around St. Valéry.
He made his daring escape when marching in a long column of captured British prisoners of war through the French countryside. Seeing the guards around him were distracted, he took his chance and leaped over a hedge and landed in a cornfield, laying there and waiting for everyone to pass by.
This would turn out to be the very start of Bailey’s, at times solitary, journey to freedom. This was also someone who had no real idea of the geography of the local area, let alone France as a whole and Spain, too!
Bailey had many close calls on his journey and was short on food. Several times he stole bicycles, about which he felt guilty, but the plucky 20-year-old forged on.
At one stage, he was knocked off his bike by a car full of German officers, who dusted him off, cleared his bike away and went on their way, having no idea who this young man was. (Help with a forged French ID card that described him as being dumb would certainly have helped in that situation, and also crossing from occupied France, into Vichy France, too.)
Bailey also acknowledged that he had the support of local people as he traced his way south, ending up in Marseille. Once there, he’d hoped to jump on a ship with a group of fellow Brits, but that, in the end, never came to fruition.
Pushing on with a buddy, Scottish soldier Jock Monaghan of the Gordon Highlanders, they headed for the Pyrenees and Spain. Upon arriving in the latter, and because of the different rules there regarding escapees, his mate decided to take the chance and be caught by the Civil Guard, hoping to then get repatriated somehow to the United Kingdom.
But Bailey pushed on to Barcelona, even eating dog soup on the way, aiming then to get to Gibraltar, which was under British rule. Once there, he stayed for five days before traveling north to Liverpool with a Royal Navy convoy. Understandably, he was thrilled to be home again.
Bailey went on to serve in Italy with the Kensingtons, and a letter from Jock was exchanged with no ill feelings between the two, as they’d both made it back back to the UK (or “Blighty”) after their different experiences in Spain.
Even thought his exploits were noted in the local newspaper, The Dunstable Gazette, in 1940, it’s taken some 80 years for Bailey’s full and daring story to emerge, thanks to author and researcher David Wilkins, who lives at Portland, in Dorset. When the package arrived at his residence with 20 notebooks filled with neat, pencil-written text, he was curious as to what they contained.
“I had no idea of exactly what the contents [were], or if they were, in fact, some sort of diary or memoir,” he said. “When I started to read their contents, I was amazed, and in all there were around 80,000 words in these notebooks.”
Wilkins spent many hours typing out the notebooks. He’s been researching Bailey’s route extensively and tracking down families of those mentioned in the books. In all, this is an amazing story of a young soldier who took a risk and wound up on a 2,000-mile escape. In many ways, it was Bailey who blazed the trail for many escapes who possibly followed in his footsteps.
Blighty or Bust: The epic 2,000-mile escape of WWII prisoner-of-war, Raymond Bailey, in his own words is now available. It’s published by Tartaruga Books, under the ISBN 78-183952-793-7.