Escape Lines – Home Run Memorial

The Escape Lines Memorial Society – Home Run Memorial Stone. This stone came from a quarry near the Pyrenees in France where those escaping were hidden before being led over the border into Spain and then onto Gibraltar.
www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk/memorial/279212
The Granite “Home Run” tablet set into the Stone. During WWII a secret service department was established to bring back Allied servicemen from behind enemy lines. This was known as Military Intelligence 9 (MI9).
  • Memorial Text
  • Home Run
  • This memorial is dedicated to the Allied Escapers and Evaders of WW2 and to their helpers of all nationalities and faiths who assisted them in returning to continue the common fight for freedom.
  • Memorial Text
  • Escape Lines Home Run Memorial Stone
  • During WW2, a network of escape lines were formed across the continent of Europe, in order to assist allied personnel and other fugitives, who found themselves trapped in occupied country, behind enemy lines.
  • The ‘helpers’ of these lines worked selflessly as guides and couriers for the ‘evaders’. If captured the ‘helpers’ faced torture, incarceration in concentration camps, and death; the escapers or evaders caught with them would be sent to Prisoner of War Camps. For each evader returned to Great Britain, many ‘helpers’ sacrificed their lives of freedom.
  • This memorial rock was hewn from a quarry in the High Pyrannees, which is owned by a family of former mountain guides and donated as a memorial to all who travelled the Escape Lines of WW2.