WWII aircrew escapees get chance to thank rescuers

ST. LOUIS -- When Clayton David bailed out of his bomber over Nazi-occupied Holland in World War II, he didn't know that beyond the blanket of clouds stretching as far as he could see was a young woman he had never met who would risk everything to save him.

But after a couple of weeks in which some of his crewmates were executed or captured by the Nazis, he was led to freedom by 20-year-old Joke Folmer, a member of the Dutch underground.

On Wednesday, David and others who were shot down behind enemy lines got together at a hotel here to thank their rescuers once again and recall a time when ordinary people did extraordinary things to defeat evil.

"Those people meant the difference between our sitting the war out in a prisoner-of-war camp and our getting away and getting back to our units," says David, who lives in Hannibal, Mo., and is now 87. "It was almost impossible to evade capture in an occupied country without help."

Folmer, now 83, was among 12 "helpers" being honored at the reunion of the Air Forces Escape & Evasion Society. The society is made up of airmen who were shot down over enemy territory and succeeded in evading capture and returning to their units...

The society is an elite group...Of 47,000 men shot down in the 8th Army Air Force in which David served, 26,500 were killed and 18,350 taken prisoner. Only 2,150 of the men escaped.