Operation Pimento

Disclosure: If you buy products using the retailer buttons above, we may earn a commission from the retailers you visit.

On 14 August 1943, a specially adapted Halifax bomber took off from RAF Tempsford, an SOE airbase in rural England. Their secret mission was to drop vital supplies to the French Resistance, deep in occupied France. But their plane crashed into a village near Annecy, killing all six of the crew and five civilians. Only Adam Hart’s great-grandfather, Frank Griffiths, survived.

Though seriously injured, Frank felt it was his duty to get back to England to continue the fight against the Nazis. So he embarked on a 1,400-mile, 108-day escape across Europe to Gibraltar, via a Frenchwoman’s chimney, the attic over a brothel and a Spanish prison cell, ending with an arduous trek over the Pyrenees.

Seventy-nine years later, his 22-year-old great-grandson Adam Hart retraced that journey. so that he could re-tell the story of the great escape and his emotional encounters with descendants of people who’d risked their lives to save Frank. Operation Pimento is a riveting tale of danger, sacrifice and legacy – told by the voice of a new generation.