Obviously not my photos. No copyright infringement intended. Also, how's that for handsome in his flyer days?
Waiting to call Mr. James, my stomach was in vicious knots. Once I had told him it was an honor and hung up the phone, I had a high that somebody shouldn’t ever bottle, because there’d be a whole lot more addicts around. I did it. Jesus H. Christ, I just talked to a piece of history.
It began with Mom renting “The Great Escape” from the library when I was 14. We watched one tape, then I had to go to bed, but hated to go, waiting for the conclusion. The movie led to two obsessions – Steve McQueen and POWs. For Steve, I just watched all his movies and vowed to one day stand in his footprints at the Chinese Theatre in LA. For the POWs, I remember waiting anxiously for a battered, used copy of “The Great Escape” by Paul Brickhill to arrive in the mail. I remember a Time-Life style book of POW photos.
One day I found a website about the real history of that mad exercise in nose-thumbing and gentleman and soldier’s duty. I found a few names of men who might still be alive, and then an email with the webmaster and suddenly I had an address. Mr. Bertram Arthur “Jimmy” James of Shropshire, England. Born April 1915, shot down in a Wellington Bomber in 1940. Number 36 (I believe) out of Stalag Luft III’s tunnel “Harry.” Survived the murder of his 50 comrades, sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp with Harry “Wings” Day and others. Tunneled out of there, but somehow managed to avoid being executed again.
Survived to the rest of the war. Survived until January 18 2008. While people at Chatham were crying over Heath Ledger, I was crying over Mr James.
I sent a letter and got a response. Blue ink, formal handwriting, gentleman old British politeness coming through. So glad I sent a letter, would I like a copy of his book? More letters, and finally I asked if I could call him for an interview. He said yes, of course. Call anytime. Like you could just phone up people like that and it was nothing. Like I had every right to pester him to tell the same damn story over again.
I called. And it meant I was a journalist and absolutely nothing on earth could stop me. I called at Dad’s work, and afterwards went out to lunch with his coworkers/my future friends, Chuck and Betsy the war correspondent. It was the sign that maybe I could be a journalist and talk to people like Mr. James and basically life could be God damn perfect.
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I came back from three days in Croatia and there was a letter postmarked “WWII Magazine.” Dear Lucy, we are pleased…etc. They had accepted me. I was 15 years old and once again I was a wunderkind. What the hell else was there to conquer in life? The letter said it would be a while before they published it, and now it’s going on seven years. Somehow I’m not sure it will ever happen, but I check every month at Barnes and Noble, just in case.
A couple more years, a couple more letter exchanges. I almost went out there to England – I made tentative plans. Journalist hooks could have been the 60th anniversary of the Great Escape in 2004. An exhibit on it at the Imperial War Museum… I had gotten my moment with Mr. James, but I wanted more. I wanted to meet this man in person. But what did I think I was going to ask him? I had no profound questions for this guy who had spent the last 60 years being known for the worst war in history. For the act of bravery that lead to 50 comrades being killed. Sydney Dowses, a fellow survivor of the Great Escape and the Sachsenhausen escape never wanted to talk about it. One of the only articles about him I saw mentioned how he never even saw the movie. He had no interest in ever doing so.
Still, I know I didn’t ask him anything new. I had no new brilliant question in mind as I made hopeful plans for planes, and trains and where in Ludlow, Shropshire, UK, I would stay. Whether we would have tea and whether suddenly I would be comfortable with this man.
I wanted to be his friend, or his easy pen-pal. I wanted to be special to him and to hold a fascination that was even a tiny percentage of the one he held for me. At the very least I wanted to be the one who thought up the brilliant question. But perhaps there wasn’t one to ask. And maybe I was a novelty at least, because how many 15 year old American girls were writing him?
I waited for him to go those last few years. I googled every year or so to make sure there was no new obituary. He turned 92. His penmanship got shakier in the last two letters. But as much as I made this writing about me again, as much as my experiences with Mr. James were partially about being bad-ass and 15, it’s really about him. He was a character, a piece of history, a brave gentleman flyer of the old school. I just want people like that to stick around forever, because when they’re all gone, there’s nothing left of a whole amazing chuck of humanity. And of history.
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I can’t write about him good enough yet. He meant too much for somebody I never even met. The fascination still has a hold of me. Montana; Tobin and I ran down the hill to escape a mountain hailstorm and it was German bullets nipping at our heels – we downed, brave flyers trying to make it over the Alps. In a wide, flat Central Valley California tomato field last summer, Tobin and I lay flat in ditches and then when the timing was perfect, we ran for the barbed wire fence – the border and freedom again.
It’s a little insensitive, it’s juvenile, but it all comes from some desperate need to know what it felt like climbing over mountains, praying to avoid patrols, and trying and trying for years to make it home this time.
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My interview with Mr. James -- the version I sent to "WWII Magazine."
