Florentino Goikoetxea
Florentino Goikoetxea was a Basque who worked for the Comet Escape Line during World War 2. A smuggler by profession, he guided more than 200 Allied airmen shot down in occupied Belgium and France over the Pyrenees mountains to neutral Spain from where they could be repatriated to the United Kingdom. He was honored with the George Medal from the United Kingdom and the Legion of Honour from France.
Early life
Of humble birth and nearly illiterate, Florentino was a hunter as a youth and became familiar with the Pyrenees on the Franco-Spanish border near his home in Hernani in the Basque country of Spain. As an adult he became a smuggler. During the Spanish Civil War, he escaped arrest by the Nationalists of Francisco Franco and fled from Spain to Ciboure, just across the border in France where he resided for the rest of his life.The Comet Line
In 1941, Belgians Andrée de Jongh and Arnold Deppé created what became known as the Comet Line to help an increasing number of Allied airmen shot down over Belgium, occupied by Nazi Germany, evade capture by the Germans and return to the United Kingdom. In 1941, they pioneered a route by train from Belgium to Saint-Jean-de-Luz in the Basque country of southwestern France and hence by foot over the Pyrenees mountains into neutral Spain. Once in Spain, they turned the exfiltrated airmen over to British diplomats who arranged their return by air to Great Britain. To cross the mountains they hired Basque guides, often smugglers, who could avoid the German soldiers and border guards in France and the border guards in Spain. In April 1942, Florentino Goikoetxea became the principal guide of the Comet Line, and was credited in his Legion of Honor citation with having led 227 airmen and a number of French and Belgian agents across the border to safety in Spain.Florentino's associates in the Basque country included Elvire de Greef, a Belgian and head of the Comet Line in southwestern France, and Kattalin Aguirre, a Basque women who sheltered escaping airmen in her house. Until her arrest in January 1943, Andrée de Jongh usually accompanied the airmen and Florentino across the border.