Harold J. Killian.

1st Lt. Harold J. Killian (O-796838), pilot of the 93rd Bomb Group, 328th Squadron, crash-landed his aircraft on 30 January 1944 approximately five miles north of Amersfoort, Holland, following multiple engine failures on a mission to Brunswick. No crew members were injured in the landing.

Killian and co-pilot Schultz fled southeast together. After hiding near civilians they were sheltered by a 16-year-old Dutch boy who brought his older brother and three Dutch students, one of whom spoke English. The students hid Killian and Schultz in a nearby swamp until 18:00, then returned with civilian clothing and food. That night a man from the Secret Army came to interrogate them. Over the following days they were sheltered in barns and at the home of the first farmer.

On 25 February, TONY, a courier for the Dutch resistance organization, arrived at the home of GELJUS OTTENS (7 Ronnenbrokerweg, Amersfoort), a police detective with whom they had been living for three weeks, and announced they would move the next morning. JOKER FOLMER, a 20-year-old student of languages at Amsterdam University who lived in Zeist, took Killian and Schultz by train through Utrecht and Driebergen to her home in Zeist, where they stayed eight days.

On 2 March they traveled by train to Maastricht and were passed through a series of guides into Belgium, eventually reaching Liege where they were sheltered by members of the White Army. They met John Stahl (a Fortress pilot), John Zolner, Walter Kendall, Pyles, Pogodin, Prosperi, Engstrom, and others at a farewell gathering at the home of Mme. Van Kampenhousen before departing on 16 April.

The group traveled by train through Namur, Couvin, Charleville, Nancy, Belfort, and Montbeliard toward the Swiss frontier. After their guides disappeared and the group scattered near Delle during a failed border crossing, Killian and four others were guided across the border near Roches-lez-Blamont by a man known as FREDO at midnight on 24 April 1944, arriving in Switzerland at 05:00. After customs processing at Porrentruy, 21 days of quarantine, and months at a hotel in Glion, Killian escaped Switzerland on 24 August 1944 by boat from Lausanne to Evian with a group that included Starks, Kliney, DeCamp, Gavalchek, and Metz.

He made his way through FFI-controlled territory to American lines northeast of Grenoble, then by air via Foggia, Algiers, and Casablanca, arriving in the UK on 2 September 1944.