few minutes went by. The aircraft flew over the city. Renner pressed the knob. “Bombs away,” he said. The plane released incendiary, as well as regular, bombs. “Bomb doors closed.”
JD463 bounced up as soon as it dropped its heavy load. Fare maintained a steady course for a minute while a camera automatically took photos that would show where the bombs had landed.
He had started to turn the bomber around for the trip home when searchlights caught it. Ground fire hit an engine on the port side. Fare took the plane down as quickly as possible, to get away from the lights. The speed of the descent pinned Renner to the board on which he had been lying. “We’re losing control,” Fare said on the intercom. “Be prepared to bail out.”
Fare managed to stabilize the aircraft for a few minutes. It flew in a more normal manner, except much slower. The crew got ready to bail out — Renner put on his parachute.
A German night fighter approached JD463 and fired, hitting the bomber. Renner was blown out of the aircraft. He didn’t know how he got out of the bomber because he was unconscious, but he may have gone through an escape hatch that the crew had opened.
Renner regained consciousness while falling through the air. He pulled the ripcord to open his parachute seconds before he landed. He had descended into a wooded area of Belgium, near the village of Laneffe, about sixty-five kilometres south of Brussels.
Renner had several fractured ribs, as well as cuts to his hands, arms, and head. He had also lost his flying boots. They had come off his feet either when the night fighter hit JD463, or when he was coming down to Earth.
He heard dogs barking, so he knew he wasn’t deep in the woods. People who could help might not be far away. Renner wrapped himself in his parachute to try to stay warm during the cool night.
When dawn came he stood up and started walking. He found a path in the woods and decided to follow it. Before long, two woodsmen with saws on their shoulders walked toward him.
The men noticed Renner’s uniform. “Royal Air Force comrade,” one said, trying to let the young airman know he had landed in friendly territory. The two men were Walloons, French-speaking residents of Belgium.
“Doctor,” said one of the men, using a word in English that he knew. He wanted Renner to understand that they realized he needed a doctor to treat his wounds. The men also used the French word “pantoufles,” which means slippers. They realized Renner needed something on his feet before he could walk any significant distance.
One of the woodsmen was Camille Van Laethem. “Restez ici avec lui,” Van Laethem said to Renner, who had learned some French at St. Jerome’s High School in Kitchener, near his home in Preston, Ontario. “Je cherche un docteur.” Renner understood that he should stay with the other woodsman while Van Laethem went for a doctor.
The woodsman who remained offered Renner some of his lunch. Renner wasn’t hungry, but he did accept the warm milk the woodsman gave him.
Van Laethem returned a few hours later with Dr. Robert Fanuel. He also brought a pair of “pantoufles” and coveralls that Renner could wear over his uniform.
Dr. Fanuel examined Renner, applied some bandages and explained in French that he would come back in the evening with a person who spoke English. Renner’s knowledge of French was sufficient to enable him to understand the doctor’s plan.
The two woodsmen remained with him as they waited for the doctor to return. As the sun went down on a pleasant fall day, Dr. Fanuel reappeared with a Roman Catholic priest. Speaking in English the priest told Renner, who was also a Roman Catholic, that they wanted to take him to a home in the area. The doctor would treat him there.
Renner got into the doctor’s car and went to a two-storey house in the centre of Laneffe. It was the home of another priest, Father Léon Laboulle. Renner didn’t have to ask the priest for a rosary. His mother, Louise Renner, had given him a set of rosary beads that he carried on all his flights, including the flight that brought him to Belgium.
Renner felt blessed. He had escaped from the aircraft, had landed safely, and had met people who were trying to help him, even if he could not communicate well with them. He was, in fact, more blessed than he realized because the priest supported the Belgian Resistance that was fighting the Germans.
Father Laboulle was already looking after two Russians who had been German prisoners working at a coal mine at Charleroi, a city near Laneffe. They had escaped from the mine. The Russians had a room downstairs. Renner had a room upstairs.
Dr. Fanuel came to see Renner several times a week. He recovered well. Father Laboulle was intrigued to have a Canadian with him. He invited some of his friends to meet Renner because they had not previously met a Canadian.
Lying in bed one day after he had been at the priest’s home for about two weeks, Renner was startled when he looked up to see a man in a police uniform. He thought the Gestapo had found him. He was mistaken. The man was not a Gestapo agent but a colonel in the Brussels police force.
A friend of the Resistance, the colonel spoke English and assured Renner he could trust Father Laboulle. He also presented Renner with a few cigars.
While at Father Laboulle’s home, a member of the Resistance took Renner’s photo to create false identification papers for him. The papers said he was Willy Leon Ravel, who was “un cordonnier” — a shoemaker. Having arrived in Belgium without his shoes, Renner appreciated the irony of his occupation. The priest also arranged for Renner to obtain civilian clothes to replace his air force uniform.
One day, Father Laboulle decided to take his Canadian guest on a motorcycle to a store in downtown Charleroi, to buy him a pair of shoes. On the way, the priest stopped his motorcycle and fired a pistol. He wanted to make sure it worked. Although startled, Renner realized he was riding with a brave, bold priest.
When they arrived in Charleroi, the two men walked up a staircase at the back of a shoe store. The stairs led to an apartment occupied by the owner of the store. They couldn’t risk entering the store itself in case someone who didn’t support the Allies saw them.
The owner came up the interior staircase. Before he could find a pair of shoes for Renner, he noticed some unwanted customers in his store. “Les Boches,” he whispered, using a pejorative word to describe Germans.
Renner looked down the staircase into the store. He could see several men in uniforms. He was not mistaken this time. German soldiers were right below him.
Renner quietly backed away from the staircase in the shoe store. The Germans had not seen him. He didn’t know why they were in the store. They might have been looking for him and other Allied airmen, or they might simply have been looking for shoes.
Regardless of what they wanted, they made him nervous. Renner remembered that Father Laboulle had a pistol and wondered if he would have to use it.
The soldiers only stayed in the store for about five minutes, then they left.
The store owner took Renner’s shoe size, went down to his store and returned with a set of shoes that fit him. Having helped the Allied airman, the owner offered Renner and Father Laboulle a drink. The two men enjoyed a glass of wine before going back to the priest’s home.
Back in Preston, Renner’s parents, John and Louise, received a telegram a few days after
