The Caretakers

War Graves Gardeners and the Secret Battle to Rescue Allied Airmen in World War II

Caitlin Galante DeAngelis

• Publisher: Prometheus
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781633889002
• Subtopic: European History

When World War I ended, hundreds of British veterans stayed in France to work for the newly chartered Imperial War Graves Commission. Through the 1920s and 1930s, these veteran-gardeners married local women, raised bilingual children, and dedicated themselves to caring for the graves of their fallen comrades.

When World War II swept through Europe in 1940, more than 200 War Graves gardeners were stranded in Nazi-occupied France. Their bosses explicitly ordered them to remain at their posts, even when their villages were under attack by the invading Germans. While some escaped, others were arrested by the Nazis. A handful managed to stay free and join the French Resistance. With their English-language skills and unshakable loyalty to the Allied cause, the gardeners and their families took on crucial roles in the effort to save British and American airmen shot down in France. In some cases, they hid the airmen in World War I cemeteries.

In The Caretakers, internationally renowned cemetery expert Caitlin Galante DeAngelis tells the true story of three of these unlikely heroes: Ben Leech, a barman from Manchester who became a cemetery gardener in Beaumont-Hamel and joined the Resistance; Rosine Witton, the wife of a British gardener, who served as a key conductor on the famous Comet Line and survived Ravensbrück; and Robert Armstrong, an Irish gardener who worked for the Resistance until he was captured by the Nazis and sentenced to death.

Through meticulous research, never-before-published journals and papers, and compassionate storytelling, DeAngelis honors the sacrifices made by War Graves gardeners and their families.

Table of contents

• Prologue
• CHAPTER 1 The Somme
• CHAPTER 2 Route de Bapaume
• CHAPTER 3 “Running Shoes”
• CHAPTER 4 “Men Must Stand to Their Posts”
• CHAPTER 5 “Panic?”
• CHAPTER 6 “Enemy Aliens”
• CHAPTER 7 “Send Some Money If Possible”
• CHAPTER 8 Résistants of the First Hour
• CHAPTER 9 Ilag VIII Tost
• CHAPTER 10 One-Man Embassy
• CHAPTER 11 “Honneur aux Héros”
• CHAPTER 12 The Comet Line
• CHAPTER 13 The Accused
• CHAPTER 14 KZ-Außenlager Holleischen
• CHAPTER 15 “Tell Benny We Most Certainly Have Not Forgotten Him”
• CHAPTER 16 Return to France
• CHAPTER 17 “It’s Hard for Me to Remember All That”
• CHAPTER 18 “A Nice Adornment without Bread to Eat”
• Acknowledgments
• Notes