War hero who fooled Nazis dies at 85

Published on Thursday 24 January 2008 12:38

A WARTIME hero who escaped from the Nazis by pretending to be a deaf and dumb Frenchman has died, aged 85.

Edinburgh-born airman Bill Knaggs was shot down by German troops while in a Lancaster on a bombing raid over Normandy in 1944.

He then spent six days evading capture on foot as he crossed the country to Rouen where he was taken in by members of the French resistance.

Mr Knaggs, who was 22 at the time, then spent several months living in France and pretended to be deaf and dumb.

At one stage, he was transferred by an unwitting German military convoy to Paris and moved from one safe house to another in the French capital.

With the help of the resistance, he was moved on to the village of Ermont, north of Paris, until the US Army arrived and liberated the area.

Mr Knaggs, who spent the final 23 years of his life in Perthshire, recounted his wartime adventure in a book called The Easy Trip.

The squadron leader's final words as they prepared to leave were that it would be a "short, easy trip", which gave Mr Knaggs the title for his book.

His wife Frances had already died, and Mr Knaggs was described by his sister Margaret as "a real gentleman" who had lived life to the full.