The following will provide information on escape line maps and fourteen of the escape lines that operated in Europe during WWII.

Escape Line Maps

To view several different maps of escape lines used in Europe during WWII available on this website, click here.  For samples of the maps, see the two below.  The National Museum of the US Air Force kindly allowed us to reproduce the first map.  To enlarge it significantly and make it more readable, click once on the map and then click a second time.

The following map was published in the June 2007 issue of the Air Forces Escape and Evasion Society newsletter, Communications,  No source was given.  Nevertheless, it gives some idea of the complexity of the different escape routes.

Selected WWII Escape Lines

• Aristides de Sousa Mendes
• Bleu et Jonquille (Blue and Pale Yellow)
• Burgundy (Bourgogne) Line
• Chauny Escape Line
• Comet Line(Le Réseau Comète)
• Donald Caskie, The Tartan Pimpernel
• Dutch-Paris Line
• French Escape Lines List
• Hornoy le Bourg and Amiens
• Luctor et Emergo/Fiat Libertas
• Marie-Claire Line
• MI9/IS9 and MIS-X
• Miscellaneous Escape Lines
• MNB (Belgian National Movement/Mouvement National Belge)
• Operation Marathon/Freteval Forest
• PAT (Pat O’Leary) Line
• Possum Line
• Service EVA
• Shelburn (Shelbourne) Line
• Smit-van der Heijden Line
• Varian Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee

For additional information on escape lines, see Keith Janes’ WWII Escape and Evasion Information Exchange website, in particular its Escape Lines of World War II page.