The extraordinary story of the pilot and his secret agent wife (From York Press)

Flightpaths: film about York-based wartime pilot and his secret agent wife

9:57am Friday 7th October 2011 in Film reviews By Stephen Lewis

THEIRS was a true wartime romance: a young Englishwoman, Phyllis Pattimore, and the dashing free French airman she loved, Henri Martin.

Henri was a gunner with the French 346 Guyenne squadron, which flew Halifax bombers stationed at RAF Elvington.

Phyllis – who preferred to go by the name Pat – fled Jersey with her parents when the Germans invaded.

She ended up in Liverpool: and it was there that she met Henri, at a welcome for French soldiers and airmen, in 1943. The pair fell in love, and married on September 16 1944.

It was a dangerous time to be young, and French, and flying bombing missions over occupied France and Germany.

“The French were renowned for their flying skill, yet their losses were high,” said Ian Reed, director of the Yorkshire Air Museum at Elvington.

During 1944 and 1945, French aircrews from Elvington flew more than 2,800 sorties. Forty-one aircraft were lost, and 216 French airmen died – more than half the French aircrew stationed at the base.

Yet Pat's life, too, was one of danger.

A fluent French speaker, she had been recruited as a secret agent by the war ministry to carry out intelligence missions in France; parachuting into Normandy to carry messages to resistance fighters.

“She was being dropped into Normandy by parachute at the very time her husband was flying bombing missions,” said Mr Reed.

In their time off, the pair liked nothing more than going for a night out in York with two French airmen friends of Henri. One, Francis Uzay, described in a letter to his own wartime sweetheart, Barbara Rigby, a meal the four had at the Grand Hotel (now the Royal York). They drank Algerian wine. “I sang ‘ma Pomme and other melodious songs,” Francis wrote. “Pat sang too.”

Sadly, Pat and Henri's happiness was short-lived.

Less than two months after their wedding, Henri’s Halifax failed to return from a bombing raid on the German Ruhr. A pregnant Pat was left a grieving widow.

She transferred to London, to work in Winston Churchill’s Cabinet war rooms.

Now the tragic story of her love for her French airman is told in a new film to be premiered at the City Screen as part of a week of events celebrating the courage of the two French squadrons based at Elvington during the war.

The French In York week will see the unveiling of a French Air Force Memorial plaque at York Minster: a ceremony that will be accompanied by a flypast of Lancaster bombers and French Rafale jets.

During the week nine French veterans will return to the airbase where they served with such distinction in 1944 and 1945.

But one of the undoubted highlights will be the first screening of Flightpaths, which tells Pat and Henri's story, at City Screen at 5.30pm on Thursday October 20.

“It is a very moving film which tells an extraordinary story which took place here, and which many people are completely unaware of,” said Mr Reed.

• Tickets to see Flightpaths are available, priced £6, from the City Screen box office on 0871 9025726. For details of other events during The French in York week from October 17-23, visit yorkshireairmuseum.org