The Organisation Todt (OT) workforce at the quarry included Spanish and Russian labourers – one of them was Fyodor Burriy, who became known as Bill. The following account was recorded by Jerseyman Bob Le Sueur, who befriended him: 

‘The OT man in charge of the camp [Lager Brinkforth] had a reputation for being particularly brutal; the treatment was dreadful, the food watery soup, sickness was endemic. Feodor [sic], who I shall now refer to as Bill, the name he acquired later, decided to escape. 

He was recaptured and, as a punishment, was made to strip quite naked in the camp compound in front of the entire assembled workforce and then push a wheelbarrow loaded with stones over a rough surface, at the double, until he collapsed. He was then made to stand in a water [barrel] (this in mid-winter) and then made to stand outside all night. In the morning he was allowed to dress and then join the column of men shuffling to their workplace at L’Etacq. 

On the basis that he was probably going to die anyway, he determined to escape again and, that same day, he jumped over a low wall when nobody was looking, being picked up almost immediately by a passing bread delivery van. 

Sheltered initially by a farmer called René Le Mottée, Bill was taken in by a widow, Mrs. Gould of “La Fontaine”, St Ouen, who had recently learned of the death of her elder naval officer son in the Mediterranean. She said she felt she had to help “another mother’s son” and she gave this poor fellow love, bathed his wounds, altered her son’s clothes to fit him, brought him back to health and self-respect.’ 

Mrs. Gould was later convicted of having sheltered a Russian fugitive, and paid the ultimate sacrifice at Ravensbrück concentration camp. Read more about this story at the point of interest for ‘La Fontaine’. 

The site of the stone crusher quarry building was demolished in 1972, to be replaced by a public car park and the park of Les Pres d'Auvergne.