Ian Garrow

Who is Ian Garrow?

Captain Ian Grant Garrow DSO was a Scottish army officer with the Highland Light Infantry. Following the surrender of the Highland 51st Division at Saint-Valéry-en-Caux on the Normandy coast on 12 June 1940, Garrow managed to escape being taken prisoner. On hearing that France had surrendered, Garrow tried to escape with companions to the Channel Islands, but ultimately was interned in Marseilles.

Operating in Marseilles from October 1940 and working alongside other British officers, he helped organise the escape to Britain of military personnel stranded in France after the British retreat from Dunkirk and the subsequent French defeat.

He was joined by Albert Guérisse in June 1941, whose nom de guerre of "Pat O'Leary" became the name of the first network, the Pat Line to organise the escape of British military personnel from France.

Garrow was arrested by Vichy French police in October 1941 and later interned at Mauzac. His role as head of the escape line was taken over by O'Leary. Garrow was rescued from Mauzac in December 1942 by the Pat O'Leary organisation and sheltered with Francoise Dissard in Toulouse before he was taken across the Pyrenees to the British Consulate in Barcelona. Garrow returned to England at the beginning of February 1943.