The S/Sgt. Joseph F. Defranze parachuted and landed in a pine forest. After concealing his parachute and flight equipment, he set off southward. Half an hour later, he encountered an elderly man and a boy who were repairing the road. The elderly man took Joseph home, gave him something to eat, then took him to three men who were loading wood onto a truck. The driver (about 35 years old) agreed to take him to Pauillac, but on the way, he changed his mind and ultimately took him to his home, where he spent the night. The following day, he took him to Pauillac, where he was sheltered by Mrs. Rabut (about 27 years old; her husband was a prisoner of war in Germany and they had a five-year-old child). Joseph was hidden by Mrs. Rabut for three weeks. He shared his hiding place with a German friend of hers (about 23 years old, with long blond hair, missing the thumb and index finger of his right hand; he worked in Bordeaux as a contractor, after having been an engineer in Germany, and was a fierce opponent of the Nazi regime). This German and another friend (about 30 years old, employed at the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce) contacted a resistance organization in Bordeaux. A woman (about 26 years old) came to collect his information, while a gendarme in Pauillac provided him with a rather clumsily forged identity card. Before leaving Pauillac, Joseph agreed to send a message via the BBC upon his safe return to England: "To Juliette's friends, best wishes from Jo".

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On January 20, 1944, two men belonging to the organization, one named Germain (about 23 years old, approximately 1.70 m tall, with brown hair) and the other, a 19-year-old young man with black hair, took Joseph to spend the night at a farm in Pauillac, with a woman who spoke English, whose cousin served in the American Legion. The following day, the two men took Joseph by train to Bordeaux, then to the commune of Le Bouscat, located in the northwestern suburbs of the city. He was hidden there for six weeks in the Bains-Douches building, located on Place Thiers, owned by René Coicadin and his wife. It was there that he first met 2nd Lt. Hugh Shields (O-743906), shot down on January 5. During their stay in Le Bouscat, Shields and DeFranze were visited by several members of the Resistance, notably André, the carpenter, a painter named Vincent Abilla, and a grocer named Marcel Ageon, who ran a shop near Place Thiers. They were also visited by a French policeman who told them that, if they were unable to leave France for Spain, he would take them to a maquis. Michel also came with a man from Toulouse who brought a questionnaire and offered the Coicadin family a sum of 5,000 francs, presumably intended to cover the cost of their accommodation. The family refused this offer. On March 1, 1944, Shields and DeFranze were taken to the station, stopping at Charles Serra's café, where Lilly informed them that he had been arrested by the Germans and sent to a camp located northwest of Paris.

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From Bordeaux, they took the train, via Limoges, to Toulouse, where they met up with Harold Freeman, Levi Collins, Alvin Sanderson, Kenneth Carson, Stanley Dymek, John McLaughlin, Reuban Fier and Robert Finney. Shields reports that they were taken in by "Françoise" (Marie-Louise Dissard), who told them that a guide named Cherry had been arrested in Perpignan by a man posing as a Canadian airman. Freeman and DeFranze spent two nights at the organization's premises, while Shields, Dymek, Sanderson and McLaughlin were transferred to a house for the second night. It is unknown where Collins and Fier were accommodated, but Carson and Finney were taken to a boarding house located above a police station, where they remained for the following six days before joining another group tasked with crossing the Pyrenees. On the second day of their stay in Toulouse, two young men (aged 19 or 20) gathered the rest of the group and took them to the station, where they were joined by a third guide.

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The three guides took the nine escaped airmen by train to Quillan (Languedoc-Roussillon), then by bus south to Axat. They then left the town on foot and hid until nightfall, when their guide sent for a taxi. A young woman was on board, and the guide entrusted the entire group to her. They traveled about twenty kilometers by car before joining a group of six Poles. A new Spanish guide then led them on foot to a village located about six kilometers from Quérigut. They spent the night in a house, where six more Poles joined them. The following night, March 11, 1944, they were entrusted to a Spanish mountain guide. He set out to lead them across the Pyrenees, but the snow was deep and very loose. After a few kilometers, Joseph F. DeFranze, exhausted, could no longer continue and had to be carried by his companions. When they reached a ridge, the guide finally ordered them to turn back and return to the village, where they spent the night in a barn. Their guide from Toulouse then rejoined them and advised them to return to Quillan. Fier, Collins and Cliff Tucker left first, while Freeman, Dymek and DeFranze brought up the rear. Shortly after Usson (northeast of Rouze), Freeman, Dymek and DeFranze managed to board a bus. Shields, McLaughlin and Sanderson then joined them. However, when the bus caught up with Fier, Collins and Tucker, it was full and did not stop. They later learned that the three men had been arrested the following day at Axat. Freeman, DeFranze, Dymek, Shields, McLaughlin and Sanderson returned to Quillan, where they found their former guide. He took them to a hotel, where they also found the Poles and the young woman who had transported them by taxi. They remained at the hotel for eight days, until March 25, 1944. On that day, they set out again for Quérigut with their guide and another escort, who took them to the same barn. They spent the night there, then traveled about one kilometer to a mine where Spanish smugglers were hiding. A third guide brought them food. They spent the days in the mine and the nights in the barn. During their stay in Quérigut, their guide was arrested by the Gestapo. On March 28, 1944, four British airmen and six Poles came to join the group. During the night, two new guides (one of whom was the one who had previously been bringing them food), accompanied by ten other Poles, took the lead of the convoy.

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They crossed the border between Latour-de-Carol and Puigcerdà during the night of March 30, 1944. The group rested in a barn in Puigcerdà while one of the guides went to Barcelona to arrange their transportation. He returned during the night of April 1, 1944, with a truck, which took them to Barcelona. The American and British airmen were then taken in by the British consulate. On April 4, 1944, the British consul drove Freeman, Shields, DeFranze and Dymek by car to the British Embassy in Madrid, where they stayed until April 9, 1944. On that date, they were taken to Gibraltar. Freeman and Shields were then repatriated by air to the United Kingdom, where they arrived on April 12, 1944. Although Freeman does not mention Sanderson and McLaughlin in his report, and they indicate nothing other than their arrival in Gibraltar on the same day as Freeman, they too were repatriated by air to England. They arrived there on April 20, 1944, together with DeFranze and Dymek. Joseph returned to New York from Prestwick, Scotland, on May 7, 1944, and was discharged on October 28 of the following year.