Donald Caskie The Rev . Dr . Donald Currie Caskie DD OBE OCF ( 22 May 190227 December 1983 ) was a minister in the Church of Scotland , best known for his exploits in France during World War II , during which he helped an estimated 2 , 000 Allied sailors , soldiers and airmen to escape from occupied France ( mainly through Spain ) . The ' Fasti ' - the record of all Church of Scotland ministers since the Reformation - simply mentions that he was " engaged in church and patriotic duties in France , 1939 - 1945 " . Biography . The son of a crofter , he was born in Bowmore on Islay in 1902 . He was educated at Bowmore School and then Dunoon Grammar School before studying arts and divinity at the University of Edinburgh . His first charge was at Gretna , before becoming the minister of the Scots Kirk in Paris in 1938 . A 2001 documentary claimed that Caskie was gay , but offered no supporting evidence . Having denounced the evils of Nazism from the pulpit , following the German invasion of France in 1940 Caskie had to flee from Paris . Instead of trying to return home ( as strongly advised by staff at the Church of Scotland Offices in Edinburgh ) he fled south , eventually ending up in Marseilles on the French south coast ( having refused the opportunity of a place on the last ship to Britain leaving Bayonne ) . At the British Seamen ’ s Mission in Marseilles , Caskie set up a refuge for stranded Britons . He would even send telegram s to the Church of Scotland offices in Edinburgh informing them of the number of British service personnel who had escaped . With the help of Lt - Cmdr Pat O ' Leary RN ( later awarded the George Cross ) , British Intelligence , local clergyman Pastor Heuzy , the American consular authorities and others , Caskie helped many Allied service personnel to flee France . Detention . Caskie came under the suspicion of the Vichy France and German authorities , and a fellow Briton betrayed him . Pastor Heuzy was one of many to be executed . Lack of evidence saved Caskie ’ s life for the first time ; instead he received a suspended prison sentence and was ordered to leave Marseilles . This was partly helped by Caskie ’ s ability to speak Gaelic , confounding his interrogators . Caskie headed for Grenoble , acting as chaplain amongst the captured British soldiers . The Nazis had ordered that all British - born civilians in the occupied countries be interned in Germany . In a calculated risk , Caskie managed to influence the Italian camp commandant to release civilians . Caskie was arrested again and this time put on trial and sentenced to death . Awaiting execution by firing squad , Caskie asked to see a pastor . This saved his life ; the German army padre Hans Helmut Peters appealed to Berlin to spare Caskie . He then spent the rest of the war in a Prisoner of War camp , resuming his ministry in Paris after the war . He was appoointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire ( OBE ) and also honoured by the French government for his wartime service . Scots Kirk Church . The Scots Kirk in Paris had been unused throughout the war , and lack of maintenance led to the church having to be rebuilt during the 1950s . To help pay for the rebuilding , his autobiographical account of his extraordinary wartime activities was published as " The Tartan Pimpernel " in 1957 . The 1950s building proved to have serious defects and had to be again rebuilt in the late 1990s , Caskie ' s book being again reissued . Late life . Caskie finally returned to Scotland in 1961 to become minister at Wemyss Bay and Skelmorlie on the Firth of Clyde . He was latterly also minister at St Cuthbert ' s Church in Monkton , Ayrshire . He retired to Edinburgh in the early seventies and lived the final year of his life with his younger brother in Greenock . He died in 1983 and is buried at Bowmore on Islay . Various personal artefacts , including his wartime medals , can be seen at Kilarrow Parish Church , Bowmore .