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The extraordinary story of a war hero's flight to freedom from the Nazis has been revealed by his daughters, after they retraced his steps and reclaimed the shoes he wore on the epic 200-mile trek.Sven Somme was pursued by 900 German soldiers with sniffer dogs across the mountains of occupied Norway before he reaching safety, having being arrested for spying for the Allies.Sixty years on his daughter Ellie Targett, a radio presenter in Herefordshire, and her sister Yule, who lives in Devon, set out on foot to retrace their father's daring escape, meeting some of the people who helped him along the way.Mrs Targett recalled the emotional moment when his battered lace-up shoes were returned to her in a brown paper bag by a family who had sheltered him. They had kept the shoes as a reminder of the young man they had found hiding in a frozen mountain hut."There wasn't a dry eye in the house," said Mrs Targett. "The whole lot of us wept, we never said a word." Mr Somme, a Norwegian, had been caught photographing a strategic German torpedo station during one of his many spying missions for the Allies in 1944.He was arrested and put on a passenger ship to take him to a German camp but before the vessel could sail, he escaped his bonds and crept past his sleeping guard.The marine biologist wore the brown shoes as he walked past his captors guarding the harbourside, giving them a cheeky wave goodbye to allay suspicion.He continued to wear them on the first part of the 200-mile escape through the mountains.He avoided leaving footprints in the deep snow drifts by walking through icy streams and leaping from tree to tree, a trick he learned as a child.But as he faced climbing the perilous mountains to freedom, the shoes could take him no further and a 19-year-old named Andre who had helped shelter him from the Germans, offered to swap them for his new boots.It was the teenager's sister, Selma, who kept the shoes and returned them to the daughters when they retraced their father's footsteps in 2004.Mr Somme's daughters learned the details of their father's journey when he wrote a record of his escape from the Germans, who tortured and executed his brother Iacob, a leading member of the resistance.The children, who were born after the war, read their father's memoirs and decided to celebrate the 60th anniversary of his trek by following his eight-week journey.Their father braved bears and wolves during his route over ancient reindeer paths thousands of feet up in the mountains.After escaping to Sweden the scientist met and married their English mother Primrose, but he died of cancer in 1961 when the children were still young. His family then moved from Norway to Dartmouth, Devon.The daughters have published their father's story in his own words, and now show off the shoes during their presentations."They go everywhere with me," said Mrs Targett."People are very moved when they hear the story but it really hits home when they see papa's shoes because they know we are talking about a real man."Mrs Targett and her sister were the only members of a party of five who managed to finish the trip in 2004 and a year later they published their father's tale, together with details of their own journey.Since then demand for the sisters to tell the story has grown and there are suggestions of a television documentary being made about their adventure. "It is a fascinating story and everywhere I go people say it should be made into a film," said Mrs Targett."I do not think the family would like to see papa's shoes getting the Hollywood treatment but it would be nice to see a factual documentary made."Another Man's Shoes by Sven Somme is published by Polperro Heritage Press.As in the days of Noah....
