This all happened late in 1940 and a film, Into the White, a 2012 Norwegian film is loosely based on these real events. It chronicles their adventure and is said to be a great movie but does take liberties with the true story, as movies made for entertainment often will!

Thinking quickly and trying to break down the language barrier in a mix of German and English, Partridge convinced the Germans that he and Bostock were survivors of a downed Vickers Wellington Bomber (and not the aces that had brought their plane down).
The film adaptation of these events goes quite off course from this point. It portrays both crews staying in the cabin together, the British indignantly sitting as POWs while starting to warm up to their roommates and all cooperating more together over a series of many stormy nights while the food quickly runs out.
In truth, according to Schopis’ memoirs, Partridge had suggested on the first day they met that the Germans stay in the cabin and the Brits look elsewhere for shelter. That night, the British stumbled upon the Grotli Hotel, closed for the winter, but offering shelter from the harsh weather.
The Germans arrived the next morning, and all shared breakfast together.
Partridge and Strunk left that day to search for people and, hopefully, save both crews from dying. It would be no use to either party to be found dead from starvation when the seasons finally changed
They quickly found a Norwegian ski patrol, close enough to the hotel that Bostock could hear the shot being fired which he assumed was Feldwebel Strunk killing his captain. But it was Strunk who lay dead, reportedly shot by the ski patrol as he reached for his pistol.
Schopis and Auchtor were taken into custody by the Norwegians, turned over to the British, and eventually sent to a POW camp in Canada where they spent the remainder of the war.

Later in 1940, while battling the German battleship Scharnhorst, Partridge was shot down and captured by the Germans. He spent the rest of the war as a POW. His partner, Bostock, was sadly killed in the same fight.

Well after the war, in 1977, Schopis received a phone call from Partridge, and the two met as friends in their hometowns of Munich and London. Obviously, those days fighting for their lives in the wilderness left a mark on both men and it is quite special that years later enemies could reunite as friends!

To read more go to War History On-Line.