As I mentioned in my last week’s blog, I watched two really meaningful programs the week before Veterans Day. The first was about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis during World War II. The second, My Dad’s Secret War, is also about World War II.
In the thirties, a couple from a village in the northeastern part of France, both of them academics, took their two young sons and immigrated to the US where the husband became the dean of the French department at Smith College while his wife served as a professor. The language spoken in their home was French. Years later, when World War II began, their sons were old enough to enlist in the US Army where native French speakers were in short supply. Both sons were recruited to working in intelligence. The younger one in particular, a trained paratrooper who was both a talented radio operator and adept at working with codes, was soon transferred to work for the SOE, Britain’s Special Operations Executive, where he was trained to work as a secret agent. What he did in the war didn’t come to light until year later when his own five-year-old son opened a family bread box loaded with passports and IDs with his father’s photo but several different names as well as a number of weapons.
At the time he joined the SOE, the Resistance in France was a rag-tag group with no real organization or direction. The younger son, age 22, along with three other agents, including a female courier, were dubbed “the Salesmen” and air-dropped into Southern France, charged with the job of organizing the Resistance into a unified fighting force that could help disrupt the movement of German troops and slow them down as they traveled from that area of France north to help counter the D-Day invasion. Although the female courier was captured and ultimately executed by the Germans, the Salesmen succeeded in slowing the German army’s march north by more than a week.
Along the way north, German SS troops were ordered to punish Resistance activities in the area, including a horrific attack on the small French village of Ourador sur Glane. Men and boys were herded into a field and shot. Women and children were forced into the village church which was then set on fire. More than six hundred people died that day, and that’s when the story on PBS became personal for me as a layer of goosebumps flashed down my legs.
In the summer of 1997, Bill and I took off on our first Rick Steves, Europe Through the Back Door, adventure. We chose two, back-to-back, two-week tours of France, starting and ending in Paris. Along the way we saw all the usual sites—the Jeu de Paume, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower. We also got to see the Bayeux Tapestry and the incredible cave paintings of Southern France. By the way, about that tapestry? I had heard of it, of course, but I always imagined it as an immense floor-to-ceiling wall hanging. It’s immense, all right, 231 feet long, but it’s only 20 inches high, and it illustrates the exploits of William the Conqueror, one event after another, all of it embroidered by womenfolk of the people William actually … well … conquered. Seeing it in person was a huge surprise.
But from the whole trip, there are three things that really stuck me. Early on, we visited the site of the D-Day invasion. I had heard of the “beaches of Normandy,” but as a kid from Arizona, I always imagined something on a par with the ocean beaches in San Diego, which is to say, stretches of flat sand. Until we were having our Rick Steves picnic lunch on one of the bluffs overlooking the “beaches,” I had no idea about the reality of the landscape. After lunch we went downstairs in the museum and watched a film about the actual invasion. As soon as the lights dimmed in the room, and the credits began, an older gentleman seated behind us in the small theater began to sob, and he wept all the way through the movie. I have no idea which side he was on, but I know for sure he was there!
Then we visited the cemetery. As we re-boarded the bus after that solemn event, one of our fellow travelers, a woman from San Francisco, turned to the driver and asked, “Are we going to visit the German cemetery now?” I remember thinking, which side were you on? The next night at dinner, that question was answered when we shared table with her. Turns out her father had immigrated to the US in the twenties where he went to work as a printer for a German language newspaper in Milwaukee. He married a US citizen and together they had two daughters.
When World War II started, he was gathered up as a possible German collaborator. He spent a long period of time in jail in Wisconsin where he developed TB. By the time he was due to be transferred to an internment camp in Texas, his health was terribly impaired, and healthcare at the camp was non-existent. When the wife begged to be allowed to accompany him, she was told, “Of course, as long as you give up your US citizenship.” She and her daughters did so and moved to the camp. Sometime later, during a prisoner of war exchange, the family was loaded onto a Swedish ship to be sent back to Germany. The father passed away while crossing the Atlantic, and the mother and daughters, who had never before set foot in Germany, spent years stranded in war-torn Europe as displaced persons. After hearing her story, I was appalled that I had ever wondered which side she had been on—and, as it turns out, we did make a stop at the German cemetery as well.
Then we went to Southern France where we visited Ourador-sur-Glane. On the way there, we heard the story about the German massacre of 600 people that day in 1944. In 1969 General De Gaulle decreed that Ourador should remain as it was and as it still is. There are four entrances to the village, and each one contains a sign featuring the same word written in several different languages: Remember. It was a warm summer day as we walked through the shattered remains of the village in the same kind of quiet as you would find in an empty church. But somewhere in town that day was a child, most likely an overly tired toddler, wailing at the top of his lungs while we looked at bikes that still stood next to burned out buildings, cars moldering away where they’d been parked, a crumpled pedal sewing machine still standing inside the house that had been burned down around it.
Those haunting items were still there in their same spots in the filmed version of “My Dad’s Secret War.” At the time, we were told by the guides that there were no active members of the Resistance in Ourador at the time of the massacre which may or may not be true. Toward the end of the film, the former spy’s son said that late in his father’s life, the two of them were driving through France and found themselves only a few miles away from Ourador. The son asked if his father would like to go there. “No,” he said. “I want you to make a U-turn. I was the first one there that day. I don’t need to see it again.”
I don’t blame him, but I’ll be thinking about him on every D-Day and Veterans Day from here on out. By organizing the French Resistance and delaying those German troop movements, the so-called “Salesmen” spared countless Allied lives, and I’ll be thinking of them from now on as the “Heroes of D-Day who weren’t even there.”
In all of the D Day films and videos I have seen, there is a sequence showing a landing craft with the front of the craft facing a house that was just above the beach. The soldiers in the landing craft are part of the Queen’s Own Regiment of Canada. To my knowledge, this is the only actual footage taken on any of the 5 landing beaches. For many years, the Queen’s Own was stationed here in Calgary at Currie Barracks.
Thank you so very much for sharing this story. It makes me so appreciative for all the stories I don’t know.
Thank you for this great account of your trip to France. My daughter married a Parisian native and I’ve visited several times. As an Iowa farm girl I was amazed at the size of the country. It was larger than I thought. I did not visit any places connected with WWII, but should have. I have an uncle who was killed during the Battle of the Bulge. He was buried in the American cemetery there for a time, but his body has been brought back to Iowa.
This blog has given me a lot to think about. Thank you again.
My uncle died at Normandy and is buried in Europe.
Reminds me of the song, “Unsung Hero.” I’ll bet there were a lot of those heroes during the War. And while we “remember,” do we learn from it? There are still wars going on all over the place…
Thank you Judy, for this very interesting and informative piece of WWII history. Ever since I read Corrie TenBoom’s, The Hiding Place as a teenager, I’ve been riveted by WWII.
I’m reading Den of Iniquity, and I think it’s your best Beaumont mystery to date. You are amazing, the ability to make these fresh and new as Beau ages.
Thank you for this one J.A. I was born in 1938 and was traumatized [long story] by a news real when I was 3, and didn’t go into a theatre again until I was a teen. Then only watched comedy’s, and to this day, I am a true admirer of our military, and stories such as this give me goose bumps all over.
Thank you, Judy…my husband and I had similar experiences when we visited Auschwitz…eerie quiet, hushed whispers from ghosts, overwhelming sadness.
Thank you so much for this story. When I visited the American cemetery in France 10 years ago as part of our tour, the director addressed the tour groups who were there. At the end of his speech he said, “We will never forget. We will never forget.” The American national anthem was to be played but they were having problems with the recording. One woman in the group said, “Well, we all know the words,” and the group of at least 50 people sang. There was not a dry eye in the house (In fact, writing this brings tears to my eyes). Others who were visiting the cemetery stood and watched…not sure if they sang along
As I was reading today’s blog I was taken aback about the family, wife and children, who were required to give up their citizenship during WWII. I had just finished your Ali Reynolds book where Sister Anselm was a prominent character. I do believe that was her story. I’m continually amazed at your stories and how you weave real life into them. Also in that particular book how you related the burn victim talking. Thank you for how you entertain my brain.
Yes, I used that real life encounter to create that character.
We had a chicken farm in New Jersey during WW2. The Army sent us a German prisoner of war to help. He tried to drown me, yelling, “Dirty Jew. Dirty Jew.”
thank you for sharing this story! I hadn’t heard about the village before
What a wonderful story. Thank you for sharing. Being of German decent, my grandfather, I always have an interest in stories like this.
What a wonderful story. Thank you for sharing. Being of German decent, my grandfather, I always have an interest in stories like this. I never mentioned being of German descent before. That’s why these stories are of interest.
Wow!!! I’d never heard that. It is incredible
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That not my post. It should be praying hands
Such a moving story. Thank yu for sharing.
Do you remember where you watched My Dad’s Secret War? I have some dreaming services but couldn’t find.it. It sounds ineresting. I think that I saw.the.one.about the.sinking of the Indianapolis. It’s been awhile.so.I.should watch that ine.again. Thanx
I see that PBS has that listed:
https://www.pbs.org/video/dads-secret-war-france-1944-au65GP/
Not sure if it is other places as well.
Just “Wow”!!! Thanks for the lesson.
My parents escaped Nazi Germany along with mom’s brother and parents. My uncle, a native German speaker, did something like what you mentioned. He was in the Army stationed in Holland intercepting German messages and broadcasting in German. My mom always told me that he had been a spy for the US.
Charles Durning with his remembrance of battle on D Day. I believe I first saw it on a PBS capitol celebration from July 4 several years back?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lFSmJWKoNE
Finding out that prisoners of war were scattered around the country to live in farming communities was an eye opener. Learned that from an M K Coker book taking place in South Dakota. And with the Germans and Japanese guess I have since given up the notion that we didn’t see the war on the US soil.
Wow! what enlightenment. Thank you for sharing that sad, but heroic story.
We were fortunate enough to visit the beaches of Normandy with an excellent private tour guide a few years ago. The visit to the American cemetery with the recorded taps playing is something I will never forget. It was heart stopping. We saw the museum & the bluffs, had a catered sandwich lunch at a farmhouse in the area where the soldiers were offered small respite, saw the Tapestry & spent the night in that charming little town of Bayeux. All of it totally unforgettable. We went on from there on a river cruise from Paris to Prague. That was a wonderful experience but the 3 days at Normandy & the train ride from Paris & back was by far more important & memorable than all the beauty we saw afterward. Thanks for sharing your experience. Every American should go there to understand the sacrifices that were made & how history was changed by those who fought there. God bless America ??
Thank you for sharing. I’m in near tears just reading your blog.
Thanks for this heartfelt and emotional history lesson.
Lest we forget!
I visited Normandy several years ago and it was very sobering and emotional. The biggest thing and most emotional was this. We were at the Omaha Beach Cemetery at 5 PM when they lower the flag. Tapps was played on the PA system throughout the cemetery. Could not help getting teary-eyed. When I was in the Army in the 60s, (thankfully not Viet Nam), wherever you were on base at 5PM Tapps was played, and we turned towards the HQ area and saluted. Memories!!
That’s where we get the term “turn and face the music” — the speakers were housed in HQ.
Amazing history. Thanks for sharing and sending me to tears.
Remember
Thank you, JA, for giving such an important history lesson. I’m only a few years younger than you are, but the history I was taught in school which is barely, if ever, taught today, has stuck with me through the years. I thank those teachings for my love of country and for those who died in WWII to preserve our freedom. And a love for our flag, a strong, everlasting symbol of that freedom.
Thank you for relating all of this to us, Judy. Another reminder that we never know what the person standing next to us has endured during their lifetime.
That was a lovely article. Now please take a second and look up Mona Louise Parsons. She is a Canadian War hero who was a WW11 resistance fighter.
Regards. Alex Leonard, from Fuller Brush Land.
Thanksgiving Day. I hope everyone is having a wonderful day with family and friends. We have a lot to be thankful for. Those people in France for one. Give thanks that we live in a safe country greatly due to them.
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