My previous post on my automobile purchase and reminiscence might have let you with the impression that my Dad was a maniacal rotten character dedicated to make my youth impossible. That would be a grave injustice to his memory. While there were some pretty tight times, my Dad was far away of being a bad man.
Earlier in his life, my sister, who is the ten years older than me, told me of her memories of a tender, gentle man loving and kind to the extreme.
Life threw him a hard shot. In World War Two, during what they call in France the Phony War (Drôle de Guerre) my Dad was attached, as Medical Personnel, to a unit of Polish Heavy Artillery who, having been caught in training in France at the Capitulation of Poland, decided to stay in France to fight instead of going back home defeated. Poland having capitulated put all those Polish Soldier out of the protection of the divers Geneva Conventions. If captured all those Polish soldiers would be summarily executed as Partisans.
When the Blitzkrieg came and the German army swept thru France that particular unit was based, in support of the front line in Gertwiller (Upper Rhine) Alsace. To avoid capture the Polish Soldiers where ordered to fold back and make a run for Dunkerque to be lifted to England to fight another day.
The French medical member of the unit were under the protection of the Geneva Convention and could be (if not killed in combat off course), at worst, taken POW unless they ran west and try to regroup with other French units. However the equipments left behind where of the best quality and technology available in heavy artillery at the time and could be easily turned around against the retreating French and British troop. That is when my Dad took one of the first of many stands he took in those times. Being medical personnel he could have easily gone back under the protection of the Red Cross painted on his helmet, his brassard and vehicle. But instead, in full violation of his orders he stayed behind and actively participated a t the sabotage and destruction of the great guns, their sophisticated fire direction equipment and ammunitions. That was a very perilous job. Needled to say the arriving German troops were non-plussed by the sight of all those valuable assets turned to scrap and smoke and treated the French POW pretty roughly as a result.
My Dad was not in the mood to spend the rest of the hostility in a Stalag and tried to escape a couple of time to be quickly recapture and again roughed up in the process. The third time was a charm and he made it back home.
Limoges our hometown was at the demarcation line between the occupied part of France and the part under the control of the Vichy government. The French Milice was actively hunting down escaped POWs. Then later on as retaliation for the Allied landing in Algeria the German troupes occupied what was called the free zone. In either one of those cases an escaped POW was well advised to keep out of sight. My Dad spend the entire period all the way to the liberation of Limoges hiding in the basement since nobody knew exactly who the Gestapo and Milice indicators were. To make thing a little more complicated I was conceived and borne during that period leaving my Mom in a very embarrassing situation until the end of the war were she was able to give an honorable explanation for my birth!
During all that time the only foray of my Dad out of the basement were to go clandestinely bring medical help to wounded Maquis peoples and downed allied airmen on their way to Spain for repatriation to England or to help hiding equipment parachuted by the allied in preparation for D-Day.
Limoges was one of the several towns that actually liberated itself.
The end of the war came and with it one of the worst period of the war when people used the pretext of collaboration to settle old accounts. Some other claiming actions that never happened.
All those things put together and seeing people that he knew to be fakes treated as hero embittered him and was never again the same person that he had been before.
So yes. My Dad was at time a little hard to handle but if one is looking for a blame to hang on somebody or something, the blame belong on the times and the advent of his era, not to my Dad who was a straight and forward men who when called did not hesitate to put it on the line and paid a terrible price for it. He always took care of his family
May God grant him the Peace he deserves.
Thanks Dad.
Earlier in his life, my sister, who is the ten years older than me, told me of her memories of a tender, gentle man loving and kind to the extreme.
Life threw him a hard shot. In World War Two, during what they call in France the Phony War (Drôle de Guerre) my Dad was attached, as Medical Personnel, to a unit of Polish Heavy Artillery who, having been caught in training in France at the Capitulation of Poland, decided to stay in France to fight instead of going back home defeated. Poland having capitulated put all those Polish Soldier out of the protection of the divers Geneva Conventions. If captured all those Polish soldiers would be summarily executed as Partisans.
When the Blitzkrieg came and the German army swept thru France that particular unit was based, in support of the front line in Gertwiller (Upper Rhine) Alsace. To avoid capture the Polish Soldiers where ordered to fold back and make a run for Dunkerque to be lifted to England to fight another day.
The French medical member of the unit were under the protection of the Geneva Convention and could be (if not killed in combat off course), at worst, taken POW unless they ran west and try to regroup with other French units. However the equipments left behind where of the best quality and technology available in heavy artillery at the time and could be easily turned around against the retreating French and British troop. That is when my Dad took one of the first of many stands he took in those times. Being medical personnel he could have easily gone back under the protection of the Red Cross painted on his helmet, his brassard and vehicle. But instead, in full violation of his orders he stayed behind and actively participated a t the sabotage and destruction of the great guns, their sophisticated fire direction equipment and ammunitions. That was a very perilous job. Needled to say the arriving German troops were non-plussed by the sight of all those valuable assets turned to scrap and smoke and treated the French POW pretty roughly as a result.
My Dad was not in the mood to spend the rest of the hostility in a Stalag and tried to escape a couple of time to be quickly recapture and again roughed up in the process. The third time was a charm and he made it back home.
Limoges our hometown was at the demarcation line between the occupied part of France and the part under the control of the Vichy government. The French Milice was actively hunting down escaped POWs. Then later on as retaliation for the Allied landing in Algeria the German troupes occupied what was called the free zone. In either one of those cases an escaped POW was well advised to keep out of sight. My Dad spend the entire period all the way to the liberation of Limoges hiding in the basement since nobody knew exactly who the Gestapo and Milice indicators were. To make thing a little more complicated I was conceived and borne during that period leaving my Mom in a very embarrassing situation until the end of the war were she was able to give an honorable explanation for my birth!
During all that time the only foray of my Dad out of the basement were to go clandestinely bring medical help to wounded Maquis peoples and downed allied airmen on their way to Spain for repatriation to England or to help hiding equipment parachuted by the allied in preparation for D-Day.
Limoges was one of the several towns that actually liberated itself.
The end of the war came and with it one of the worst period of the war when people used the pretext of collaboration to settle old accounts. Some other claiming actions that never happened.
All those things put together and seeing people that he knew to be fakes treated as hero embittered him and was never again the same person that he had been before.
So yes. My Dad was at time a little hard to handle but if one is looking for a blame to hang on somebody or something, the blame belong on the times and the advent of his era, not to my Dad who was a straight and forward men who when called did not hesitate to put it on the line and paid a terrible price for it. He always took care of his family
May God grant him the Peace he deserves.
Thanks Dad.
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