Tribute to the Resistance and words of witnesses of the Landing

A tribute to Jean-Roger Sainteny and the Alliance network

A first break reported a tribute organized on a Sunday in Vierville-sur-Mer. Among the steles dedicated to American units, a monument on the beach was dedicated to the Resistance. Alumni of the Alliance group had gathered there in memory of Jean-Roger Sainteny, known as Dragon.

Édith Desaleux, an eighty-six-year-old Alliance resistance fighter at the time of the article, explained that the hope of the Liberation had given them the strength to continue the fight. Present in Paris in 1944, she evoked the liberation of the city as the most beautiful day of her life: the flags that appeared on the windows and the sound of the bells remained wonderful memories for her.

With other Alliance survivors, she participated in the ceremony and recalled the fight of Sainteny. Mayor Jean-Marie Oxéant stressed his attachment to Vierville, before laying a wreath.

The Vigil of the Sixtieth Anniversary

A second cut reported an evening organized on a Tuesday by France Bleu, Ouest-France and the Caen Memorial in the municipal hall. Nearly two hundred people had attended. The objective was to give the floor to the witnesses of the Landing, the war and the immediate post-war period, and then to preserve and transmit this memory. Many young people had listened to their elders.

The third grade students of Hemingway College in Port-en-Bessin, accompanied by their history teacher Jean-Jacques Leprende, had questioned witnesses about relations with the Germans, the Resistance, the deaths of the Landing, the future of the bodies and the cleaning of the beach. Christophe Prime, historian of the Caen Memorial, completed the answers. He animated the evening with Stéphane Parry, France Bleu journalist, and began by recalling the events of June 6, 1944 on the six kilometers of Omaha, between Vierville, Saint-Laurent and Colleville.

Different experiences depending on the place

The testimonies of Fernand Olard and Janine Anger showed that the inhabitants had not all experienced the same highlights. Some, hidden in ditches, had not seen anyone on June 6, while they had lived very hard the next day, evoking a German counter-offensive.

Narcisse Coulibœuf, aged sixteen in 1944, said that his father wanted to ring the bells on the morning of June 6, but his mother had prevented him from doing so. He also remembered the confusion of American soldiers who thought civilians had already left. He and his father, his brother had been taken to the American command post of Ruquet.

Witnesses mentioned few civilian deaths in their area on D-Day, citing the baker's maid, her little boy and the postman. The bodies of the soldiers and the cries of the wounded, on the other hand, remained deeply present in their memory. Jean-Claude Ygouf described his fear of the dead at the end of a field and the image of a soldier shaving in the middle of chaos.

After the years of deprivation, they also kept the memory of the abundance brought by the Americans during the operation of the artificial port, until November 1944: meals offered, cigarettes and sweets carried in the aprons. Fernand Olard evoked the cagibi under the staircase filled with preserves and provisions, as if the family was preparing another war. Georgette Olive remembered an outing to the Port-en-Bessin cinema, followed by a severe reprimand on her return.

The evening had officially ended after two hours, but the exchanges had continued. Teachers and associations had found valuable information for their memory work. The cut announced the broadcast of recordings on France Bleu on March 12 at 2:30 p.m. and March 14 at 12:10 p.m., as well as a file on the Ouest-France website.

Four testimonies in portraits

Fernand Olard was five years old in 1944. After leaving the trench where his family had taken refuge, he remembered that the Americans had wanted to evacuate the inhabitants by boat. Gathered at school, the group had to leave after the roof explosion. The sea was covered with boats and wrecks; buildings and roads had disappeared under the destruction, and bulldozers were pushing back the rubble. It was necessary to advance among the bodies. Later, he would fish for lobsters in the wrecks. He brought some images of the cliff closer to scenes from the movie Private Ryan.

Sergine Ginet, originally from Bricqueville, was a teenager during the Occupation. She said she came back at 7:05 a.m. when the curfew was set at 7 a.m., after lingering with friends on her way back from milking. A German had driven her in front of officers, then brought her home by kicking her in the lower back. She kept in contrast the memory of a happy period after the Landing, when she ate and smoked with the Americans.

Janine Anger was nineteen years old and then bore the name of Bonaparte. She lived near the church with her parents and her fiancé. She mentioned twenty-four aerial torpedoes that fell on June 6 in one hectare of their field. The family had gone in slippers to Louvières and found themselves with twenty-one people in a pond descent transformed into a shelter. On the way back, the destruction was considerable. His parents then befriended an American Red Cross soldier installed in the Château de Vierville, who came to eat at their house and considered them as his French parents.

Fernand Skrzyniarz was nine months old in 1944. He reported the story transmitted by his parents: on June 6, they left with Mr. Igouf, their employer. During the shooting, his mother had received a grenade splinter on her wrist. As her child was still asleep, she had feared that he was dead. He also remembered that, for about ten years, children in the area were invited to sing French and American hymns at the American cemetery during the ceremonies of June 6. That's where he tasted his first Mars bars.

Reconstructed or uncertain passages:
- The montage juxtaposes two separate articles and four portraits-testimonys. The year of publication is not printed in a visible way; the "Veillée du 60" places the second article in the context of the sixtieth anniversary. The scenes, figures and words of 1944 are reported as the memories of the witnesses. The name of the teacher is read "Jean-Jacques Leprende" and that of the employer of the Skrzyniarz family "Igouf", in accordance with the cut.

Archive image: https://vierville.cordelle.eu/Photos2008/1944Temoignages44.jpg