Fernand FARCY, Julien LANDAU, Jean LECORNU Were I.iving in Crepon at the time of June 6~ 1944. They remember . Herbert DROSSLER~ a prisoner who stayed behind. Why? Recollections. Born in 1930, Julien is the youngest of the three. Fernand and Jean were born 1927, in February and November respectively. So much for setting straight the records, and may the secretary of the Town Hall at the time rest in peace, his soul, like that of so marry others, long since plunged into the silence of eternity.
What was Crepon like in the '40s? A bit like it is today. Of course, the main road, which shattered the silence of this peaceful hamlet. did not yet exist. People used to go swimming off the 'beautiful beach' at Asnelles, and Arromanches was just a pretty, and rather exclusive, holiday resort. History was set to change all that. In those days the diversion from Ver, at the start of Ctepon, had not yet been dreamt up. Fernand remembers the first Jewish refugees at the beginning of 1940 as they fled .the raids on the towns and sought refuge in what was called at the time 'The Chateau', and which is today the Manor House, occupied by the Mayor, Anne-Marie Poisson.
The Germans first set up their HQ in the house of Mr Lefevre to the right of , the church, before moving into the Manor House a month later. The marks of this occupation are still there to be seen: a crooked cross (a swastika to be more precise) on the wall of the antique shop, a ditch, today almost completely full of flowers, for repairing German army trucks and a fake wooden pendulum hanging from the gables of the house with a copper plate slung beneath it which the Germans used for target practice. In short, it was not the Atlantic Wall. Marks, then, that have remained, testimony to a force that did not leave too many bad memories. The British military police carried out an enquiry into Commandant Grunewald, at the time the most senior officer and the man in charge of the artillery in the area, which was very. lenient in its summing up. He even came back to visit. the Leconnu family after the war, before disappearing along with Otto Abetz, the Reich's Ambassador to Paris, in an accident on a German motorway. Strange the tales that destiny holds in store.
What was life like in those days? People used to go to Bayeux by bicycle or horse and cart; there was even a gas powered coach to Arromanches.. The cars of the period -Celtaquntre, Traction etc. -were put on blocks, the petrol being reserved for the occupying forces. Exempt from this were the Mayor, Mr Banville, and the village electrician who used to drive around in, don't laugh! a Chrysler (gas, of course) and that for years before the arrival of- the famous Command Cars of the same make brought across by U.S. troops in landing craft. As is often the case, History has a strange sense of humour, Crepon's one and only Chrysler was destroyed by a Sherman tank, it was badly parked on a narrow back road, it was blocking the way. A pity all the same. Life carries on in wartime. War is never a nice business. Shopping was done at the village greengrocer's. "Life was better on the farm than in town", admits Fernand. The villagers of Crepon were called up (and paid) by the Germans to put up the famous 'Rommel's Asparagus'~. Simply, these were wooden stakes erected vertically to stop planes or gliders from landing. You never know!
.'My cart and pair of horses were numbered", remembers Femand, "with a second obligation: to move the Germans if push came to shove. More of this later. "I lived on the edge of the village as you come from Ver", points out Jean. "The Germans were particularly keen on my cattle-wagon which unlike the horse and cart, left no tracks." This is rural France, you must remember, and you probably have to be born there to appreciate these subtleties.
June 1944. Jean Lecornu remembers the fifth of that month only too well: "There was a Spitfire flying over Crepon, probably on a mission to take photographs. I said to myself, "something's going to happen here'," Femand Farcy was picked out to go to Courseulles, once again to sort out the famous asparagus. Instead, he went into hiding. When he emerged it was on that mythical day, Tuesday June 6th. ... Thousands were hurtling towards a glorious destiny that de Gaulle was to sum up in a single sentence: "At the end of their suffering comes the greatest glory known to man that of those who did not yield." June 6th, "Things were hotting up", remembers Jean. Flares, fireworks of a11 kinds. "So we dug a trench, my father had fought in the Great War. On my way to fetch a couple of horses, I heard explosions in the German camp behind Vereecke (today a farm called 'la Ranconniere'). My father asked us to take shelter. At eight o'clock, the British infantry, along with some Canadian troops, were coming up the road from Ver ...They were the advance party of Field Marshal Montgomery's Eighth Army. It was Fernand's mother who woke him up. "Something's happening." "I could scarcely believe it. Doing as I was told? I called my brother So we could go and shelter in a German trench: everyone had his own spot. That. way, if a bomb should land, only one person would get injured!. I saw the British coming from the direction of Meuvaines and, of course, directly from Ver. I saw a dead soldier, killed by a German tank whose crew had since been captured. Another British soldier was riddled with bullets. A catholic priest wanted to give him the last rites; he was a protestant. So that was that"
"In no time I saw the first allied tank; it was a Sherman," Jean recalls. "At first my father thought it was German. We went out to cheer it on. They entered Crepon with an escort of armoured cars" "The sea was black with boats," recalls Femand. "We even got our hands on abandoned bicycles, the ones the gendarmes had taken from us. The second day our animals were slaughtered. There were still some Germans left in the bell-tower. A British tank sorted them out by blowing up the tower." (This was rebuilt after the , war.) Again, more on this later.
June 6tb was the day of the heroic action by Stanley Hollis and his men of the 1st battalion of the Green Howards. Jean remembers what happened: "The British actually got pinned down on the far side of Crepon, towards Bayeux, by a very feisty and spirited group of Germans ("We'll be back", called out the British). One of them drove into our courtyard on a motorbike. He spoke French. "Can you come with me, we've got some men badly wounded?" They had come back, of course. Stanley, as I recall, was stretched out on a tracked vehicle. First Aid. A jeep pulled up with three officers on board. Stanley was decorated within ten minutes with the Victoria Cross, the only one given out on D-Day tor an exceptional feat of arms. He had saved his men, reaching them under machine-gun fire, and that after he had already, that same morning at Ver, taken Out a pill-box where some Germans had holed up, I know that Stanley returned to Crepon after the war, but I never saw him again (be has been dead about fifteen years now).
Planes criss-crossed the sky. It was by now impossible to cross the road. I saw British soldiers soaked up to the armpits. They were landing. They were landing. My first sortie? Three friends and I took our bikes and went to look at the sea, to... well, in fact. to get an earful from the Military Police ("You're in the way~'). From Meuvaines you could no longer see the sea. Little aerodromes had been set up here and there. There was a man who had had his arm cut off by a propeller. He died not so long ago. . And what of Julien? Julien was 14 and was at school,. except that the occupying forces had him collecting Colorado beetles to protect the apple crop! (Chemistry has come on leaps and bounds since!) Julien set out from home on the 6th only to get hit in the left arm by a stray bullet (his mother kept the bullet for posterity). He was treated by a British soldier. He would be the only native Creponais to be injured: the Mayor got a pebble .in his eye and a farmer, Mr Lefevre ( deceased) , .survived an unforgettable experience: a bullet (British, in this instance) went straight through his cap, leaving not so much as a scratch (not on his head, at any rate)! But the events of that. June had a profound effect on Julien: he developed a passion for collecting, vehicles and all sorts of objects from the period. Let the list speak for itself. .Among the more unusual items: the bedroom of Field Marshal Rommel whose four-poster bed rested on Empire period colonnades each one crowned with a bronze eagle. With the bed, two bedside tables, two chairs, a. dressing table, a wardrobe and a mirror all bearing the emblem of the Reich. The whole lot was bought in a secondhand shop in Tour-en-Bessin. History does not tell us if the bed still bore the smell of the hot sand of El Alamein, it is safe to assume that it accompanied the field marshal wherever he went -, but Julien has been using it ever since. He also boasts a quite remarkable collection of vehicles: GMC lorries, Jeeps and a magnificent Command Car, superbly upholstered and used most probably to carry senior officers. It is one of Julien's favourite pieces. There is also a well-preserved Dodge, adaptable to French railway lines, a (rare) Diamon breakdown truck (US), a mobile kitchen, a tanker and Jeep and GMC trailers. One collector's item that he has not got is an amphibious GMC. But that is not all: there are also uniforms, helmets, mess tins, radios, generating sets (which pump out up to 110 volts!), Norton and BSA motorbikes, boots, and so on, and so on. This collection is not open to the public. . . Julien loved everything mechanical- he worked at his father's forge -, bought a lorry and set up a transport business; by the time he took his retirement this had grown to 80 vehicles! Every June 6th, whilst he was still able, he used to get out his deluxe Command Car. Do memories fade in time? Not at all! For our three witnesses, to have lived through those times is never to forget. The same is true for corporal Herbert Drossier. Let us pause to dwell on his story , He was born in 1925 in Turinge near Kasse1 in thc former East Germany, one of seven brothers and a sister: "Six :lads went off to war. Five were injured on the Russian front near Sta1ingrad, including his brother Albert. Taken prisoner, he was not to return home until the start of the '50s. To die." Left today are Herman who lives in Cologne, Robert (Stuttgart) and his sister (also in Stuttgart). Herbert set out with Rommel's army on the l7th May 1943 at the age of 17 and a half. His destination: Cherbourg via St. Malo. "We knew something was coming, but weren't sure where. ..The British were dropping paratroopers who turned out to be dolls. We were playing at the dummy war as well, building tanks made of cardboard that the British used to bomb! On the l7th August we left for Argentan and Falaise. Everywhere was smashed to pieces." Taken prisoner August 20th by the Americans he was interned in the camp at Audrieu, then, 17 months later at Fleury-sur-Ome. "They asked us to work on the farms. With another prisoner, I turned up at . Vereecke. We were well treated (even if there were no wages) and everything we needed was provided at the camp. Freed October 30, 1949, I became a 'free worker' whilst my pal went back to Germany, to the bit without Russians in it! Why did I stay? It was a letter from my father that helped me make up my mind, all mail was monitored by the Russians' whom you never mentioned for fear of being shot. He wrote quite simply: "If you're happy where you are, stay there!" I understood. Herbert took French citizenship in 1963. He was to go back three times to Germany without being able to get to Kassel. "You had to pay the equivalent of 100 French francs to every Russian (on a pro-rata basis depending on the number of people in your family) and all possessions -.except your own:} -were confiscated.. I was never able to get through and, thus, never saw my parents again. I met Grunewald after the war at the Hotel St. Martin de Creully. And his daughter even went to mass at Crepon. I don't much care to talk about that part of my life. I still have nightmares about it.. Young people don't know what war is really like" A twinkle lights up his eye. " August 19th, I was on a small farm. A young Frenchman was hit by an explosive bullet, in the stomach. In the Wermacht everyone had some special powder to stop bleeding. So I used it. His mother wanted to give him a bowl of milk which could have made things worse. I threw the bowl away violently. And me not able to speak a word of French! A friend and I managed to get him into an ambulance, which took him to the hospital at St. Sever. I found him injured, but alive. I was delighted, even if his mother must have taken me for a "dirty Kraut"1 I returned to St. Sever some years afterwards, but couldn't find the farm. Citizen of Crepon, Herbert still lives here. He worked for Renault Commercial Vehicles at Caen as an interpreter in the material deliveries department. Of course, he still takes an interest in what is going on in Germany. "But you know, I was 17 and a half when I left that country.. So has always driven a French car. He is at peace with himself now. At peace' is perhaps not quite the right expression. This is what happened when one of his brothers came to see him twelve years after the war. He wanted to pay his respects at the grave of a friend buried in the German cemetery at La Cambe near Bayeux. Herbert went with him and found his own grave; with his name clearly marked! There followed discussions with the director of the cemetery. ..The man buried here is standing before you!" An inquiry was held. His name .has since been removed and replaced by these three words 'Unknown German Soldier'. ' At peace', indeed., As you enter Crepon (coming from Caen), you can still see a hangar which was used to shelter the aeroplanes. The most important airfield at the time was between Bazenville and Crepon. It was there that a flying fortress touched down on just one engine on its way back from a raid over Caen. Femand also remembers a shepherd with his flock of 500 sheep grazing peacefully on the plain between Crepon and Creul1y. They had been brought over especially from Austria to feed the 31st army. He had two Frenchmen working for him. For Jean that period remains just as unforgettable. A pleasure cruise? "Not a bit of it. There was a lot of damage done, even if the region was not particularly affected (one farm burnt down on the Bayeux road) and there were no civilian casualties. Not forgetting the church.of course. The tower mentioned earlier was fired on by two tanks: the first was positioned on the road to Ver; the other one opposite the butcher's shop. The Germans soon gave themselves up, but the tower was so shaken that all bell ringing was off for a while! D-Day fell on a Tuesday. We had a big storm afterwards that destroyed the port of Omaha. And did you know that allied submarines came to sound the sea bed during the war? That way the big ships managed to avoid the peat deposits where once there stood a forest. Amazing! And to think that the English troops marched in flanked on either side by Scots in full kilt playing the bagpipes. "After June 6th ...Femand points out., "things got easier. The British were no longer staying in our house~ (they had their tents) and were really well organised, fuel dump at Crepon on the road to Meuvaines, bakery at the entrance to Ver ...I remember an English officer who had crash-landed. He was rabbiting away in the Normandy dialect as if he were a local. We never saw him again,' "Unlike Julien. I didn't go in for collecting equipment and so on. That's not really my sort of thing, admits Jean. Was he aware that the Americans were at Omaha? "No, we didn't have electricity or a wireless. What we did have at home was a powerful generating set out in a great big barn. I learnt how to get it going and the British staged shows there to entertain the troops. No, we did see some Americans, of course, but here it was mostly British and Canadians. It made a real change after the nine o ' clock curfew all throughout the war" Here is living proof that memories never die. Femand picks up the thread as more images surge up from the past: "I saw de Gaulle at Bayeux, and they started printing 'La Renaissance du Bessin' again." (Here he is referring to the first newspaper of post-occupation France; it is still going strong today, incidentally.) More anecdotes: Russian could be heard being spoken in Crepon during the occupation- there were Russian soldiers there who had deserted the Red Army to don the German uniform. Another thing..- Jean's father had a front wheel drive Citroen (the two words have, of course, become synonymous): it was requisitioned by fighters with the FFI (French Forces of the Interior) or supposedly so, you couldn't tell since the resistance swelled in numbers as things drew to a close, even in Normandy! "The car was considered stolen. Our name remained on the documentation though, and it was recovered in Marseillels. The Sunday after D-Day there was a Protestant service at the Church. Quite some time later a Catholic mass was held, bringing , together a regiment of Poles who were taking their tanks up to Caen. The light from the fires which burned in that town could be seen from here." On the very same spot where Stanley Hollis won his V.C..
Mr Guedon, who rented the farm there, saved many British lives. The Germans had got a field gun set up there. The British wanted to go in with a tracked vehicle. This had been hit, though, and was on-fire. It was then that the British infantry turned up. "Don't go up there," cried Mr Guedon "you'll get blown to pieces," Instead then, they called up two Shermans with flame-throwers. One German tried to take out the tanks. He was shot in the leg, He was well treated, Another German soldier yelled out "We'll meet again some day, Messieurs!" I'm sure there must still be a load of ammunition lying about up there!" What 'were things like in Crepon in the years following the war. The witness accounts differ on this point.: there was no settling of scores; there was just the one woman (Mme Leconte), not alive today, who had had a certain understanding -let's call it collaboration -with the occupying power. She did not have her head shaved, but was tried at Bayeux, History does not tell what became of her. . History is, indeed the word. What of the ceremonies marking the fiftieth anniversary? "Very moving." And the ceremony in memory of Stanley Hollis: "It was a very beautiful occasion." Today Jean and Fernand are 72 years old, Julien 69. From time to time they get to see The Longest Day on television. They have not seen Saving , Private Ryan. packed as. it is with moments of artistic licence: not a black GI in sight -and there were enough of them there -and no glimpses of the Normandy hedges .which proved so troublesome to the Allies (the film was shot in Ireland). Finally, contrary to what the director would have us believe, the divisions of the SS only arrived on the Normandy front much later on: the most notorious of them, that under General Lamerding (who died years later in bed). and the one that all but razed Oradour-sur~Glane, did fight in Caen in July but abandoned it.due to lack of fuel. Long into their retirement, Femand, Jean, Julien and Herbert have remained faithful to Crepon. Many of their loved ones have passed on. The church bells ring out the relentless march of time. From time to time veterans stop by; their old faces wrinkled like the folds in the sails of the boats that used to sail peacefully by on the water off Ver during the summer holidays. Every June 6th, Femand, Jean, Julien and Herbert remember. May their faith, that most touching of virtues, spread a little warmth to the cold marble that stands above those who fell in the prime of their lives, victims of mankind's madness- Jacques Poisson.