The Bitter Road to Freedom: The Human Cost of Allied Victory in World War II Europe by William I. Hitchcock Page B
Authors: William I. Hitchcock
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she had been spared this sight and experience.” 38
In this environment of devastating war damage and upheaval, soldiers tended to see civilians as simply an- other feature of a foreign, strange, and frequently bi- zarre world. In no sense did civilians put a human face on the events of liberation; on the contrary, the suf- ferings of civilians only made Normandy all the more inhuman and weird. In the midst of heavy shelling in the Falaise gap, A. G. Herbert recalled a surreal en- counter with two women, barefoot and dressed only in
nightclothes, their hair streaming in the wind as they ran. As they drew near I could see the leading woman was carrying a large picture of Christ in a frame still complete with glass. They were both hysterical, and clutched at my uniform, begging to know where to go out of the fighting. Although I spoke no French I was able to point out the way down and said “La Roguerie!” At that moment, a tank had made its way up the hill and was in the act of forcing a passage up the narrow track when it ran over a donkey which had followed the women down. The noise of the tank and the sight of the squashed donkey caused the women’s hysteria to rise to a new crescendo. They took to their heels, and in a moment were out of sight, running like the wind. 39
No less chilling was this scene near Falaise: “By the roadside, one small boy stood alone on a dead horse, flies from the carcass around his mouth, a national flag in his hand, stunned by the desolate scene.” 40 In Caen a few days after its liberation, “a few elderly women in funereal black moved around the debris, some ac- companied by children whose faces appeared equally ashen or dust grey.” 41 To these Allied soldiers, civilians were dirty, strange, and mostly unwelcoming. Roscoe Blunt of the U.S. 84th Infantry Division noted that in every bombed-out village he entered, the villagers were “suspicious, their faces sullen and silent.” Even
the friendly ones were off-putting because of their filth: Blunt was stunned to find a family of Norman farmers dwelling in a home with a dirt floor, no plumbing, no electricity, and a pit in the ground for a toilet. “I had never been in such a barren home and I felt a slight twinge of sympathy,” he wrote later. 42 Civilians were also distanced from liberating soldiers by their vulner- ability. From June 6 onwards, at least 100,000 Calva- dosiens fled their homes and flowed along the roads and dirt tracks of the countryside, seeking safety from the fighting. To the liberating soldiers, this only dimin- ished them: they looked “dispirited” and “frightful.” Wrote Sergeant Greenwood of these refugees, “some had prams containing all their worldly goods: others had wheelbarrows. Two very old ladies were being wheeled in these things. Three tiny babies and a few children included.…Some of them had been trekking for three weeks.” 43 Soldiers felt pity but also disgust for this wretched refuse of war.
Refugees, having fled the intense fighting in the Mor- tain area, rest on the roadside in Saint-Pois, August 10, 1944. U.S. National Archives
Soldiers and civilians, in short, had little use for one another, except as sources of exchange: soldiers con- stantly sought to barter soap, cigarettes, or tinned bul- ly beef for eggs, butter, poultry, potatoes, or fresh meat. But bartering was certainly not the only way to secure desirable French luxuries. The theft and looting of Nor- man households and farmsteads by liberating soldiers began on June 6 and never stopped during the entire summer. David Kenyon Webster, who parachuted into Normandy on D-Day with the U.S. 101st Airborne Divi- sion, recalled stealing a fifth of Hennessy cognac from
a farmhouse within hours of landing. 44 In Colombières, a town just a few miles from the landing beaches that was liberated on D-Day, one woman recalled that her house was thoroughly looted by Canadians. “It was an onslaught throughout the village,”
In this environment of devastating war damage and upheaval, soldiers tended to see civilians as simply an- other feature of a foreign, strange, and frequently bi- zarre world. In no sense did civilians put a human face on the events of liberation; on the contrary, the suf- ferings of civilians only made Normandy all the more inhuman and weird. In the midst of heavy shelling in the Falaise gap, A. G. Herbert recalled a surreal en- counter with two women, barefoot and dressed only in
nightclothes, their hair streaming in the wind as they ran. As they drew near I could see the leading woman was carrying a large picture of Christ in a frame still complete with glass. They were both hysterical, and clutched at my uniform, begging to know where to go out of the fighting. Although I spoke no French I was able to point out the way down and said “La Roguerie!” At that moment, a tank had made its way up the hill and was in the act of forcing a passage up the narrow track when it ran over a donkey which had followed the women down. The noise of the tank and the sight of the squashed donkey caused the women’s hysteria to rise to a new crescendo. They took to their heels, and in a moment were out of sight, running like the wind. 39
No less chilling was this scene near Falaise: “By the roadside, one small boy stood alone on a dead horse, flies from the carcass around his mouth, a national flag in his hand, stunned by the desolate scene.” 40 In Caen a few days after its liberation, “a few elderly women in funereal black moved around the debris, some ac- companied by children whose faces appeared equally ashen or dust grey.” 41 To these Allied soldiers, civilians were dirty, strange, and mostly unwelcoming. Roscoe Blunt of the U.S. 84th Infantry Division noted that in every bombed-out village he entered, the villagers were “suspicious, their faces sullen and silent.” Even
the friendly ones were off-putting because of their filth: Blunt was stunned to find a family of Norman farmers dwelling in a home with a dirt floor, no plumbing, no electricity, and a pit in the ground for a toilet. “I had never been in such a barren home and I felt a slight twinge of sympathy,” he wrote later. 42 Civilians were also distanced from liberating soldiers by their vulner- ability. From June 6 onwards, at least 100,000 Calva- dosiens fled their homes and flowed along the roads and dirt tracks of the countryside, seeking safety from the fighting. To the liberating soldiers, this only dimin- ished them: they looked “dispirited” and “frightful.” Wrote Sergeant Greenwood of these refugees, “some had prams containing all their worldly goods: others had wheelbarrows. Two very old ladies were being wheeled in these things. Three tiny babies and a few children included.…Some of them had been trekking for three weeks.” 43 Soldiers felt pity but also disgust for this wretched refuse of war.
Refugees, having fled the intense fighting in the Mor- tain area, rest on the roadside in Saint-Pois, August 10, 1944. U.S. National Archives
Soldiers and civilians, in short, had little use for one another, except as sources of exchange: soldiers con- stantly sought to barter soap, cigarettes, or tinned bul- ly beef for eggs, butter, poultry, potatoes, or fresh meat. But bartering was certainly not the only way to secure desirable French luxuries. The theft and looting of Nor- man households and farmsteads by liberating soldiers began on June 6 and never stopped during the entire summer. David Kenyon Webster, who parachuted into Normandy on D-Day with the U.S. 101st Airborne Divi- sion, recalled stealing a fifth of Hennessy cognac from
a farmhouse within hours of landing. 44 In Colombières, a town just a few miles from the landing beaches that was liberated on D-Day, one woman recalled that her house was thoroughly looted by Canadians. “It was an onslaught throughout the village,”
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