Paris '44: The City of Light Redeemed

by Mortimer Moore, William

  Escorting Dronne back to the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, the two Gardiens said the Paris Resistance was very weak and the Germans could easily have taken the Préfecture. Dronne saw how the German garrison had not really been trying, but he had yet to learn how war-weary von Choltitz was.175

  On the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville a rota was organised for Dronne’s men to take baths in nearby houses, and FFIs helped guard the square while they rested.176 Michard’s Shermans covered the main thoroughfares, Romilly’s cannon pointing down the Rue de Rivoli. After dissuading over-excited FFIs from drawing his men into ill-conceived night attacks, Dronne laid out his bedroll on the pavement. As la Nueve sang El paso del Ebro, a song of resistance from the Napoleonic Wars, the exhausted captain fell asleep.177

  ON HEARING OF DRONNE’S SUCCESS Leclerc considered entering Paris immediately, but darkness, the fact that they needed resupply, and that his men needed rest made him reconsider. Girard had found him a bedroom in a private house, but Leclerc slept on the ground with a bedroll and djellabah. Before turning in Leclerc chatted with his nephew Bernard, a veteran of the cadets’ heroic stand at Saumur in 1940. His father’s Pétainiste sympathies prevented Bernard from joining de Gaulle, but he had enlisted in his uncle’s division a few days earlier. After talking en famille, Leclerc tried to sleep before the most momentous day of his life.178

  At his CP in western Paris, Paul de Langlade ceased worrying about GT Billotte’s progress when the church bells started ringing. Supported by RBFM Tank Destroyers, Massu’s men were holding defence positions east of the Pont de Sèvres. 5th Company RMT held the Avenue Bellevue and surrounding road junctions while the 6th bathed in the crowd’s acclamation. The local German garrison retreated to the Renault factory and the Ile Saint-Germain. But the Germans would not remain passive for long. Shortly after 1am Lieutenant Postaire heard German vehicles approaching Avenue Bellevue, and German infantry had crept even closer, pulling up an anti-tank gun by hand. They were virtually on top of 5th Company’s positions when a Moroccan soldier attacked the anti-tank gunners with his bare hands, raising the alarm before being cut down by machine-gun fire. Another Moroccan, Sergeant-Chef Broukseaux, drove off several Germans with hand-grenades, but thirty successfully penetrated French positions, bringing up dreaded 20mm machine-guns which set a half-track alight. After thirty minutes’ fierce fighting the Germans withdrew, leaving behind them forty dead and twenty prisoners, three abandoned Kübelwagens, three 20mm machine-guns and several bicycles.179

  25 August 1944

  TO PREVENT FURTHER GERMAN SURPRISES, GT Langlade sent out patrols. Dawn found them unshaven, wandering southwest Paris. In the meantime, FFIs warned Langlade that German forces were regrouping around the Bois de Boulogne and the Porte Saint-Cloud, preparing to reopen a route eastwards. A lorry tried making a dash from the Renault factory but was destroyed by a Stuart special’s howitzer. More lorries tried escaping through the smoke; these too were destroyed. Their crews mostly surrendered but others threw themselves in the Seine; they were fished out by divisional engineers. 6th Company RMT captured two hundred prisoners, fifteen light vehicles and twenty lorries full of supplies.

  Approaching 10am, the petrol tanker convoy finally reached GT Langlade.

  “Mais enfin, bon Dieu! ” exclaimed Paul de Langlade. “Where on Earth have you been?”

  “We got lost in Sèvres,” replied the convoy commander. “So we thought it best to wait until day.”

  After exchanging empty jerry cans for full ones, GT Langlade was ready to enter central Paris.180

  PIERRE BILLOTTE WAS WOKEN AROUND 1AM when Commandant Weil brought fresh orders. “Get yourself to the Ile de la Cité at dawn, as prearranged, but disengage from the routes around the Croix de Berny because Dio will be coming along those advancing level with you. Go via Villejuif and the Porte Gentilly.”

  “I hope,” said Billotte, “there’s no change concerning the dispositions previously agreed with General Leclerc yesterday afternoon regarding manoeuvres within Paris.”

  “I don’t know about those dispositions,” replied Weil.181

  During the small hours reports reached Leclerc’s CP from reconnaissance units and the Resistance that the routes into Paris via the Porte d’Orléans were free of German forces and the Gare Montparnasse had been abandoned. General von Aulock had been ordered to pull his men back behind the Seine. Meanwhile von Choltitz lied to OKW that southern Paris was held “to the last man”.182 He also lied when he claimed that he had ordered the bridges of eastern Paris to be blown.183

  After a brief absence during which he had himself professionally shaved by a barber in Antony, Leclerc told Alain de Boissieu that the Gare Montparnasse was suitable for the divisional CP. “Go on ahead of me with the protection squadron,” said Leclerc. Boissieu ordered Lieutenant de la Fouchardière’s troop to the Lion de Belfort and next, depending on German reaction, to secure the Gare Montparnasse. Duplay’s troop would follow behind.184

  Knowing this was the day they would enter Paris as liberators, the 501e RCC made an extra effort to be smart. But Billotte thought getting started was more important.

  “Stay calm,” said Sergeant Laigle, climbing into his Sherman Villers-Cotterets. “I’m sure General von Choltitz is having an easy morning.”

  Ignoring Laigle’s impudence, Billotte discussed details with Warabiot before giving Jacques Branet command of the battlegroup’s lead elements.

  “Have you fully understood?” Billotte asked him. “Porte de Gentilly, Rue Saint-Jacques, and then right on to Notre Dame.”

  “Understood, mon Colonel,” nodded Branet. “En route.”

  He saluted Billotte and mounted his Jeep. Behind him Debout stood by the Jeep’s 0.5” Browning, one hand on the firing grips while waving to tanks and armoured cars behind.185

  Soon after moving off Branet allowed Spahi Lieutenant Vézy’s M8 armoured cars to lead the way, guided by FFI. The crowd were filling the streets, only parting to let vehicles pass at the last moment.

  “It’s like Moses parting the Red Sea,” Sergeant Laigle told his gunner. Like most of the 501e RCC, Laigle had swapped his tanker’s helmet for his black beret.186

  At 7.45am GT Billotte found the Porte Gentilly noir de monde—“thick with people”—all shouting with joy, singing the Marseillaise and throwing flowers. Standing in his Scout Car, Billotte saw a magnificent apple flying straight at him and caught it with both hands.187 Agile young women climbed aboard every vehicle, smothering the 2e DB’s freshly shaved cheeks with lipstick.

  On his Sherman Douaumont, Sergeant Bizien took a beautiful brunette in his arms. He had not hugged a French girl in years. Suddenly gunfire sent the crowd scattering for shelter while French soldiers scoured windows and rooftops for snipers. The girl in Bizien’s arms slumped heavily; her eyes rolling as she died. She had taken three bullets in the back and was covered with blood. Recognising that he had been the intended target, Bizien was horrified. “She saved my life!” he murmured.188

  The crowd backed off, enabling Vézy’s Spahis to push on, zigzagging along the Rue Saint-Jacques, their M8s devouring the road until they saw the towers of Notre Dame and an enormous crowd greeted them on the Parvis.189

  “LECLERC’S TANKS ARE MARCHING ALONG THE RUE SAINT JACQUES,” exclaimed Lucienne, Jean Galtier-Boissière’s assistant as she arrived for work. Galtier-Boissière’s wife threw a dressing gown over her night-dress and they ran along the Rue de la Sorbonne to see shrieking crowds surrounding 2e DB vehicles. “On every tank, on every armoured car, beside their khaki clad crews wearing their red caps, the grasping arms of young girls, of women, of kids and fifis wearing armbands, the whole throng applauded them, blowing kisses, shaking their hands as they passed, crying to these conquerors their joy at being liberated. These French soldiers, Spahis in fact, were smart, charming, good kids. Without any showing off, they took the gratitude of the people in their stride, smiling with white teeth and suntanned, exhausted faces.” They followed them northward
s past the Saint-Jacques barricade, on to the Ile de la Cité where Spahi M8s fanned out along the quays. There, as cameras filmed them, Parisiennes draped themselves over these gods who peered out from green machinery, offered babies to be kissed and flower after flower. “Amid this charming crowd,” wrote Galtier-Boissière, “this march-past was a hundred times more moving than the solemn victory march of 1919.”190

  HOSTILE GUNFIRE CAME from the rive gauche; a watchtower on the Rue Saint-Jacques had clear fields of fire towards the Parvis. Billotte’s party retreated into the Préfecture while Villers-Cotterets’ machine-gun gutted the watchtower. It was now 8am. Billotte ascended the Préfecture’s grand staircase to meet Charles Luizet, Alexandre Parodi and Jacques Chaban-Delmas. GT Billotte’s CP was installed in the billiard room.191

  Chaban-Delmas spent the night by the Préfecture’s switchboard. At dawn he took a brief walk by the Seine, contemplating four years of la vie clandestine and the luck which saved his life while others, most cruelly in those last few days, made the ultimate sacrifice. Being familiar with politico-military appointments, Billotte avoided remarking on Chaban’s youth and the smart uniform which outranked his own.192

  Outside the Hôtel de Ville the crowd thickened, becoming even more curious about Dronne’s eclectic force than the previous evening. While Dronne shaved, a young “collector” stole the pennant from his Jeep’s radio antenna and various FFI oddballs tried again to persuade him to join in hair-brained missions against German strongpoints which would probably fall during the day. Dronne duly sent them au diable.193

  However, when two officials arrived from the Préfecture complaining that German sappers were mining the Central Telephone Exchange on the Rue des Archives, Dronne recognised this had to be stopped. Immediately he sent Michard’s tanks, Elias’ platoon and Cancel’s engineers to attack the Telephone Exchange from front and rear. A reporter with a camionette-mounted cine-camera tried to join in but, at the risk of la Nueve’s deeds going unrecorded, Dronne excluded him for safety reasons.

  Attacking from the Rue de Temple, Elias’ platoon found themselves facing determined German resistance. Both Elias and Sergeant Cortes were severely, though not mortally, wounded before the Exchange was taken. On the German side a dozen sappers were killed and thirty captured including the burly lieutenant commanding them. Dronne asked this officer to remove the explosives since his men knew where they were. In passable French the officer replied that such an action was contrary to the rules of war. Dronne replied in German that such rules did not apply to non-military installations. The officer remained unyielding until Dronne’s men resorted to physical menaces. Only then did these German sappers remove their explosives and booby traps. They were everywhere: under tables, chairs, cupboard doors as well as among the main machinery. If anyone else had cleared them casualties would have been inevitable.194

  WHEN GT DIO HALTED AT CHAMPLAN the previous evening the availability of working telephone lines meant that men with families in Paris could contact their loved ones.

  “We’re coming,” they yelled enthusiastically into the mouthpiece.

  Leclerc tasked Louis Dio with investing western Paris south of the Seine, thereby linking GT Billotte and GT Langlade. Dio’s staff subsequently telephoned local residents for information on German positions. First they would cordon off the Chamber of Deputies and the Quai d’Orsay in a block which included several important buildings between the Rue de l’Université and the Seine’s south bank. A second sub-group under Colonel Noiret would fan out westwards taking in the Champ de Mars with the École Militaire and link up with GT Langlade.195

  At 8.30am GT Dio marched northwards into Paris. Reaching the Porte d’Orléans they split balletically in two; Rouvillois’ tanks rumbling along the tree-lined Avenue de Maine while Noiret’s veered leftwards along the Boulevard Brune, advancing in small detachments of tanks and infantry, halting at notable junctions and squares, going into all-round defence. 12e Cuirassiers’ Shermans and Spahi armoured cars took possession of the Champ de Mars, drawing up under the Eiffel Tower. To their south a swastika flag flew over the École Militaire.

  “It would only take a 37mm shell to knock that down,” said a Spahi, patting his M8’s cannon.

  “Go on, then!” said an officer.

  The shot went wide, drawing German fire from the building, forcing the crowd to take cover among the Champ de Mars’ hedge-lined edges. Captain Perceval saw a man approaching from the Pont d’Iena.

  “A German pillbox is preparing to fire at you,” he said. “It is situated at the bottom of the Pont d’Iena, exactly between the Trocadero’s colonnades.”

  Perceval sent Lieutenant Jourdan and four men armed with a bazooka and rifle grenades. The Place Trocadero was empty, but beyond the pavillions Jourdan discovered a pillbox at the south corner of Avenue Kléber, one of several ugly concrete pillboxes defending the German HQ area, in which a MG42 would be sited.196

  The German machine-gunners soon spotted Jourdan but there were mature, wide-trunked trees behind which he could take cover as he approached, followed by a Tirailleur toting the section’s bazooka. Their first bazooka shell narrowly missed the pillbox, setting a camionette alight instead. The pillbox machine-gun fired furiously, its bullets passing perilously close to Jourdan. Just then a civilian crossed the road, apparently oblivious to the danger, holding an unopened bottle of champagne. “Come back to my place where you could be far more peaceful than out here. I would like to introduce you to my wife,” said the man.

  “Not at the moment,” replied Jourdan, smiling. “Excuse us, but we’ve got to destroy a pillbox over there, do you see?”

  Adding to the farcically risky situation, civilians were coming from the nearby Rue Boissière to greet Jourdan’s men, ignoring the fire coming from the pillbox.

  “You don’t need to do that,” a civilian advised Jourdan. “The main bunch are inside the Hôtel Baltimore.”

  Jourdan withdrew towards the civilian.

  “I speak German,” said the man. “I will be your interpreter.”

  The two men advanced northwards up Avenue Kléber and entered the Hôtel Baltimore’s lobby, facing plenty of armed German soldiers.

  “Surrender!” called Jourdan.

  “Hände hoch!” said the civilian.

  Cowed by Jourdan’s confidence the Germans surrendered and marched out in a large column, their hands in the air, soon joined by the machine-gunners from the pillbox. As Jourdan’s men herded them towards the Champ de Mars, they had to protect them from the crowd’s abuse, much to the amusement of Tirailleur Naouri, an Algerian Jew.197

  On the Champs de Mars, Perceval’s company still faced hostile fire from the École Militaire, whose defenders included Miliciens. The sandbags packed into window openings suggested that these Germans would put up a fight. The 12e Cuirassiers’ Shermans hosed the façade with machine-gun fire. Although Louis XV’s defeat in the Seven Years War prevented the École Militaire from becoming the great edifice Ange-Jacques Gabriel envisaged, it remains a fine building. Nevertheless its German occupants could not be ignored, so a platoon of 2e DB sappers, supported by Shermans, blew the main gate off its hinges and entered the courtyard. Some of Lieutenant Borrewater’s sappers climbed through first-storey windows to outflank German snipers, sending them fleeing down great staircases to where prisoners were being gathered up. Sometimes white flags appeared, but some ornate rooms were cleared using grenades, submachine-guns and, to avoid structural damage, knives. Two hundred German and Milice prisoners were taken at the École Militaire. The Tricolore was re-hung in the Hall of Honour. From his command tank beneath the Eiffel Tower, Colonel Noiret radioed, “We have taken all our objectives.”198

  DRESSED IN A US TANKER’S JACKET, topped off with a khaki képi onto which he had recently pinned his divisionnaire’s third star, General Leclerc entered Paris in a White Scout Car accompanied by Christian Girard. At the Place Denfert Rochereau, amid screaming crowds, they were joined by Jacques Chaban-Delma
s. Further along the Boulevard Montparnasse they halted outside the Brasserie Dumesnil199 where, over long lunches, de Gaulle discussed the mechanisation of the French Army with Colonel Émile Mayer during the 1930s. Using a recently updated map, Chaban explained the latest developements while photographers, including Magnum’s Robert Capa, created some of the day’s most memorable images.200

  The Gare Montparnasse now became Leclerc’s HQ. A powerful antenna placed on the roof connected to the radio van. Its waiting rooms, still bearing German names, were draped with Tricolores. But, as local politician François Corbel and station secretary Monsieur Thomas fetched tables and chairs from the deserted Wehrmacht canteen, a stray bullet whistled down the main platform.

  “Anyone harmed?” asked Leclerc.

  “No,” came the answer.

  “Bad shot!” said Leclerc.201

  A map table was arranged on the main esplanade.

  “Now let’s see where we are,” said André Gribius. “It’s ten o’clock. Rouvillois has reached Les Invalides and Noiret is securing the main quays.”

  “What about Billotte?” asked Repiton-Préneuf.202

  To Francois Courbel’s “wishes of welcome in the name of the SNCF”, Leclerc replied matter of factly, “I still have several points of resistance to quash, that around the Place de la Concorde being the most serious. It will take us some time, but tomorrow the war should be finished in Paris.”203

  Once contact was established with the Préfecture and the Hôtel de Ville, several officers begged permission to use the station switchboard for personal calls. Leclerc nodded urbanely. “You’re liberated. My family is in [the department of] the Somme and we’re not there yet,” he told Courbel.204

  Was it possible, Girard wondered, to dial a number kept in his heart so long? But four years of silence held him back. He asked the station’s operator to transfer a call to a kiosk in the main hall. But when he heard his mother’s voice, Girard’s emotions paralysed him. His mother, however, guessed.