by Tania Szabô
They sat and talked all afternoon, made plans around London’s directives and then chatted informally for a short while until dinnertime. Lieutenant Phillipeau left, happy with the clearly explained requirements and having told Violette that they would do their best, but the viaduct would be difficult. No promises, but he would talk to his comrades, including Marcel, and try to implement a plan. He reiterated how important it was they receive more explosives from England as the Barentin viaduct would take most of their stock. Violette was hopeful but would have liked further reassurance. Still, she was sure the lieutenant would make the attempt.
When the two women were left alone, Madame Mayer asked Violette to stay with her as it would be safer, and she was desirous of company. Violette accepted immediately with her heartfelt thanks. Madame Mayer had prepared a light dinner, which Violette helped her carry to the dining room. Tomorrow, Madame Mayer would take Violette to a friend’s house, a few blocks away, where Violette could meet the group leaders of L’heure H and Vagabond Bien-Aimé.
As promised, the following morning they went to Madame Mayer’s friend. The visit was highly successful. Violette told them of her meeting with Lieutenant Phillipeau, who would offer any help to co-ordinate the attack on the Barentin viaduct and other sabotage projects as per London’s instructions. Both leaders were happy with the plan so far and London’s instructions. They then thanked Violette for coming over from London on such a dangerous mission. She thanked them for being willing to continue the work considering the dreadful and sad events leading to the deaths of so many of their friends. Having slept on cushions and mattresses dragged into the living room, the following morning, Sunday, after much laughter and boisterous hilarity over a long lazy breakfast, they got back down to business.
Later on, returning to Madame Mayer’s apartment, Violette handed a considerable amount of money for her to pass on to families in need. She slept well and was up early to meet Jean for the trip back to Rouen. It was now 17 April.
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72 The team consisted of Messrs Masset, Masson, Messon, Gohé and Le Fortier.
73 The Allies secured Algeria, and its capital Algiers, in November 1942. The AMF, the organisation under de Guélis, mostly Giraudists, was the duplicate of SOE’s F Section. Taken over by Brooks Richards in October 1943, it took on the mantle of the RF, de Gaulle’s French Section within SOE, gradually fusing distinctions, becoming out-and-out Gaullist in tandem with SOE. From here, instructions were sent to Résistance groups, with an eye to D-Day and beyond. Being so much closer to the south of France than England, Algeria had many agents going to and coming from that region.
74 OSS – the American counterpart to SOE. After the war it would evolve into the CIA.
75 It was in Amiens that Léon Gonier, a Freemason, became one of the founders of the Résistance group Libé-Nord (nickname of the Libération-Nord group) in 1941. When Philippe started his Hamlet sub-circuit, Raymond Guénot liaised with Libé-Nord through his l’Heure H group (specialising in producing false papers) and with Hamlet and thus, through Philippe, with London. In November 1943, aged twenty-nine, Guénot was shot in Rouen, crying out, ‘Vive la France!’
76 Then there were Maurice Vast and Leon Tellier, socialist mayor and deputy mayor, who exercised great influence on the entire Libé-Nord group that proved very active and highly successful. This group, stretching into Rouen territory, acted or passed on a series of relayed instructions from agents like Violette from Algiers or London. These were delivered during March, April, May and June to co-ordinate efforts in the lead up to D-Day, directed and implemented hundreds of sabotage activities, including the capture of weapons in Montivilliers and freeing detained political prisoners on 14 June 1944. It was on 6 April, a few days before Violette arrived in Rouen, that the weapons were transported from Cléon to Saint-Pierre-des-Fleurs and on the 9th, from Poix to Aumale, by Renée Lefebvre, a woman.
16
Back to Rouen
Monday 17 April to Thursday 20 April 1944
‘Rise up!
No truce, no rest, no sleep;
Despotism is attacking liberty.’
Victor Hugo (while living on the island of Jersey), author’s trans.
Violette saw that resurrecting the Salesman circuit would be best forgotten. Its members had been shattered and scattered too far to come together again as a forceful unit. That Salesman in the Seine-Inférieure had had its day would be Violette’s observation/report when she returned to London. Its very success had ensured its destruction. The circuit had caused so much damage and dislocation to the Germans that they needed to eliminate it. Nevertheless, it seemed that there were hundreds of men and women still active in Résistance operations and begging for weaponry and other supplies for the impending Allied invasion. Violette also discovered that, as SOE was now working in tandem with de Gaulle out of Algeria as well as London, the French were very much happier to accept their recommendations.
Another factor that helped create a more optimistic climate was the weather. Spring was here at last and parachute drops were being made again. She had transmitted to London details of areas ideal for the job. Supplies dropped from the skies never failed to bring a smile to the lips of the reception committees and Résistants.
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With her bike thrown on the back of the farmer’s truck, she was satisfied with all she had learned and passed on in Le Havre. Jean had also given her good intelligence from his criss-crossing of Normandy and supplying the Germans.
After being dropped off, Violette cycled back to her hotel, where she was pleased to see Lucien and Marcel talking with Madame Thivier. The men had plans for Violette to meet with several people. During their discussions, she discovered that the Rouen Combat circuit had been destroyed after Claude Malraux (known as Serge in the Combat circuit and Cicero in the Salesman circuit) had been arrested at five o’clock on 8 March from information received from Dieppe by the Feldgendarmerie, and by four the next morning Dr Delbos and his wife, for whom Philippe had arranged the drops of medical supplies, but had difficulty working with, were arrested and interrogated. This led to the remaining members of the group being arrested, shot or deported, including the Sueur’s, Louis Corroie and Felix Pionteck, a Pole and Broni’s brother, Schlaich, from Alsace, and all their friends, along with Isidore Newman (Pierre), the SOE wireless operator living with Denise.
Three of the people she had met in her travels, Violette distrusted on sight and would have nothing more to do with them. Two more distrusted her and would not work with her. But there were several others, as well as Marcel, Lucien, Lise and Denise, who, during the rest of April and May, were instrumental in liaising with other groups to perform operations at her behest, which ensured the success of her mission.
She handed a small but ample sum to a family devastated by the recent raids. The father had been tortured before being shot, leaving his wife and three children quite penniless, their home gutted by the Gestapo as a warning to others. Marcel had introduced Violette to them during the afternoon, and the mother told them that the only place they could seek refuge was in Brittany, where her family lived. They needed enough to cover fares, food and accommodation for about two weeks.
Violette handed over the cash to the family and wished them all the very best of luck. The mother grasped her hands and kissed them in gratitude, tears running down her cheeks. She told Violette that her husband had died silent and honourably for France. She repeated that they must not stop, they must fight on, otherwise her husband’s death would be in vain. Violette told her that her own husband had been killed by the enemy, so the woman felt reassured by their common ground and of Violette’s avowal that they would, indeed, win this war and regain their freedom.
The next morning she noticed she was still losing weight, but not too much, and her eyes showed the tension she was under. Madame Thivier was there on Violette’s return each day. Knowing what la petite was up to and to counteract the strain she was und
er, she ensured she had hot water, warm towels and plenty of hot chocolate and tasty black market snacks. The situation felt surreal to Violette: she, an SOE agent bent on sabotaging the enemy’s efforts; the German armed services swarming the town, weapons at the ready; Madame Thivier clucking around her, cosseting her in the little hotel. What contrasts. Violette made her coded notes again and retired early that night.
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It was Tuesday 18 April and Violette still had much to do. She told Lucien, whom she met near a small café, that she was riding out as decided previously, to meet up with Denise and Lise at Marianne’s home in the northwest corner of Rouen. She got there at about half past six and Lise introduced her to Marianne, a long-term external leader of the Diables Noirs. Her real name was Suzanne Dupuis.
Marianne had prepared them a light simple supper, finished off with Violette’s contribution of another packet of coffee beans. Marianne had been asked by the Boulanger women to cast an eye over this girl from London, about whom word was slowly spreading. Marianne found herself beguiled by Violette, and saw the depth of her commitment and her understanding of the situation in Rouen.
The group were in excellent spirits and once the business of checking through the activities that Violette would be involved in over the next few days was completed, laughter rang out. On 18 March, all radios had been ordered to be taken to the Kommandatur at the Hôtel de Ville, but Marianne proudly brought out a hidden radio to place it on a sideboard. They half-listened to the BBC while chatting late into the evening until it was too late return home – well after curfew. Marianne offered them the spare bedroom and divan in the living room and all gratefully accepted.
At thirteen minutes past midnight, while they slept, a squadron of Allied bombers roared low overhead, dropping flares attached to parachutes. As they spiralled down through the night sky the town was illuminated in dazzling white light. This alerted the people who had not fled as they had been warned to do the week before to take immediate shelter.
So Wednesday 19 April 1944 started as a day of terror and courage for the Rouennais. Sirens screamed and people scrambled. Allied bombers swept over like rolling thunder, dropping hundreds of tons of every imaginable kind of bomb over specific targets on the outskirts to the east and west of town, then onto military targets on the right and left banks.
Violette and the three women ran out into the garden of Marianne’s house to watch in horror. Fifty minutes of terror, noise, screams, huge explosions, fires and falling buildings. People were crushed, buried alive in shelters whose exits were blocked by falling debris. Fires raged that would continue to burn on for another ten days while firemen were called in from the suburbs as well as from further away: Elbeuf, Dieppe, Louviers and Evreux. Paris was under similar attack.
As the suburbs and the town itself contained German command centres, fuel depots, Gestapo headquarters, the German army and naval headquarters, sites for stocking the new rockets and wharfs holding German matériel, they were all targeted: Rouen, Sotteville, Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, Petit-Quevilly and Grand-Quevilly,77 as well as Bois-Guillaume, Amfreville-la-Mivoie, Blosseville-Bonsecours and Belbeuf. There was no way the civilian population could be avoided. Many died or were horrendously injured during that dreadful night.
Leaving Marianne at home to comfort her children, Violette, Denise and Lise rushed to the centre of town to gauge the extent of the damage. Denise on her bike and Violette with Lise on the back of hers pedalled furiously until they could get no further. Rubble and fallen buildings covered the streets of the centre, and they struggled to push their bikes through the debris and around burning fires, hearing the screams of those trapped and dying or badly wounded, pushing past people fleeing and wardens frantically trying to save lives and fire engines rushing to spray river water over the burning ruins.
The Germans had taken shelter and none except the dead remained on the streets. Several soldiers were killed by shrapnel and bomb blast. There was not a lot the three women could do. Denise’s apartment house had been destroyed; she was now homeless. They found that the Micheline boutique managed by the Sueurs and Lise Valois had been all but wrecked, as was the other chic boutique that Denise worked for, the Monique-Couture. They struggled to Violette’s hotel and found it still standing. Madame Thivier was cheering on the bombers from an upstairs window – not caring whether or not her hotel was destroyed and she along with it.
On their headlong rush into the town, straight into the pandemonium of destruction, they had seen crowds of people desperately trying to find family members and neighbours or fleeing in fear from collapsing buildings and raging fires. After a quick greeting to Madame Thivier, they decided to go back out to see what they could do. Violette also wanted to make a cursory inventory to report to London.
The three women left the bikes in the hotel yard, now full of rubble, clambering awkwardly through piles of bricks and mortar, upturned jagged paving stones and cobbles blown into sharp fragments, on through the scorching wind. Seeing two very young children sitting on the pavement crying, they stopped to help them find their mother, who was bruised and in pain, half-buried under her porch where she had been standing watching the flares falling from the sky. After extricating her and checking she was not seriously injured, they reunited her with her children, her bruised face smiling in relief and thanks. One hundred and eighty-five targets had been bombed, most on the left bank, but fifteen at Bois-Guillaume in the north-west of the town. In the main town on the right bank, sixty streets and squares were hit, with a similar toll on the left bank. Even the beautiful cathedral was hit. Le Bristol, where Violette had had coffee with Lise, was hit. An outside wall was gone. In all, 600 buildings were badly damaged and 512 were razed to the ground. Corpses and body parts were everywhere. The smell of blood and scorched flesh was overpowering. At least 900 people died, but a final figure was never possible to establish. It was as bad as anything Violette and her family had survived in London. There were 500 wounded, 370 of them were hospitalised.
The Palais de Justice was badly damaged. Violette was not overly saddened by that, as it was the Milice headquarters. But she hoped they would one day be able to restore its Gothic beauty, and the cathedral and half-timbered houses. And so it was. After the war ended, an immediate start was made to rebuild and repair old Rouen and the left bank. Le Havre had been hit just as hard; the centre destroyed beyond repair. On liberation, architects and builders began to design and construct new, modern centres.
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With their hair and even eyebrows scorched from the hot winds surging from the fires, the three women wearily returned to the hotel and ran inside, calling for Madame Thivier to come down. She appeared before them, a spectre from the night, making them all laugh. Dust covered her from head to foot. They were all filthy, scratched and covered in bruises. Looking at one another, they burst into laughter; even Denise managed a wan smile. Lise and Violette made hot chocolate for them all.
Denise was shaking and in shock but gradually regained her composure. Madame Thivier offered her a room in the hotel for as long as she wanted; Denise said she had relatives she could go to as her home had been flattened in her shop, but in the meantime would help Lise and Monique sort out the debris of their stores. Lise was very grateful and they agreed to first go round to Denise’s the next morning and retrieve anything recoverable – especially anything salvageable that would help her continue to work, plus objects of sentimental value. Then they would look for Monique and go to both shops to see what could be recovered and repaired. No doubt some of their girls would return too; they would be sent home unless they wished to stay and help in the clear-up. They would be paid what Lise – and later, when they found her, Monique – hoped would be their full wages. It later turned out that Monique was safe in her home and Lise’s home was untouched. Both were on the outskirts of the town.
It was agreed that Violette’s planned trip to Ry and further north should definitely take place in the morning. She had much t
o do and time was passing. She could not linger in Rouen to help her friends.
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The next morning, Thursday 20 April, the four women were at breakfast, discussing the terrible bombardment when Lucien and Marcel walked in.
‘Bonjour, tout le monde,’ they greeted everyone as they shook the dust off their torn clothes, eyes red and weary but animated. ‘What a terrible night and a terrible day. Allies, you know. Bloody awful, but they have to do it. What a mess, so many dead, so many injured, so much destruction. Thank God, many people heeded the warnings and had already left. I’ve spent all night out there. I don’t know – war is such shit, merde, merde, merde – excuse me, ladies.’
‘Ah, mon pauvre Lucien, mon pauvre Marcel entrez, entrez donc!’ cried Madame Thivier. ‘You look all in. Let me take your jackets, come, and sit over here. I’ll get fresh coffee on the go.’
‘Thank you, madame,’ came their exhausted reply.
Marcel took Violette to one side. ‘Corinne, the Bois-Guillaume has been hit, but I don’t think the neighbouring Château in Mont-Saint-Aignan has been. That’s in the north of town where the German naval headquarters are. While you’re here, you might wish to have a quick look at the area. The same applies to Canteleu-Dieppedalle in the south-east on this side of the river. It seems pretty well intact. That’s where some sort of secret storage or construction is going on. Probably for those new damnable weapons.’
‘Yes, I definitely will have a look-see before leaving for Paris. But, more importantly right now, how are you?’ queried Violette with a worried frown. She wondered about his family, about his friends. She was also anxious about Denise. ‘You know, Marcel, I think poor Denise is in a very bad way. This war has been very cruel to her. Her husband dead, her lover deported, she was interrogated, and now her home destroyed. Her children are far away. She not robust and needs help. I can certainly give her some money, which I shall do before I leave for Ry shortly. But she needs more; she needs company and help.’