Hi "guripas!
We're still at the La Percée Du Bocage Museum.
After learning about Operation Bluecoat ,
today we're meeting the person who created this Museum:
Jean Ménard.
To understand what made this citizen of Saint-Martin start this project,
we have to go back to the time of the war.
An experience that has been engraved in his memory.
I know about the occupation.
My mother was a teacher at the school.
The Germans occupied the school and part of our house.
We lived entirely in the occupation.
It's noises, it's smells, and everything that accompanies an army.
Besides, my father had been a prisoner since 1940.
He spent five years in Germany.
Of course, there were worst situations,
but it was certainly not a pleasant one.
Let's not forget about the restrictions.
In short, we lived the occupation.
And then came the time of the liberation.
I was young, I was 13 years old.
Adults would always talk about the liberation.
Of the day that they'd arrive and free us.
Everyone looked forward to the landing,
but were also worried that it'd happen here.
Until one night, when we heard a noise like a storm.
People were nervous.
It wasn't normal. Something weird was happening.
And it was. It was the landing.
I have this memory of the moment,
there was bad weather on June 6th. It was very cloudy.
The planes were flying low,
and there were so many, that the air vibrated
due to the planes' passing by.
Before that, they dropped lots of leaflets
so that we'd leave town because of the combats,
especially near the roads.
It was clear that it was something serious.
Many began to leave.
I left with my mom and little brothers to Brémoy,
to my grandfather's house.
We moved places about four times.
We were liberated in Mesnil-Auzouf,
by the 43rd Infantry Division.
After the liberation, while the combats were still going on in Pinçon
we asked the Englishmen that freed us,
who were occupying my uncle's farm,
if we could go back home,
there was still a chance of a German counterattack.
After four days, they told us we could go back.
They provided us with a truck
to bring along our few belongings and took us home.
Do you remember the first soldier that you saw?
We were so close to being liberated,
that the contact was fabulous.
It was an artillery battalion.
They set up the guns around the farm.
They gave us lots of things that we hadn't had for a while,
like food and other things.
It was pure happiness. It was a party.
After the mortars and the bombs,
it was wonderful.
Then we discovered an great amount of material.
We still had the horse-drawn carts for the fields.
It was amazing.
It was a huge relief.
But the war continued.
The war continued, but not for us.
Of course it was.
My father was still a prisoner in Germany.
But for us, it was over.
We could go back to all of our rubble,
and start again.
Although the Allied victory freed Normandy from German occupation,
the price paid by civilians was very high.
Figures talk about almost 20 000 dead civilians,
in addition to,
this is still a rural area,
over 100 000 dead animals.
Contrary to belief,
most of these casualties weren't caused by the German repression,
or the crossfire during combat,
but to Allied air raids.
With almost full control of the air,
the Allies tried to damage all communication paths,
to avoid German counterattacks.
But many of these roads and railways
went through towns.
At the time, there was no awareness of collateral damage
and civilian casualties were just assumed as inevitable.
It also didn't help, that the raids weren't very precise.
and it was necessary to drop a great number of bombs,
to secure the targets.
As a consequence,
many towns were destroyed by friendly fire.
Among them, Saint-Lô stands out,
practically reduced to rubble.
It'd go down in history as "The Capital of the Ruins".
When we went back, everything was destroyed.
That wasn't the hardest part.
What surprised us the most
were all the graves.
In the town and its surroundings, there were 30;
German and British.
The young ones decided to take care of the graves.
The British graves.
I took care of two on the road to Caumont.
I'd ask myself, seeing these 22 year olds,
that in England, far away,
I say it like this, because at the time England
was the end of the world. Today's communications didn't exist.
These kids had come from far way to die here, for our freedom.
Their families awaiting from them in England.
They had lost one of theirs for us.
It made me emotional.
Since then, I thought that one day
I'd find these guys' comrades
to know what happened.
I wanted to know who had fought here.
Who had liberated us.
A brief anecdote:
One day, I spoke on the radio in Vire,
like we're doing now,
I was telling them about how I took care of the British graves.
And somebody asked me:
"And what about the German graves?"
You've got to understand the context at the time.
Because days earlier, we would've killed any German;
to be liberated sooner.
We had no intention of taking care of the German graves.
None!
There were those that desecrated the graves. That's not right.
They were also dug out to take their boots.
That's even sadder.
In that context, we took care of the English graves.
We'd put flowers on them.
We didn't take care of the German ones.
Then I studied.
After the liberation, there was lots of work due to the destruction.
I got married and fixed a house.
On day, on the late 70's,
I think it was 1977,
I saw in the press that in Vassy, 12.5 mi from here,
there was a British veterans reunion
of the 11th Armoured Division.
That's where I met the first veterans.
I took an old registry with me, I still have it,
where I wrote down the names on all the graves.
I went to Vassy with the veterans.
I could tell you so many anecdotes.
For sure!
We could spend all day.
So I was in Vassy and cars were arriving.
I felt very intimidated.
I spoke in broken English.
I asked him in broken English and in French
if he was a soldier.
We spoke a few words in English.
And then he asked me if I was French. I said yes.
"Me too, let's speak in French."
I didn't understand a thing.
He introduced himself briefly, just before the ceremony started.
"I'm Michel Morel."
"At 17, I joined the resistance."
"I joined the British when they got here."
"I fought throughout the war and they named me standard-bearer."
So my first veteran was a French soldier.
Imagine how happy I was when I came home.
I told my wife that I had the driving force
to do something.
I later met a British veteran
that spoke French quite well.
I told him that I was looking for those who fought here.
I showed him the list of the fallen, in case he knew them.
Luckily, I met a member of the brigade
that suffered so many casualties at the crossroads.
He told me to go to the ceremony the next day,
at the Vère Bridge,
where the monument of the 11th Division is, near Flers.
He was going to introduce me to General Roberts.
And to Noel Bell, the officer of those who died here.
And David Stileman, who was seriously wounded.
Stileman, whom we can see on the image.
When I showed him the paper with my registry,
asking if he knew any of these men,
that died here,
he said yes, that they were the guys in his platoon
when he was wounded.
He took my registry.
He pressed it against himself.
I still get moved.
And he said: "It's very emotional."
I think he was the donor.
He said we had to do something for them.
And that he did!
Now Jean had the support of the veterans
of the British 11th Armoured Division.
The unit that liberated his hometown on July 31, 1944.
Among them, Jean befriended Second Lieutenant David Stileman
and his superior, Major Noel Bell,
commander of the G Company
of the 8th Rifle Battalion, of the 29th Armored Brigade.
Jean had played with the idea for many years
and now it was time to take some action.
So in 1981, he organized a reunion of 11th Division veterans
in Saint-Martin.
The first of many.
To organize this reunion,
I prepared a small exhibition in a classroom.
With a frieze similar to the one we have in the museum.
My wife drew it.
And in the middle, a small diorama.
Very simple.
It showed how the combat was in the town.
My two kids made the models.
My kids also built the ones in the museum.
At first I was happy, when I went to Caen
they'd order models.
After a few months, nobody wanted models anymore!
We had enough.
There are about 60 models.
Did you think you'd end up building a museum?
Not at all.
I organized that small exhibition
to thank and honor the British.
There were photos that they didn't know about.
Photos of them.
Later on, in 1993
the historical area was created,
in all of the Lower Normandy area.
Museums became part of the historical area.
I thought ours wouldn't be included.
But on the contrary, they saw that ours was the only museum
focused on soldiers' history.
They thought it was very educational.
So we were included in the historical area.
It was then that the Regional Council, which was very dynamic,
talked to us about taking advantage of the available grants
because of the 50th anniversary.
So the museum was built, and we reinstalled the exhibition
in its interior.
Not everything was done at once.
A big part was done in 1994,
but other spaces were built later.
Little by little, we managed to build everything.
Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure to listen to you.
Thank you. For me it's a pleasure to be
with anyone that keeps the memories alive.
The duty of memory.
To be aware of all of what we owe them.
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