D-Day. The Battle for Normandy

immediately and a notice stating ‘Pillager’ placed on the corpse.
    Colette’s husband, Maurice Goudeket, described those ‘strange, indecisive days’: ‘The Germans held Paris only by little islands, and with a few tanks which made their way clumsily through the streets. Paris babbled the first words of a forgotten liberty, newspapers no larger than a leaflet began to appear, flags were made out of scraps of cloth. While waiting for an imminent settling of accounts, the Parisian rediscovered in his deepest memory the solidarity of the barricades, a heroic banter, a smell of gunpowder and sweat.’
    Despite the rumours, both Communist and Gaullist leaders were now certain that the report of 150 Tiger tanks being sent to Paris was false. So the danger that the rising in Paris would be crushed like the Polish Home Army in Warsaw greatly diminished. The Gaullists were also prepared to join the fight, now that they had secured the ministries. One of the first and most satisfying tasks was to remove the official portraits and busts of Marshal Pétain. Alexandre Parodi, de Gaulle’s representative, even held a symbolic council of ministers at the Hôtel Matignon, the official residence of the prime minister. For the Gaullist leaders in Paris, the arrival of the 2ème DB was vital to give substance to their skeleton administration.
    The Communists, misled by their own propaganda, believed that power lay in street barricades and in the committees of the Resistance. Carried away by revolutionary exultation, they could not imagine that the last thing that Stalin wanted was a Communist uprising in France which would antagonize his American suppliers of Lend-Lease.
     
    At dawn on 24 August, the 2ème DB moved out from the forest of Rambouillet. Leclerc sent a detachment of Spahis Marocains in their light Stuart tanks towards Versailles as a diversion to persuade the Germans that this was their main line of advance. The rest of Colonel Paul de Langlade’s groupement tactique , accompanied by a squadron of the American 102nd Cavalry, was to advance across the Chevreuse valley, but they soon faced heavy opposition in the Bois de Meudon.The 12ème Chasseurs d’Afrique lost three Shermans to anti-tank guns. Their ultimate objective was the Pont de Sèvres, on the western edge of Paris.
    The day was grey and wet, to such a degree that it interfered with radio communications. Colonel Billotte’s column headed for Arpajon and Longjumeau, while Colonel Dio’s groupement tactique was kept in reserve. Billotte’s force was headed by Commandant Putz’s battalion of the 2ème Régiment de Marche du Tchad. Putz had been one of the most respected commanders in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. His 9ème Compagnie was known as ‘La Nueve’ because it was manned almost entirely by Spanish Republicans. Their commander, Capitaine Raymond Dronne, a red-headed stalwart with a powerful paunch, had been chosen because he could keep his Spanish socialists, Communists and anarchists in order.
    Putz’s first major skirmish was in Longjumeau. Ten of his wounded were taken to the civilian hospital in the town and the bodies of eight men killed in the battle were placed in its morgue. One of the divisional chaplains, the Reverend Père Roger Fouquer, came across a terrible scene in a house partly demolished by a shell. He found two nuns kneeling by a young mother who, having just given birth, had been killed by a shell splinter through the chest. Her baby lay silently beside her dead body. Then the church bells rang out to celebrate liberation.
    In many places it was a day of joy and horror. ‘Slam’ Marshall and his companion John Westover in their Jeep ‘Sweet Eloise’ joined one of Langlade’s columns as it made its way through villages and towns on the south-western edges of the city. They attached an American flag to distinguish themselves from the tricolores all around. Advancing slowly, bumper to bumper, Westover described the scene as ‘a big disordered picnic’. Vehicles were brought to a halt by rejoicing crowds, forcing kisses and bottles on the soldiers, who begged to be let through unhindered. ‘We laughed so much at the insanity of the whole thing that we cried,’ he wrote.
    There were tragedies too that day. ‘On one occasion a beautiful young woman approached a Sherman of the 501ème Régiment de Chars de Combat, raising her arms, certain of being pulled aboard, when a German machine gun