A FLYER DROPPED BY
“I wish to invite your family—i would be honoured— to join me tomorrow afternoon for aperitifs. I met my first ‘Canadien’ about 60 years ago today. He just… dropped by!” _André Leboucher, Le Vey, France
Recounting the incredible risk a Normandy family took in rescuing and sheltering a downed Canadian pilot during WWII.
Icannot recall “honouring” anyone by accepting an invite; we were certain this one had not been extended due to our family’s singing at a fête the previous evening hosted by the person extending said invite. In fact, it is André Leboucher, patriarch of vacation homes (gîtes) on his Normandy farm, who “honoured” us, the only Canadians among his 20-plus British, American and French invited guests. All of us had booked “chez les Lebouchers” for the 60th anniversary of the D-day landings the previous day— 06/06/2004—commemorating the decisive invasion that breached Hitler’s Atlantic Wall 60 years prior. Observations were held along the 80-kilometre expanse of all five landing beaches: There were attendees by the thousands—veterans and families and masses of grateful French, most unborn on D-day. We came to honour our three uncles who landed on Juno Beach, assigned to the Canadian Army.
The next day, the Leboucher family hosted a fête of their own for their guests. After canapés and flutes of champagne— the French do have style!—guests were commanded to sing for their fare; in turn, the national anthems of France, the U.S., and U.K. were sung, leaving our tiny family coterie to render our version of O Canada. Double-duty ensued as we were then compelled to warble it “en français,” too. I suppose we had become conspicuous for our lusty, if atonal, joining in for every anthem sung, the only ones to do so. Regardless, our two renditions got the loudest applause. Then soon after came André’s invite to his study the following afternoon. There, pouring generous doses of Calvados (on empty stomachs!), he related his meeting with his first “Canadien.”
STRANGER IN THE NIGHT
He dropped by before or maybe just after midnight on June 6, 1944. Throughout April and May the noise of aircraft over the Channel kept increasing. Every Normand was anticipating an Allied invasion, as were the Germans; most assumed it would be at distant Calais, the narrowest part of the Channel opposite England.
The Leboucher family was abed but all heard a crash adjacent the farmhouse. André, then 21, and his father ventured out, carrying lanterns. From a corner of the barn roof a man amid parachute cords was bobbing up and down as if on a bungee cord. He was cut down and, in much pain, brought into the house. Knowing German patrols search immediately for downed flyers, they quickly cut the parachute into pieces and
burned them and his uniform in an outdoor fire pit, a sad way to treat precious cloth material in short supply.
Two days later, the flyer was examined by a nurse who bicycled circuits of local farms, visiting expectant mothers or those with infants, a routine granted by the Germans who had commandeered most local hospital beds. He had no broken bones but cuts and severe bruises on his back from hitting the roof. The remedy: rest. They gave him farmer’s clothing and hid his ID items. Word discreetly reached the French Resistance, but he could not be relocated right away. The D-day landings had just occurred, and the front was “fluid” due to determined Wehrmacht counterattacks trying to drive the Allies “back into the sea”, as its renowned General Rommel had promised the Fuhrer.
The Lebouchers’ unexpected guest was George Lamb*, age 20, of Squadron 297, a Canadian with the Royal Air Force whose Albemarle plane was downed after dropping supplies to the Resistance. André gathered this info, with diculty, as George spoke little French while the Lebouchers spoke no English.
The riskiest moment occurred a few days later, at an outdoor communal dining table, including two hired labourers and George disguised as one. A German ocer and batman in a Mercedes “happened by”, inviting themselves to lunch; they assumed farm fare was fresher than that at their base. They were scouting the countryside for enemy air crew members. At every downed Allied
plane with no nearby deceased, it was assumed the flyers had parachuted and were salvaged by locals. Excruciating tension, as André was not completely certain that the labourers would not inform on them.
The Germans peremptorily assumed space at the head of the table, spreading out a map; the rest squeezed to make room, fortuitous for George at the far end; his poor French would have been conspicuous. André and his father were asked briefly of sightings of downed planes, but weren’t pressed on the subject. Only André and his father were addressed. Otherwise both Germans ate while hunched over the map, more interested in the ragoût de porc, tarte de pommes and a tipple of Calvados. (André still remembers that menu du jour. Well, he is French!). After wiping their last crumbs, they abruptly rose, said a simple “au revoir et merci” and departed. Quelle chance! (Well, Napoleon said an army marched on its stomach.)
André never mentioned it, but were George’s identity exposed, his entire family could have been “executed” by the S.S. for treachery. They were the stu of quiet heroism displayed by many throughout the occupation, but given far less credit than the more daring members of the Resistance.
A week after George’s arrival, with him healing, he and two family members rode in a horse-drawn wagon with their spring harvest of asparagus, leeks, root vegetables and preserves (including Calvados) to a market in Thury-harcourt, ten kilometres distant. An “ocial” stamped pass from the nearest German HQ was required to travel. This process was smoothed over with a “discret échange”, a bottle of Calvados as accepted currency. At the market, George was met by a Resistance member, risky but safer on a busy market day. Long after the liberation of their village by the British Army, the family was informed of George’s deliverance behind Allied lines. Alas, an address exchange had been ruled out, too risky if George was caught. Both parties suspected they would never meet again (in spite of that Vera Lynn promise). After 1945, the family became preoccupied with restoring normalcy to their disrupted lives, and so the parting between George and the Lebouchers was not “Au revoir but rather “Adieu.” n