A WWII downed pilot in Normandy story and a reseach of info

[Iclo]

Thanks for all your answers, information and advices in this research.
They are very appreciated.

I discussed today with my grand mother and have a few more information (but will have more in the following days after having contact with more people involved in the story)

- The February timing looks to be forgotten: it's look that the weather was not cold at this time, most probably in spring or summer.
- You are true about the difficulties about to stay during hours in a cold river. The pilot was ill in the following days. Countrary from what I known yesterday, the pilot didn't left to Paris the following day, but was hidden in a small house in the suburb of Gournay-en-Bray. Unfortunatly the doctor and the owner of the house, who take care of him in secret looks to be dead for a long times. As they spent at least one week with the pilot, they probably had the most details about him.
- The story occured before the month of June 1944: the uncle who hidden the pilot (his name was Pierre Lefaucheux) was arrested by the Germans in Paris, in the beginning of this month, sent in deportation to Germany and only escaped in september, after the area wqx freed.

For the people who have access to information, a few specific details, who could perhaps help:
- The name of the city was, during the war, "Gournay", the end of the name was added after the war. (Gunny: inf fact "en bray" is a reference to "county" where the city is, and not about the name of the river. But you are true that in Europe, different cities have a reference to a river)
- The name of the place where the story occured (the very small town of a few house around the farm, in french we call that a "hameau", I don't found a corret translation) is Mothois, the spelling from google map is incorrect.
- Other close smallest towns ("hameaux") in the area are "Saint Quentin-des-prés", "Hyancourt" and "Laudencourt"

Best Regards

Loïc

[Pathfinder]

Iclo--

Good follow up. I already checked the MACRs for "Saint Quentin-des-prés", "Hyancourt" and "Laudencourt" as well as any phonetic changes that an American might make and none of these came up---only Gournay.

Can you ask your subjects to relate the pilot story to some timed event in their daily lives? Like the harvest, or the death of some relative or someones wedding or putting a new roof on the house or something like that?

Dave

[Iclo]

Iclo--
Can you ask your subjects to relate the pilot story to some timed event in their daily lives?

Yes, it's in process: but I wait to have all the major information possible, to combine them and provide you a as limited time frame possible.

I suppose that the location of the loss, related in the MACR is very often not very precise: depending the source of the data: reported by a wingman during a aerial combat (not precise at all ?), reported by the pilot himself if he escaped and return (a bit more precise) or checked by ground troops after the freedom of the area.
I supposed (but i could be wrong) that the MACR could be updated after the initial input, when more detailed information become available ?
Also depending the condition (altitude of the bailout, wind that day), the location of the wreck and the point the pilot land could be far different.

Regards

[Pathfinder]

You are correct. They "location" of an observed crash or bail out is very subjective. Even in this very short MACR we have a place name...but also a point of reference is mentioned as being some hundred odd miles from base. We might yet find a MACR with a reference saying 180 miles west of Paris or something like that. Not very precise.

Areas expand when you consider that this flight--as an example--was at 20,000 feet and this pilot fell several thousand before opening his chute. He could have drifted many miles before landing.

Since we know that it is unlikely to find another reference to Gournay, we must make an extraordinary effort to pinpoint the time frame.

You must make sure that you do not 'suggest' a date or a time. Doing that might just be something that your subject would agree to. You must ask a question that they give an independent answer to...and do not tell them what someone else said is the right answer. You must take all evidence independently for it to be of value.

Looking forward to your additional information!

[gunnyperdue]

Frankly I very much doubt that the MACR will list the town Gournay... an incredible coincidence Dave found one.... these guys were above 20k' and in my days in the seat I never paid close attention to what I was over if it wasn't a navigation point or on a pre-planned course.... vicinity of has a big span 3 miles high... the approximate date is important... from that we can narrow down the MACRs to northwestern France and further to the area. The approximate date is the most important piece of the puzzle right now.

gunny

[Pathfinder]

It appears that the next most popular reference point for this area in the MACRs is Beauvais.

[Pathfinder]

- The name of the city was, during the war, "Gournay", the end of the name was added after the war.

Actually, the full name Gournay-en-Bray does appear in wartime MACRs.

I have looked at several MACRs referencing this area between mid-43 and mid-44. What comes through is that this was a major route for targets further inland. Beauvais was a target by itself. So was Gournay. The point being that there was a lot of activity in the air over this area.

So this means that while the witness observed the single airman landing in the valley near her farm, there were all kinds of airmen raining out of the sky in this area. One parachutist does not necessarily mean only a one-seat or one-engine aircraft.

There is an intriguing MARC from late NOV 43 (I know it was cold) describing the loss of a P-47 from which the pilot (Herrick) parachuted and evaded---and in the MACR his wingman (Wesson) describes dodging a flaming "fortress" with nine parachutes all around while FW-190s circle in a lufberry...all of this "in the area of Beauvais." The B-17 appear to be "Furlough Myrtle" from the 100th BG. Four of that crew evaded, five were captured. I am not convinced that the map included in the archived MACR is for this loss.

Considering the amount of air activity over this area in 43 and 44, it is critical to develop a qualified time frame.

Dave

BTW--It is 11C/52F in Gournay-en-Bray today...

[Iclo]

Hello,

I don't forget this subject but some issues occured to gather the needed information (yes, there is people who live without using internet )
I hope to have more in the two coming weeks

Pathfinder: From the information I have as now, it looks to be sure that the pilot was flying a single seater.

Regards

Loïc

[Howdie]

Loic,

I am not sure if you are still pursuing this. My uncle, a Captain in the Royal Engineers Battle support unit for road mending, was billeted in Gournay during September 1944 and was a visitor to the Dr and his Parisienne wife. (He sadly had forgotten their names) I have been reading his war memoire and he had a warm memory of a game of Bridge with the doctor and his wife. He wrote:

For nearly four months we lived in the French town of Gournay-en-Bray in splendid isolation, or almost. For most of that time there were no other British Army units nearer than Beauvais, Amiens, Dieppe or Rouen. It was a wonderful change from the congestion of the beach head where every field was the bivouac 'home' of some army unit or other. Looking back I realise that ours was an important task but it did not seem very glamourous and it lacked the excitement of life with Second Army.

There was in the town a friendly young doctor. Dick Pickles and I were invited one evening to take dinner with him and his wife and to play bridge*. She was an attractive Parisienne and told us that she missed Paris but was grateful that she had been able to have her two babies in Gournay which had been better than having them in war-time Paris. We had barely begun dinner than the telephone rang and our host was called away to a patient. On his return he reported that his patient had died. It had been a warm, sunny autumn afternoon and this man, a farmer, had been distilling the local spirit, Calvados. He had been tasting the raw spirit (perhaps rather freely) as it came from the still and his death that same evening was a direct consequence. He left behind a widow and a young family, I believe.

Mme. Logan was the local teacher of English, but had had little opportunity of speaking English for a long time and she happily sought some of us out in order to do so. A widowed lady, I think, she had an adopted daughter, the district nurse. I should have known better but was confused by the brass plate outside the house, I must have caused quiet smiles by my schoolboy howler. The plate read :- 'Y.Logan etc sage femme de premiere class ---' This did not, as I supposed, refer to the wise teacher but to her daughter, the midwife.

They lived on a narrow street leading to the factory which we, and the Germans just previously, occupied. German soldiers must have passed their house many times each day yet they had sheltered two British airmen in that house for a while. In fact, the airmen had been in the house when Germans had called enquiring of some other matter. It cannot have been easy in a small house but they had successfully dealt with this desperate danger. In the exigencies of war one may easily be fooled by apparently harmless reputations. The Germans may have thought two such ladies incapable of harbouring the fugitives. We were introduced to a number of people of whom it was said that he was in 'La Resistance' and to the local chief of 'La Resistance', who was the proprietor of the town's cosmetic and perfume shop. That again may seem an unlikely occupation for a man of desperate action. These introductions to Resistance members were made so naturally that one wondered how long the knowledge had been current and whether the speaker had learned of it since La Liberation or had been party to it during the occupation; I don't remember being told of this.

Footnote:-
* That game of bridge was played in a mixture of French and English, thus "No bid" and "je passe" were equally accepted. At one point our hostess became confused and said "Je pisse". This passed unnoticed by the English until her husband brought it to our attention. He enjoyed the joke and did not want us to miss it.

So it would seem that the local Resistance were active in hiding a number of airmen including the america.

Hope this is of some interest,

Regards, Howard

[Iclo]

Hello Howard,

Very intersting story, thanks for sharing it : I don't know very well the war stories in Gournay, as my familly lived a few kilometers away from the city itself and movement during the war were very limited and the majority of stories I heard were about the live in the farm itself.

I don't know at all the story of the Resistance in the area : some members of my familly were involved with The Resistance but in Paris: they came for week-end but have no contact with local resistance : it was a strict rule to protect the various networks in case of some resistants were arrested and tortured.
(Someday I will write a few short stories of them in the Resistance in "Off Topics forum " is someone is interested by that.)

Its also interesting to discover an other Engineer unit was stationned in Gournay in the secont part of 44, at the same time, a US Engineer unit of about hundred men was also stationned but in the familly farm a few kilometer away from Gournay.

About the downed pilot, I never totally give up, but as I only went there one or two time a year during a week-end, making research is bit difficult.
As now, the peoples involved who were adults at this time are not longer with us. It's now difficult to collect the information who will allow to define a timeframe.
My Grand mother was a teenager at this time, her sister and brothers were younger and they don't have very precise information.
Unfortunatly, I think I'm a few years too late for this search: the "mother of my grand mother" died a bit more than ten years ago : It was probaly with her that I would have had the best and most reliable information.

Best Regards

Loic

[Howdie]

Loic,

I note that the Madame Logan, English language teacher in Gournay - mentioned by my uncle as hiding allied airmen during WW2 wrote to a Michigan paper in 1947. http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/20831605/

Regards,

Howdie

[Iclo]

Just a few pictures of the place where the events occured.

The upper part of the field, it's now an orchard but during the war it was a pasture. It's in this area the downed pilot landed.
Firstly, he started climbing the small hill, but the Germans were coming from this direction.


Catched by the uncle of my grand-mother, they token the opposite direction, crossing the road and moving to the river, as the germans were approaching.

In this second pictures, the river is visible in the middle of the pictures in the lowest part of the valley, where there is a line of trees.

A close picture of the river and the supposed area where the pilots was hidden just below a downed tree. Of course, the tree is done since a long time and the erosion heavily modified the bank of the river


The river is not very deep (this picture was taken in last november so not during a low level period), explaning why the downed tree was required to hide the unfortunate pilot.

Regards

Loïc

[Pathfinder]

Excellent photo accompaniment to the narrative.

Your English is fine....you write it better than most American students!

[Iclo]

A small information about the period of year the event occured: the uncle of my grand mother was wearing a shirt: the familly remembered that just after hidding the pilot in the river, he came back to house to change of shirt as he was afraid a german plane who was circling the area could have seen him wearing a red shirt and could have transmit the information to the ground troops. This information allows to excluded the winter timeframe, and probably defines an April to end of september slot.

And an "out of topics picture": a few weeks after the D-Day, an Engineer troops stationned in the farm during a few weeks, I don't know if they left equipement when they left or if these come from an other source, but today, you always could seen this kind of stuffs in the farm :

[Iclo]

As said in my previous post, an enginneer section (around 100 or 150 peoples if information I have are correct) was stationned in the farm a few weeks after D-Day : they just came from England and were not already engaged in combat at this time.

They spent a few weeks in the farm, and left "big" memories in the familly after years of occupation by the Germans.
I don't have complete information about them but more some funny short stories or facts not linked between them (so sorry for the lack of structure):
The commanding officer was a young captain in the beginning of his 20's
The unit had a cook who was a Canadian speaking Frend with a very funny accent: he was used as an interpret and started all his sentences by (in french) "The Captain said... " with a very funny tone. Today, my Granny still laught when she remember that.
The officers spent very often time dancing in the salon of the farm.
After years of deprivation, these soldiers had food not seen in France since the beginning of the war. The mother of my grand mother had a special cake recipe using orange's peels. So she retrieved some from the remains of food of the Americans. Naturally, when the officers discovered that, they offered som "whole" oranges. It could be seen as small anecdotes but for peoples who suffered of the german's occupation during years, they are very important memories.
When they left, the five officers signed a "one dollar" banknote and gifted it to the familly. Today I kept it in good place, at my parent's house. (I will take a picture of it if you'are interested)

There is also a small story who left today a lack of information and a bit of mystery: when this unit left the farm to be engaged in combat, one soldier was afraid his guitar could be damaged or lost. So he left it, saying he will come back later. Unfortunatly he never comeback and the guitar is now at my parent's house here in Belgium.
The guitar is still in good shape and sometime my father plays guitar for his grand-children.
if someone is interested I will take a picture of it in the coming days.
We don't know why he didn't comeback: was he injured or killed ? or if he was unnable to comeback as the unit went directly back to the States ?
The familly stayed in contact with the commanding officer until his death decades after the war, but from what I heard he didn't have information or didn't remembered this soldier.
There a name engraved on the back of the guitar and I know one of our relative did some searches after the war but he didn't found information, but it was before internet. Perhaps something could be done now ? I will try to read the name and we will see...

Regards from Belgium

Loïc