Remembering D-Day: In Roubaix, Northern France

My recollections of this historic event and the decisive days that followed are quite different to those of these brave servicemen who took part in this epic invasion because at that time I was living in German occupied France, on the other side of the Atlantic Wall, and we had been waiting so long for this day to happen.

"ILS ONT DEBARQUE!!!!" (They have landed!)

The memories that are revived by these three words!.... They may have been a triumphant headline in the world's free press 60 years ago but to us, in occupied France, they meant so much more..., they were a cry of joy which lifted our spirit and filled our hearts with hope and anticipation that Liberation and Freedom were on their way and that we were at last seeing the light at the end of the tunnel after four very long years of German oppression. Even today, 60 years on, I still get emotional remembering what these news meant to us. Yet we dared not get too carried away at that stage in case it all ended in disaster like at Dieppe two years before, which had left us so disappointed and despondent. Nethertheless we felt in our hearts that, after the lessons learned, this must be it and the Resistance started cleaning their odd assortment of weapons in preparation for the fighting to come.

Although I was only a young lad at the time I still remember that day vividly. My mother having gone to work I was on my own, having breakfast and listening as usual to the 9 o'clock news on the BBC's Home Service when I heard of the landings. I remember letting out a wild scream of excitement and, my eyes blurred by tears of joy, rushing out of the house to tell some of our neighbours to tune in quickly to the BBC's French Service at 9.15 so that they could hear the wonderful news.
I then ran all the way to my mother's office to tell her the good news but these had travelled faster than me and she already knew. On my way back I became conscious of an atmosphere of contained excitement in the streets. People were smiling and winking knowingly at each other on seeing the Germans rushing around. I also noticed a few enterprising individuals standing on street corners, discreetly selling maps of Normandy!!. We were later told that, by 12 o'clock, there was not a single map of Normandy to be found in any shop!!.

Having eventually got myself a map of northern France I spent the next three months listening avidly to every news bulletin and marking each town that had been liberated, thus forming a moving front-line. By the middle of August, watching this front-line getting closer and closer to where I lived (Roubaix) played havoc with my adrenolin and the suspense and excitement became almost unbearable. Then, as the British Army got closer, the Resistance came out in the open to fight the Germans and we liberated ourselves on the 2nd of September. But that's another story!.

EPILOGUE. Twenty years ago I had the priviledge and the honour to be with the Free French contingent taking part in the 40th anniversary celebrations at Portsmouth and in Normandy. Both were very moving but I shall never forget, this being my first trip to Normandy, how overwhelmed with sadness I was on seeing so many thousands of graves, all neatly lined up in so many well kept cemeteries. It was a very humbling experience indeed to realise that, forty years ago, as we were all rejoicing at the news that they had landed, these brave men, many still in their teens, were paying the ultimate price for our freedom. I will never forget that and, like many of my generation who have lived through this terrible war, will always appreciate and respect this freedom which is so often abused nowadays and sadly, very much taken for granted.

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