Saving the Light at Chartres

by Victor A. Pollak

  “Evacuation of government officials”: Risser, France Under Fire, 91.

  “Ordered punishment of prefects”: Risser, France Under Fire, 92.

  “Spare Paris from destruction”: Risser, France Under Fire, 92. After the war, in his memoirs Reynaud bitterly revealed that General Weygand and Marshall Pétain had never intended to mount a military defense of Paris.

  “Slow-moving columns of refugees”: Within a few days, the wealthier districts of the city were nearly deserted, and the population of the working-class districts dropped by more than 70 percent. Alfred Fierro, Histoire et dictionnaire de Paris (Paris: R. Laffront, 1996), 236.

  “High-ranking military officers and civil servants in retreat”: Clinton, Jean Moulin, 83–84.

  “First prefect du Tille had found at his post”: Clinton, Jean Moulin, 84–85.

  “Promised to provide meals to refugees”: During the afternoon, refugees passing through reported that German troops had entered Paris. Jean Moulin went to Dreux to inspect the latest damage. He drove with Mayor Vilette and Subprefect Ressuer. They saw the destruction of many new buildings. Moulin wrote, “Nobody said a word, but each of us had the same thought: So. It is over.” Clinton, Jean Moulin, 85.

  “Refugees . . . pouring into the cathedral’s crypt, seeking shelter”: Clinton, Jean Moulin, 87.

  “Moulin . . . wearing a scarf”: Clinton, Jean Moulin, 91–92.

  “Moulin was removed from office by the Vichy government”: Pierre Assouline, “Beneath the Scarf of Jean Moulin,” trans. Ruth Larson, South Central Review 25, no. 2 (Summer 2008): 9.

  “Those in charge of the library could not refuse”: Ironically, they would even later celebrate the return of the books and manuscripts by staging an exhibition of them at the library in March 1942. But the items would no longer be protected from bombs.

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 15

  “G-3’s primary responsibility”: United States Army, Twentieth Corps, The XX Corps: Its History and Service in World War II (Halsted, KS: W.E.B.S., 1984), 79, 90.

  “Setup of the G-3 office”: Massa’s job, as cartographer, would have been to plot on acetate-covered war maps with grease pencils all information revealing movements of each unit of the force as soon as they were received from the field, including name and number, location, strength, and vector.

  “Fort Slocum”: There the men would be housed for a few days to a week for equipment to be loaded and supplies assembled. Most enlisted men would get a one-day pass for last-minute R&R in the city. Only after their return to the fort would they receive orders to pack up and ship out the same evening. Launches would take them to a converted passenger steamer in the East River. They and others—sixteen thousand men in all—would be loaded to sail across the Atlantic to an unknown destination.

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 17

  “Chief keeper of Château de Pierrefonds”: Fifty-five miles northeast of Paris, Château de Pierrefonds was erected in the late fourteenth century by Duke Louis of Orléans but had fallen into ruins by the seventeenth century, until Napoleon III commissioned architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc to rebuild it. The architect applied his designs to create the ideal château, such as would have existed in the Middle Ages.

  “Seven watchmen:” The watchmen were Jules Pillot, Alexis Moreau, M. M. Aupy, and Messrs. Charlelia, Deport, and Etourneau.

  “Detailed inventories of the French collections”: The Kunstschutz, the German cultural conservation program, which in 1940 had been reconstituted as a branch of the Nazi occupation government, was headed by Count Wolff-Metternich, a former German professor of architecture. The number of depots totaled fifty-eight and was eventually reduced to forty-one. Ten depots were maintained for national museums and thirty-one for provincial museums, not including others created for items such as the glass from historic monuments. Karlsgodt, Defending National Treasures, 309, and appendixes A, B, and C.

  “Germans knew of the existence”: Baritaud, “The Light of Chartres,” 48.

  “Certain elements of the German regime”: Edsel, Monuments Men, 127; Karlsgodt, Defending National Treasures, 39–41.

  “It may have been only a matter of time”: Stained-glass windows may not have been a priority among Hitler’s parameters of artistic taste, but such windows were the subject of German looting, including those of Strasbourg Cathedral and other locations.

  “Certain Vichy figures as collaborators and others as resisters”: Karlsgodt, Defending National Treasures, 264–65.

  “Drawings were discovered by Baritaud in 2001”: Baritaud, “The Light of Chartres,” 48.

  “Appears to have been the work of the American planes”: Hans van der Hoeven, Lost Memory: Libraries and Archives Destroyed in the Twentieth Century (Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 1996), 14.

  “Leaves of parchment fused together”: In early 1948, departmental archivist Maurice Jusselin and Canon Yves Delaporte would begin work to identify the manuscripts. Beginning in the 1950s, some manuscripts would be studied by specialists who would continue identifying texts and putting the fragments in order. In later years, some of the manuscripts would be restored using transportable noninvasive multispectral imaging and volumetric-screening equipment developed to study the surface of planets, furnished by the University of Rochester’s Lazarus Project. “Chartres,” The Lazarus Project, accessed February 27, 2019, http://www.lazarusprojectimaging.com/previous-projects/chartres/.

  “The British Special Operations Executive had parachuted Moulin back into France”: Jean Moulin’s report to de Gaulle of the May 27 meeting, at 48 Rue du Four on the left bank of the Seine, “described the extraordinary difficulties that had been overcome to hold the meeting at all. The statements agreed to at the meeting clearly showed the hand of Moulin himself, carefully balancing a clear republican stance with attention to the sensitivities of the Resistance chiefs.” Clinton, Jean Moulin, 174. According to historian Alan Clinton, “It is sometimes said that the CNR was more important for what it was than for what it did. Nevertheless, its establishment has generally been considered in retrospect as the cardinal wartime event in the continuity of the French state and its Republic and the crowning achievement of Jean Moulin.” Ibid., 151.

  “He could convince others”: Jean Zay suffered a similar fate only weeks after D-Day. He had resigned as minister in 1939 to join the French Army, and he had served as a second lieutenant attached to the French Fourth Army headquarters. He had been given leave to attend the last session of the French Parliament, held in Bordeaux in June 1940. With many other politicians, in June 1940 he had boarded the vessel SS Massilia in Bordeaux, bound for Casablanca to join in forming a resistance government in North Africa. But he was arrested in August 1940 for desertion and returned to France, where he was held at the military prison.

  Zay was convicted of desertion by a military tribunal in October 1940 and sentenced to deportation for life, the sentence later commuted to internment in France. But he was allowed to communicate with friends and family. In June 1944, he was removed from the prison by three members of the Milice paramilitary group, purportedly so he could be transferred to another French prison in Melun, but they murdered him in a wood near an abandoned quarry. After the war, Zay’s conviction would be posthumously annulled by an appeals court. His body was found in 1946 under a pile of stones. Eventually, the surviving Milice militiaman would be convicted of Zay’s murder. In 2014, Zay would be recognized at the Panthéon in Paris as a leading figure in the Resistance.

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 18

  “V-mail”: The Smithsonian describes V-mail as follows: “V, or Victory mail, was a valuable tool for the military during World War II. The process, which originated in England, was the microfilming of specially designed letter sheets. Instead of using valuable cargo space to ship whole letters overseas, microfilmed copies were sent in their stead and then ‘blown up’ at an overseas destination before being delivered to military personnel.” “V-mail,” Smithsonian National Postal
Museum (website), accessed February 28, 2019, https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibits/past/the-art-of-cards-and-letters/mail-call/v-mail.html.

  “Grif”: Letters about Colonel Griffith to his brother Philip from military colleagues, as well as letters from his sister Tiny, refer to him as “Griff,” and those few of his relatives who did not still call him Web seem to have preferred to call him Griff with two Fs (e.g., Gary Hendrix, husband of Griff’s deceased niece, who is meticulous in such matters). Although Griff’s own writings that spell his name with one F are very persuasive as to his preferred spelling, that does not square with how virtually all of the others spelled it. Also, V-mail required extreme condensation. See photo of the document at https://www.dropbox.com/s/zkstchcwshb8bk0/DSC07284.jpg?dl=0.

  “A sobering experience for me”: Schulz, The Ghost, 102.

  “Monte Cassino”: In November and December 1943, American forces fought in Italy to overcome German Berhardt/Reinhard defenses, which were situated in a bulge pushing the Allies back from their key objective, which was the German Gustav defenses. An informal border called the Gustav line ran inland from the Tyrrhenian coast northeast across Italy to the Adriatic coast near Ortona. The Berhardt/Reinhard demarcation was intended by the Germans only to delay the Allies from reaching the Gustav line and, behind it, the Hitler line. Those two lines together were the main German winter defenses across Italy. The battle was a historically gruesome one. The Fifth US Army sustained sixteen thousand casualties, and the Italian town of San Pietro was completely destroyed.

  By late December, the Fifth Army paused to regroup before its planned assault of the Gustav-line defenses, including the Abbey of Monte Cassino, dating from the eighth century and further back to pagan times. Greg Bradsher and Sylvia Maylor, “General Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Protection of Cultural Property,” Text Message, website of the US National Archives, February 10, 2014, http://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2014/02/10/general-dwight-d-eisenhower-and-the-protection-of-cultural-property/.

  In January 1944, the Fifth Army attacked Cassino and was thrown back. In March, five hundred bombers lay waste to it, but the follow-up Allied attack failed. Not until May did a massive allied ground attack finally reach the summit of Monte Cassino and seize what was left of the abbey.

  “Shortly we will be fighting our way across the Continent”: Dwight D. Eisenhower, General, US Army, Commander in Chief, from the Allied Forces Headquarters, letter order to all commanders of Allied forces, subject: Historical Monuments, December 29, 1943 (copy of letter archived at https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2014/02/10/general-dwight-d-eisenhower-and-the-protection-of-cultural-property/).

  “It is a responsibility of higher commanders to determine”: Dwight D. Eisenhower, General, US Army, Commander in Chief, from the Allied Forces Headquarters, letter order to all commanders of Allied forces, subject: Historical Monuments, December 29, 1943 (copy of letter archived at https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2014/02/10/general-dwight-d-eisenhower-and-the-protection-of-cultural-property/).

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 19

  “Sweetheart: My new fountain pen has disappeared”: Griffith’s handwritten letter of July 19, 1944 to Nell; emphasis in original. Ellipses indicate indecipherable words. Presentation of the word Pinka is based on the author’s reading of the similar word appearing in another of Griffith’s handwritten letters, but this word may actually be a nickname such as “Pinka” or “Punka.”

  “Walker was venerated by his subordinates”: Walker’s grandfathers, both paternal and maternal, had been officers in the Confederate Army. A 1912 graduate of West Point, Walker had fought in World War I as executive officer of an infantry brigade in France commanded by George C. Marshall. He taught at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, as did Griffith, and also at West Point. After World War II, he led the Fifth Army and then the Eight Army in its occupation of Japan and later in Korea, where he was killed in a military traffic accident during the Korean War. Russett Vance Eastman and the US Army, “The Campaigns of Normandy and Northern France, 1 August–31 August 1944,” in History of the XX Corps Artillery, 21 October 1943–9 May 1945 (Miesbach, Germany: Buchdruckerei W. F. Mayr, 1946), 90.

  “His praise of legendary General Canham”: Canham was already a sergeant when he took a course in the Army’s first preparatory school to allow soldiers from the ranks to attend the academy at West Point. He was chosen and graduated from West Point in 1926, a year after Griffith. He was decorated for his valor as a colonel on Omaha Beach and the fighting that followed to take Saint-Lô. His actions on and after D-Day were legendary: Canham’s regiment landed on the Dog Green sector of Omaha Beach along with one company of Army Rangers. Shortly after hitting the beach, Canham was shot through the wrist[;] refusing evacuation, he moved his men off Omaha and inland. Sergeant Bob Slaughter (D Company, 116th) remembers Canham screaming at soldiers to move off the beach and go kill Germans. Slaughter remembers him yelling at one lieutenant hiding in a pillbox from a German mortar barrage, “Get your ass out of there and show some leadership!” Don McCarthy (Headquarters Company, 116th) remembers seeing Canham walking upright along the beach in the face of enemy fire[:] “I got the hell out of there and moved forward. I was more afraid of Colonel Canham than I was of the Germans.”

  For his actions on Omaha Beach, and the fighting to take-Saint Lô, Canham received the Distinguished Service Cross. “Canham, Charles D. W., MG,” Army: Together We Served (website), accessed April 27, 2019, https://army.togetherweserved.com/army/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=259605.

  His DSC citation reads in part: Canham landed on the beach shortly after the assault wave of troops had landed. At the time, the enemy fire was at its heaviest and had completely arrested the attack. Though wounded shortly after landing, Colonel Canham, with utter disregard for his own safety, continued to expose himself to the enemy fire in his efforts to reorganize the men. His personal bravery and determination so inspired and heartened the men that they were able to break through the enemy positions. Colonel Canham’s outstanding leadership, gallantry, and zealous devotion to duty exemplify the highest traditions of the military forces of the United States.

  “Charles Draper William Canham,” The Hall of Valor Project, accessed April 21, 2019, https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/21949.

  According to the Arlington National Cemetery website, In 1942, he took command of the 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division[,] before it sailed for England. This regiment and the 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division[,] were chosen as the first to land at Omaha beach. Shortly after hitting the beach, Canham was shot thru the wrist[;] refusing evacuation, he moved his men off Omaha and moved inland. For his actions on Omaha Beach and the fighting to take St. Lo he received the Distinguished Service Cross and was promoted to Brigadier General and took over command as the Assistant Division Commander of the 8th Infantry Division. It was [in] this capacity that he took in the name of his 8th Division troopers in the surrender of Brest.

  Upon entrance to the German command headquarters of General Ramcke, commander of the German 2nd Parachute Division, Canham was asked for his credentials[;] without hesitation he turned to the [dirty and tired American] [GIs] accompanying him [whom he had brought to witness the surrender] and said, “These are my credentials.” The account of this event which was reported in the New York Times saw in this spontaneous statement of a combat leader the greatest tribute ever paid to the real power of the American Army, [the individual soldier].

  Michael Robert Patterson, “Charles Draper William Canham,” Arlington National Cemetery Website, updated January 27, 2006, http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/cdwcanhan.htm.

  “Bailey bridge”: The Bailey was a revolutionary engineering invention named for Donald Bailey, civil engineer in the British War Office. The bridge was designed to be easily transportable in a standard truck. Forty men using simple tools could erect the bridge in ten-foot steel sections in three to four hours. Eac
h bridge section consisted of only seventeen parts and could span a gap of up to 240 feet. With additional supports, consisting of another nine parts, the bridge could be expanded to almost any distance.

  “Seventy-five thousand enemy troops . . . could still be encircled”: Martin Blumenson, Chapter 28, “Drive to the Seine,” in US Army in World War II: European Theater of Operations; Breakout and Pursuit (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1961) (text available online at http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Breakout/USA-E-Breakout-28.html).

  “Madame Clavel, deputy commander of the FFI battalion”: The British SOE and American OSS infiltrated agents into France to provide tactical advice and specialist skills like radio operation and demolition. In June, shortly after the invasion, Eisenhower had placed two hundred thousand Resistance fighters under command of General Marie-Pierre Kœnig and the French high command had decreed the FFI subject to French military law.

  As regions were liberated, the FFI organized into light infantry units to serve as additional manpower to regular Free French Forces. The FFI units manned less active areas of the front lines, allowing regular French army units to mass in decisive areas. They sabotaged railway lines, seized or destroyed bridges, cut German supply lines, and provided intelligence to the Allies.

  Many FFI units included former French soldiers. They wore civilian clothing and an FFI armband. General Patton would eventually declare that the rapid advance of his army through France would have been impossible without FFI fighting aid, and Alexander Patch, another three-star American general, is said to have estimated that from the time of the Mediterranean landings until September 1944, FFI forces gave help equivalent to that of four military divisions.