Escape from Paris

by Stephen Harding

  Devastated by the news, Joe fell into a deep depression. He sought to bury his sorrow in work, but even twelve-hour days in the classroom or on the March Field gunnery ranges did little to assuage his grief. In what was likely an attempt to give some purpose to what he saw as a now hopelessly empty life, Joe began applying for transfer to the Pacific. Arguing that his status as both an airplane armorer and a combat-experienced flexible gunner more than qualified him for a position in one of the remaining B-24 units operating against Japan, he submitted at least four requests for what was officially defined as a “voluntary permanent change of station.” Unfortunately, the very expertise and experience that Joe cited as factors qualifying him for a return to combat also made him the ideal instructor, and each of his applications for transfer was denied “for the good of the service”—he was just too valuable where he was, his commander told him.

  Denied the chance to return to combat, Joe had no choice but to carry on at March Field. He decided that when the war ended he would do exactly as he had told Yvette he would do in the event something happened to her—he would go to Alaska, spend time with his mother, then find some way to lose himself in the territory’s vastness. He could hire himself out as a hunting guide, he thought, or maybe go back to work on a commercial fishing boat. It didn’t matter, really, since the goal would simply be to give his broken heart a chance to heal in a land virtually devoid of people.

  But in late July 1945 Joe’s melancholy reveries came to an abrupt halt when another envelope bearing multiple forwarding addresses finally found him. The letter was the one written on June 4 by Gladys Oriot on behalf of Germaine Mercier. Though Joe was deeply saddened by the seeming confirmation of Georges’s death, he was understandably elated by the news that Yvette and Denise were alive and on their way home. He immediately wrote a long and joyous letter, pouring out his love for both of them and his intense relief that God had spared them. As soon as he was free to do so he would return to Paris, he said, and he and Yvette could embark on the life they talked so much about on those evenings atop the Dôme church.

  Sadly, the arrival of Joe’s letter prompted Yvette to make a decision that would break both their hearts.

  THOUGH DENISE AND YVETTE ADAMANTLY REFUSED TO ACCEPT THE IDEA THAT Georges was really gone, by late August 1945 it had become obvious to both women that even if he were still alive he was probably dealing with memory loss or severe psychological issues—why else would he not have found his way home? And if by some miracle he were to actually return to Paris, his wife and daughter agreed, he would likely require long-term, comprehensive care—a large part of which they themselves vowed to provide.

  And then there was Yvette’s intense devotion to Denise. Always close, mother and daughter had developed an even deeper bond during their time in the camps, and that connection had only grown stronger as they faced the physical, emotional, and financial challenges of life in postliberation Paris. Yvette knew that her mother would need her continuing love, support, and assistance—especially if her beloved husband Georges never returned. Because Yvette had come to believe in her heart that Joe was dead, she had decided to dedicate herself to caring for her mother for as long as Denise might live.

  Such was Yvette’s frame of mind when she received Joe’s letter. Though ecstatic that he was alive and that his love for her was apparently undimmed despite the time they’d been apart, she was torn between the unexpectedly renewed prospect of life with him and the vow she had made to herself to devote her life to caring for her mother. As much as she wanted to experience in reality the dreams she and Joe had shared, Yvette could not put her own happiness before Denise’s well-being. A new life in America with Joe would be impossible, Yvette knew, for she would not leave her mother and Denise would not leave France as long as there was even the faintest hope that Georges might be alive. Nor would it be fair to ask Joe to come back to Paris, for despite her love for him their life as husband and wife would not be her primary focus as long as her mother was alive.

  With Gladys Oriot’s help Yvette put all of these thoughts on paper in her response to Joe, who replied that he understood and accepted the fact that Yvette needed to put her mother first. In subsequent letters the couple spoke of their love for one another, of how life-changing their time in Paris had been for both of them, and of how the memories of that time, and of each other, would stay with them forever. But, in the end, like many of their contemporaries who had found love during the tumultuous war years, they agreed that the realities of the postwar world would make it impossible for them to live out their dreams of a life together. They wished each other well, and with heavy hearts went their separate ways.

  Neither could have foreseen the subsequent courses their lives would take.

  EPILOGUE

  ON OCTOBER 1, 1945, JOE CORNWALL WAS DISCHARGED FROM THE USAAF at San Bernardino Army Airfield in Southern California and placed on the inactive reserve list. He received $4,370.29 in final pay, and days later was on his way to Alaska.1

  Joe’s sojourn in what was then still a U.S. territory first took him to Juneau, where his mother was running a hair salon. Joe then spent several months working as a hunting guide in southeast Alaska, but by May 1946 had made a significant career change. On the twentieth of that month a letter from the office of the regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Juneau notified Joe that his application for the position of engineer on the FWS’s patrol vessel Auklet had been granted.2 Joe served aboard the forty-eight-foot-long, tugboat-like vessel for the next four years, as it undertook fisheries-protection operations in southeast Alaska from its home port in Wrangel.

  The Fish and Wildlife Service’s announcement in the fall of 1950 that it would sell the thirty-three-year-old Auklet out of government service prompted Joe to make yet another momentous decision. On December 27 he rejoined what by then had become the U.S. Air Force.3 After several months of training he was designated a weapons-maintenance specialist with the rank of master sergeant, and over the following seven years was stationed at various bases both in the United States and abroad—including an assignment with a combat fighter-bomber squadron in Korea. On February 26, 1957, Joe was posted to the field that had been so much a part of his earlier USAAF time—the now renamed Lowry Air Force Base in Denver. And it was there that yet another aspect of his World War II years reappeared.

  Joe had been working as a weapons-maintenance instructor at Lowry for some time when, under circumstances that remain unclear, he ran into Clara Gypin Rebuck. The woman whom the USAAF had in 1943 mistakenly believed to be Joe’s wife had divorced her second husband, Clarence “Smokey” Rebuck, and was living in the Denver area. The renewed acquaintance between Joe and Clara ultimately evolved into something deeper, and on March 24, 1959, the couple married at the First Methodist Church’s Lehmberg Chapel in Colorado Springs.4

  Joe stayed in the USAF after his marriage, and was eventually promoted to senior master sergeant. He spent the bulk of the next seven years at Lowry—except for one year at Thule Air Base in Greenland and another at Glasgow AFB, Montana. He had hoped to remain in the service long enough to attain the rank of chief master sergeant—a promotion for which his performance reports and other documents indicated he was more than qualified—but his career goals were derailed by increasingly poor health. Joe began showing symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease in the early 1960s, and the attendant tremors, muscle stiffness, and speech difficulties ultimately led the Air Force to declare him medically unfit for further duty. At the time of his retirement on June 30, 1966, Joe was credited with twenty-six years of service (which included his time in the inactive reserve). In addition to the aerial gunner wings he proudly wore throughout his military career, the decorations credited to him included the Purple Heart, the Air Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, and the United Nations Service Medal.

  After his retirement from the Air Force Joe went to work as a maintenance supervisor for the local school district, a position he held un
til his Parkinson’s symptoms grew so pronounced that he could no longer walk or drive. With Clara’s loving help he struggled against the disease as best he could, but by 1992 he was also dealing with congestive heart failure. On January 29, 1993, Joseph Ellison Cornwall died of a heart attack in the emergency room of Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Hospital in Aurora, Colorado, at the age of seventy-seven.5 His beloved wife Clara died at eighty-nine on July 30, 2003, and both are interred at the Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver.

  In August 2017, during a visit with Clara Cornwall’s son Nate Gypin, the author was privileged to be allowed access to a trunk full of Joe Cornwall’s possessions. Among them were documents and photos pertaining to his USAAF and USAF service, uniform items, pictures of him and Clara, and other family memorabilia. The trove also included the simple black billfold Joe was carrying on the day of his death. In addition to his driver’s license and other usual items, the wallet contained something unexpected: Folded neatly and tucked into an inside compartment was a faded and obviously old piece of paper. When opened, it proved to be the letter Yvette had sent Joe soon after his departure from France, the one beginning “Mon Cher Joe.”

  He had apparently kept it with him for fifty years.

  THOUGH YVETTE AND DENISE MORIN CONTINUED TO HOPE THAT GEORGES was alive and would ultimately return to them, in the spring of 1946 the MIS-X office in Paris issued an official death certificate that stated he had perished in German custody, though an exact date was not given. The determination that Georges had died as a direct result of his arrest and deportation was considered when IS9 and MIS-X set about deciding what sort of compensation should be paid to his wife and daughter in recognition of the family’s work on behalf of Allied evaders. In a May 14, 1946, letter to Denise, Major John White of MIS-X informed her that the British and American governments took pleasure in awarding her 349,000 francs in return for the aid she and her family provided to Allied airmen during the occupation.6

  Nor was money the only recognition the Morins received for their wartime work. On December 26, 1946, Denise and Yvette each received the U.S. Medal of Freedom—the former with Silver Palm and the latter with Bronze Palm. The citations accompanying the awards acknowledged each woman’s “exceptionally meritorious achievement, which aided the United States in the prosecution of the war against the enemy in Continental Europe.” Both were lauded for their “heroism, ingenuity, and outstanding determination in the performance of hazardous missions.” They disregarded their own personal safety, the citations read, and assisted directly in the evasion of fifty Allied airmen, until they were arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Germany. The women’s courage and devotion to the Allied cause “contributed materially to the success of the war effort, thereby meriting the praise and recognition of the United Nations.”7 The following day Georges was posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom with Silver Palm. His citation acknowledged the same “heroism, ingenuity, and outstanding determination in the performance of hazardous missions,” and noted that he aided the Allied evaders at the “risk to his life.”8

  The United States was not the only nation to honor the Morins for their wartime service, of course. On January 30, 1947, the British government awarded Denise the British Empire Medal and Yvette the King’s Medal for Courage, citing both for the aid they provided to Commonwealth evaders despite the enormous risks to their own safety. Because Georges had been officially declared deceased, Britain presented his wife and daughter with a “Certificate 17,” honoring him with the civilian equivalent of a “Mention in Dispatches.”9 The French government subsequently awarded all three Morins the Médaille de la Résistance, and over the following decades appointed both Denise and Yvette to the Légion d’honneur, the former ultimately progressing to the rank of commandeur and the latter to officier.10

  While these many prestigious awards were certainly well deserved, they had little practical effect on the life Yvette and Denise led in the decades following the end of the war. The cash payments they received from the British and American governments were helpful, of course, but evaporated with alarming speed as the women faced the realities of life in postwar Paris. Fortunately, as a war widow Denise was offered the opportunity to operate a news kiosk in front of the Saint-Pierre de Chaillot church on the rue Marceau in the 16th arrondissement. The stand sold newspapers, magazines, books, cigarettes, and snacks, and though a humble enterprise it was to provide the women with a modest but steady income for decades. It was not an easy life, however, for Yvette and her mother had to be at the stand by four thirty every morning—seven days a week—to receive the day’s delivery of newspapers and other goods. The stand usually remained open until seven in the evening, and the long hours took a heavy toll on bodies still suffering the effects of wartime imprisonment.11

  In 1948 Yvette married a man named Raoul Claerebout, and the following year the couple had a daughter. Named Denise, after her grandmother, the child grew up in the same Invalides home as her mother had. It was not an ideal childhood, unfortunately, for at the age of three young Denise was diagnosed with polio, which required long hours of treatment each day, much of it undertaken at Paris’s Hôpital Necker children’s hospital. The illness was also hard on the family’s finances, since young Denise was not eligible for care under the war deportees’ health insurance program and her parents thus had to pay cash for her treatments. Those payments were made even more of a burden by the fact that Raoul Claerebout was an inveterate and not at all successful gambler who also had a severe drinking problem and, when drunk, was prone to violence.12

  When young Denise was nine years old her father died in a car accident, an event that made life even more difficult for Yvette and her mother. The women had to alternate work at the kiosk with caring for young Denise, a routine that made for long hours and little sleep. Not long afterward the architect of Invalides told Yvette and her mother that he had been asked by his superiors why the two women were still living in the “concierge” apartment, since neither worked on the grounds. It looked as though the women would have to find somewhere else to live, until the director of what by then had been renamed the Office national des anciens combattants et victimes de guerre provided a solution. If the women agreed to clean the agency’s offices at night, they would be able to stay in the apartment. Though the arrangement would mean even less sleep for Yvette and her mother they readily agreed, and they and young Denise were able to stay in the home until 1983, a year that marked a watershed in the lives of all three women.

  In the late 1930s one of the chief architects of France’s historic monuments, Jean-Pierre Pacquet, had developed a plan intended to reveal the “true majesty” of the southern part of the Invalides complex—a project that called for the removal of the fences facing the place Vauban, and for the demolition of what he termed the “parasitic” buildings at the corner of the boulevard des Invalides and avenue de Tourville.13 Those included the apartment long occupied by the Morins but not, oddly enough, the combination gatehouse and Architect’s office right next door. Though Pacquet died in 1975 his plan lived on, and its implementation meant that the home that had meant so much to the Morin family—and to Joe Cornwall, for that matter—was torn down in the late 1980s.

  Before that sorry event Yvette, her mother, and young Denise moved to an apartment in Massy, nine miles southwest of Invalides and just to the west of Orly Airport. By that point both of the older women were retired, and they lived there together until Denise’s death in 1994 at the age of ninety-six. Yvette’s daughter, now Denise Weil, had purchased a house outside Angoulême, in the same départment de la Charente where her grandmother was born. After buying land around the building Mme. Weil and her husband developed the property into a horse farm, and in 2004 Yvette moved in with them.

  It was there in the summer of 2017 that the author and his wife shared a wonderful day—and a delightful home-cooked meal—with a still spry, engaging, and tremendously welcoming ninety-six-year-old Yvette. Her green eyes alterna
tely sparkling and tearing up, she spoke at length and in detail about her parents, the family’s role in the Resistance, the people they’d worked with and sheltered, and of the memories of that time that remain with her.

  Later, in an email in which she answered a series of follow-on questions about her time with Joe Cornwall, Yvette echoed the sentiments shared by many couples during those dark days of world conflict.

  “The war had brought us together,” she said simply, “and peace separated us.”

  Appendix: After the War

  IN THE YEARS FOLLOWING THE END OF WORLD WAR II, AS THE SURVIVING participants in the 94th Bomb Group’s Bastille Day raid got on with their lives, the remains of those who died aboard Salty’s Naturals underwent a somewhat circuitous journey to their final resting places.

  The bodies of eight crew members—Purdy, Jones, Lichtenberger, Marquardt, Smith, Dickson, Harris, and Sprague—were recovered either from the wreckage of Salty’s Naturals or from the surrounding area.1 Those remains were initially interred as unknowns in adjoining graves in the French military section of Évreux’s Saint-Louis Cemetery. A ninth body—Santangelo’s—was buried with the others about three weeks later, though the official records do not indicate the reason for the disparity in burial dates.

  Following the end of the war in Europe the nine bodies were disinterred and transferred to the French communal cemetery at Saint-André-de-l’Eure, part of which was being used as a temporary collecting point for the remains of Allied service members initially buried in other locations. In March 1948 all of the remains were again disinterred and prepared for shipment to what was then designated the Saint-Laurent U.S. Military Cemetery, which eventually became the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer. The nine sets of remains underwent extensive forensic examination, and despite being in what was termed “a state of advanced decomposition” each was ultimately identified by dental records. Those identifications were supported by the fact that several of the remains wore identification bracelets, and all of the remains were still “comingled” with pieces of uniform and flight equipment that either bore the individual’s name or a unique serial number that could be matched against 94th Bomb Group records. Five sets of remains were permanently interred at Saint-Laurent, while those of Ed Purdy, Chuck Sprague, Rick Marquardt, and John Smith were returned to the United States at the request of their families. Purdy was buried in Colorado, Sprague in Oregon, and Marquardt and Smith in Wisconsin.