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(Painting based on an American aerial photo)
With the kind permission of Claude FAIX
The Town Hall in 1944
LA VAUDOIRE ___ our neighborhood in May/June 1944 ___
The Leon Fontaine Street
The Ferme Street (now Henri Dunant St.) - No. 20 - (parents of Mrs. Simonard)
The footbridge after August 26, 1944
September 2000
Once upon a time there was a suburb with no history, once upon a time there was
a summer, but it was war...Sartrouville? To be honest, no one cared much about
it, no one really knew its geographical location. It's an ordinary town, without
much appeal, it must be admitted, although prettily situated on a bank of the
Seine. In the past, Sartrouville was a large agricultural village, the Old
Country of peasant houses, which stopped at the Maurice Berteaux crossroads, and
then in just half a century, everything happened very quickly...There was a
literal explosion between the two world wars, due to economic phenomena that are
not the subject of these few lines. The town benefited, among other things, from
the famous Loucheur Law (1928), which allowed more people (and that was a good
thing) to build their little house.
The Seine, our promenade, runs alongside the town for 3 km; the river is crossed
in the center of the commune by the road bridge and the railway bridge.
Advantages? Disadvantages? In any case, a lot of noise and pollution...that's
for sure. The French army blew up both bridges in 1940 to stop the German
advance. A ferry for pedestrians, cars, bicycles, etc., located roughly at the
end of Leon Fontaine Street, was in service until 1942, it seems, then the
bridges were provisionally repaired by the occupier. Surveillance posts with
armed sentries were set up under the so-called "works of art." Strolling along
the water's edge must not have been very pleasant with such guards to pass...
An anti-aircraft battery was installed in the "Ilot," that is, the plot of land
located between the bottom of the railway bridge and a path that became the
extended Victor Hugo Street: small temporary houses had been installed there for
railway workers, while waiting to find them housing. This battery was manned by
2 soldiers.
Sartrouville went through the period from 1940 to 1944 like many other communes.
It's true that the occupying troops did not stay with us; we are in a loop of
the Seine and strategically, it seems the Germans did not want to feel somewhat
trapped in this kind of mousetrap. Frequently, the town was crossed by motorized
troops and on foot with loud bootsteps, on Avenue Maurice Berteaux, heading up
to Paris at night or going to the Normandy coast.
However, there was an anti-aircraft battery installed in what was then called
the "Valot quarries" (1): vast open-pit quarries for extracting stone or gravel
where balloon launches, then airships, then airplane takeoffs (Paulhan among
others) had once taken place, and where the Carrefour stores now stand. A small
number of soldiers manned this battery. We therefore had few occupying soldiers
in Sartrouville. A few elements of the Kriegsmarine were housed in requisitioned
pavilions. Let us mention one on Avenue Hortense Foubert at No. 41. This
pavilion later became the headquarters of the Red Cross. Also mention the large
turreted house located on the Quai de Seine; there lived an officer of the
Kriegsmarine, who was part of the soldiers occupying the Jouet factory.
The office of the Kommandantur under which we fell was located in
Maisons-Laffitte, Avenue Egle, then Avenue Albine; the Gestapo was established
on Avenue Egle and the Hotel Royal (MGEN) was entirely occupied by a German
military unit with a mess at the Vieille Fontaine (Maisons-Laffitte archives).
Of course, alas, horrors were committed, arbitrary arrests, deportations,
requisitions...and nature itself got involved: the years 1942 and 1944 saw
winters of extreme harshness that added to people's physical and moral misery.
But if everyone suffered restrictions of all kinds, dramatic news or lack of
information, there were no deadly battles or destructions here. Let us still
mention this Luftwaffe plane that on October 31, 1942, crashed in the heart of
the town, at the Maurice Berteaux crossroads, killing 2 people: it came from
Montesson Laborde, already on fire, perhaps wanting to follow the Seine to land
on the racecourse, that's a hypothesis, but it was already veering to the right,
it literally scalped the top floor of a building on Avenue Jean Jaures (No. 8 or
10 or 12?) and if a heavy concrete electric pole had not been positioned in
front of the current Red Cross premises (formerly Delai) and deflected it to the
left, it would have hit the building at No. 3 (former Post Office, former Martel
Bazaar) head-on - Mrs. Martel, at her window, saw it coming, grabbed her little
girl and dragged her to the back of the building which by miracle was not hit.
It crashed at the crossroads, mainly damaging the bakery and the small fish shop
next door (between the bakery and yesterday's Greek sandwiches, (this block of
houses that has just disappeared for the new crossroads): the owner, a pretty
little lady, pregnant, was completely disfigured by burns to the face. The
engine and burning parts were thrown to the other side, on the right, where
there was a dairy (Mrs. Paris) and a Jeweler, Mr. Galaberti, where the small
antique shop of Joelle Hulois now stands, and these shops were heavily damaged
(testimony Yolande Eveau).
In 1944, however, it seemed that the war was taking on another face. People
began to hope for an Allied victory, London radio was no longer unknown to many,
and the Resistance (the terrorists!!!) was active in Sartrouville, (among other
very effective groups who gave a lot of themselves, let us mention the Rail
Resistance and salute the memory of Police Commissioner ORSI, arrested in 1943
at Sartrouville Town Hall, deported and died at Ebensee, a Mauthausen commando
in Austria in 1944).
The Paris suburbs had been suffering since 1943 from bombings on strategic
points (marshalling yards, factories, ...) and there were notably many deaths
and major damage in Colombes, Acheres, Noisy-le-Sec, La Courneuve, Billancourt
(Renault), Le Pecq (BINET ball bearings), bombings carried out mostly at
night...
Here we go, we too were going to go through it, violence was about to strike.
The bridges had to be blown up again to prevent the passage of trains carrying
equipment and troops...American aviation entered the scene on May 27 and 28,
1944, Whitsun weekend:
Saturday, May 27 around 1:30/1:40 p.m., the sun was shining magnificently, the
alarm sirens suddenly started howling. Several waves of bombers flew over the
town coming from the St-Germain side, in the axis of the Seine, with a
thunderous noise. At first, no one was really worried, it had already happened,
and many people thought there was no serious target here. (although the Town
Hall district, located between the two bridges, was classified as a red zone
forbidden, the archives had been evacuated to the Jules Ferry School). And
suddenly, drama: a rain of high-caliber bombs (1 ton) falls on the station and
surrounding neighborhoods: buildings and houses collapse, a train coming from
St- Lazare, full of race goers heading to Maisons, is hit in turn. The buildings
of the Bonin Tobacco shop, the Zorio Hardware store, the Cafe des Sports (Le Pyrenees) are destroyed with many people buried in the rubble...For long minutes,
it's apocalypse. The B-26 bombers (twin-engine Marauder type) sprayed from about
3,000/3,500 m the territory around the bridges: with little success: it was the
neighborhoods bordering the Seine that caught the rain of bombs dropped, causing
enormous damage. A witness living in Montesson Laborde (i.e., 1 km as the crow
flies before the target), saw the planes arriving over Sartrouville, and at
first, before realizing what it was, saw small shiny objects surrounding the
planes: these were the bombs already being dropped, at Montesson height, for our
town (see 2).
Shortly after the end of the alert, volunteers arrived from everywhere: it's a
disaster, the entire city center has been hit, the quays and station severely
damaged and from the train the firefighters removed horribly mutilated corpses.
200 deaths will be announced, the final figure was never known. The staircase
leading down to the station was filled with blood, recalls a witness, and an
improvised morgue was set up in the old market that was held where the current
parking lot and library are, while some people, driven mad by fear and shock,
ran, black with smoke or burned, in the streets "looking for the Maisons
racecourse"!! (I saw it and remember it, children's memory is capable of storing
terrible images, our leaders should think about it a bit more.)
A series of photos of these tragic events exists: they were taken by Robert
GROGNET, electrician and owner of the electrical equipment store on Jules Rein
Street, a photography enthusiast, who had the presence of mind to "cover" as we
say now these difficult moments. The approach was original because at that time
few people thought or could take photos, which seems commonplace today. Thanks
to his cool-headedness, this gentleman was able to preserve the memory of these
events. I think his son, Claude, must have interesting negatives.
The streets Turgot, Berthelot, Victor Hugo, Rouget de Lisle, Michelet, Liberte,
were particularly affected.
The small beach, the Tritons beach, which had existed on the banks of the Seine
since 1933, between Jean Nicolle Street and Ferme Street (Henri Dunant Street),
and whose entrance was right opposite Ferme Street, was pulverized: one of its
devoted leaders, Mr. Bazin, was killed there (testimony of Mr. Astor whose house
was destroyed on Constituante Street). Also pulverized was the fire station in
the same street.
Alas, the day is not over: Around 8 p.m., while the rescuers are still working,
another alert, the planes return and resume their pounding: Dijou Street,
Connesson shipyards, Carnot Street (a small building belonging to Mrs. DELORME
was annihilated and caused the death of more than 30 people...
The next day, Sunday, May 28, Whitsun day, 5 alerts follow one another over our
town, our current town hall sees its left wing and the old farm entirely
demolished and the rest damaged. Bombs also on Hortense Foubert Street, Gabriel
Street, Av. Maurice Berteaux, Union Street, Concorde Street...All the pavilions
on Jean Nicolle Street, Palis Street, Ferme Street (Henry Dunant Street) are
destroyed or damaged, as are those on Leon Fontaine Street, Constituante Street,
Victor Hugo Street which are streets devastated to the highest degree. On Leon
Fontaine Street the municipal washhouse/showers was pulverized (it was located
at the corner of Palis Street and Leon Fontaine Street, (for many years, before
the reconstruction of the neighborhood, carcasses of old rusty washing machines
lay among the rubble)
In the Old Country, the Turgot house on St-Germain Street (now Stalingrad
Street), an 18th-century dwelling, former town hall, is annihilated and the
school bearing its name, Bordin Street, severely damaged.
The SNCAN factory (now THOMSON, formerly CAMS) requisitioned by the Germans,
which mainly manufactured seaplanes, also received bombs on the same May 28.
The railway bridge seemed this time neutralized: the landing could take place in
a few days, the German army would not be able to send equipment as
reinforcements to the Normandy front: yes, but the occupiers had brought in
French technicians requisitioned for STO and Russian prisoners of war to repair
the bridge summarily at a sustained pace (4 weeks). A test to resume train
traffic was to take place on Sunday, June 25. The Rail Resistance was informed
and informed London:
June 24, 1944 at 6:45 p.m., saw the 3rd wave of bombings on Sartrouville, (see
3.) but this time the air formation coming from Houilles took the railway line
in enfilade, pulverizing the Ilot battery (which had been neutralized beforehand
by resistance fighters) and "the aircraft almost placed their bombs on the
bridge." This dive attack was followed by the passage of 39 B-26 Marauder
twin-engine aircraft of the 397th BG flying at 3,500 m altitude and coming from Maisons-Laffitte, one aircraft will be shot down and fall on that town on La
Fontaine Street, the 6 crew members will be killed and buried in the Clichy
cemetery in the common grave. The bridge was destroyed for good, hit 3 times in
the arches on the Sartrouville side (4).
This third wave again caused a lot of damage in the Seine-side neighborhood, but
apparently no
casualties.
The damage was therefore very significant. No doubt nothing comparable to the
martyr cities of Cherbourg, St Lo, Bayeux, Caen, St Nazaire,...yes no doubt, but
the ruins were impressive and the number of dead (+200) and injured high; the
destruction of the targets although aimed had done a lot of harm. Our
neighborhood had suffered greatly. Pavilions destroyed or blown out, roofs flown
off.
Can we imagine the distress of those who had lost everything? One image still: I
remember the roofs. After the bombings, those who could, of course, climbed on
their roofs to put things in order, as much as possible: tiles, tarred
cardboard...There were many people on the beams. The local glazier, in this case
Mr. Henry, all dressed in white, cap on his head, pedaled left and right with
his panes on his back to replace the broken windows. There was a lot of work,
one should not be too fussy about the appearance of the replacement glass, he
put what he could, the main thing being to plug. There must have been other
glaziers in the area, but it's him I remember.
Some devices did not explode and buried themselves in the ground: for example,
on Cuvier Street, 10 or 15 years ago, Mr. Lauvinerie who found a 105 shell,
intact, undoubtedly fired by an anti-aircraft battery in the basement of his
garage and that's just one example: It seems a bomb was found by boatmen: it had
been brought up from the mud by the work done on the railway bridge for the
passage of the RER; maybe others are still sleeping in the subsoil around us...some were indeed found two or three years ago in Nanterre, while digging the
highway.
Can we end with "a certain smile"? There was no nearby shelter in our
neighborhood and on Whitsun Sunday, old friends of my grandmother living in the
building at 45 Leon Fontaine Street and who, panicked by the account of people
buried in the buildings near the station, systematically refused to go down to
their cellar, arrived from their small apartments, saucepans on their heads, to
take refuge in our garden, at the back, under the fruit trees, while this garden
was "sprinkled," like its neighbors, with bomb fragments (we still find some)!!!
Peace was not yet there, but in August 1944, from the 24th to the 26th, it was
the retreat of the Germans who were requisitioning by all means (they were still
armed), everything they could find to flee, bicycles, carts, cars, etc...Our
friend, Mrs. Haranger who then lived on Arts Street, in a house where the LEP
now stands, says that a German encampment had set up where the building reserved
for high school teachers now is and which at the time was a vacant lot. The men
there, completely demotivated, tired and defeated, had announced their rout to
them (like you in 40 they told the rare frightened passers-by) and the blowing
up of the footbridge after the passage of the last of them, which was done on
the evening of the 26th, with a huge noise that shook the whole neighborhood
once again. (confirmation Maisons-Laffitte archives) Bloody battles opposed them
to the FFI who escorted them as far as possible. Let us recall the shooting that
took place on the Champ de Mars, near the church, which caused two deaths. A
group of fugitives in 3 Tiger tanks was immobilized at the Patte d'Oie d'Herblay
by a vehicle armed by the FFI and was blocked until the arrival of the
Americans.
The first Americans entered our town coming from the Pecq Bridge on September 1,
around 2/3 p.m., welcomed as everywhere by flags taken out of attics and the
happy crowd under the sun, they set up for a few days in the woods of a property
at the top of Voltaire Street - Another source gives this arrival of the
Americans on the date of August 28, 1944. But they too did not stay...There was
still work to do!
- On September 6, 1944, the first free municipal council proceeded to the
officialization of the
Sartrouville local liberation committee with Mr. PERRONET.
Written by Francoise DENAIS
President of the Association des Amis de l'Histoire de Sartrouville et ses
Environs (AHSE) - the historical society for Sartrouville, September 2000
===========================
1 - Mr. Vallot was part of a resistance network, like Commissioner Orsi, he was
arrested, tortured and deported. He did not return.
2 - Reliable testimonies report sometimes different directions regarding the
flight of the air formations: a witness from Montesson saw the planes on the
morning of May 27, following the Seine coming from St-Germain, Mr. ASTOR saw on
the same May 27, in the evening, the planes coming from Maisons-Laffitte. Both
are right, Mr. FAIX explains that each bombing group (all based in England)
attacked the targeted objectives along different axes specific to them.
3 - For information: Extract from the book "Sur les ailes du courage" recounting
the life of an American pilot, shot down with his aircraft on the bridge of Ce
on the Loire, during the French campaign: "The objective of this mission was the Maisons-Laffitte
bridge, one of the sectors near Paris where the flak was the 'most terrible' and
experience had taught the men to be wary of the place."
4 - All the details concerning the actions of the Resistance are from Bernard
MORINAIS (active member of the Rail Resistance in Sartrouville) and those
concerning the bombings and the movements of the aircraft are from Claude FAIX,
who contacted the American archives and the managers of the historical research
center of the US AIR FORCE
This account has tried, as far as possible, to respect the truth as closely as
possible and to be objective, relying on reliable testimonies or existing
documents. But it is understood that certain facts may have been experienced or
felt differently by some and others and this account can certainly be completed
with interesting details.
List of unexploded bombs identified in Sartrouville after the 1944 bombings
(undated document from the Sartrouville archives: probably period close to the
bombings)
- 5 bombs rue de l'Eglise between the chemin du petit prunay and du grand prunay
- 1 58 av. Carnot (garden of M. QUINTO)
- 1 20 rue Carnot (fence of M. BALLAGNY / sidewalk)
- 1 9 av. Pasteur (garden of M. BARRAULT)
- 1 9 av. Carnot (cellar)
- 1 av. Maurice Berteaux - M. FESNAY (?)
- 1 8 rue Victor Hugo (garden of M. RETIF)
- 1 16 av. Ronce (garden)
- 1 4 rue Victor Hugo (M. VIEILLAME behind the wall of the garden at the bottom
of the railway
embankment)
- 1 49 route de Cormeilles
- 1 in a field route de Cormeilles
- 1 behind the SCAN factory
- 1 av. G. Clemenceau (M. METEYER - corner rue de la Station)
- 2 rue de la Constituante (opposite No. 31)
Schematic table of the volume of bombs dropped on Sartrouville
(Info: US Air Force Historical Research Agency)
| Date | Number of aircraft | Tonnage dropped | Time
27 May 1944
29 B-26 | 56 tonnes | 13h45
33 B-26 | 45 tonnes | 20h
28 May
31 B-26 | 41 tonnes | 10h10
28 B-26 | 47 tonnes | 11h30
33 B-26 | 45 tonnes | 19h49
30 B-26 | 66 tonnes | 20h00
39 B-26 | 66 tonnes | 20h45
24 June
11 P-47 | 5.5 tonnes | 19h11
TOTALS | 241 aircraft | 410.5 tonnes (including 339 of 1 t.)
(Document noted on July 1, 2000 at the Sartrouville Museum on an exhibited
document)
City of Sartrouville
Report of Mr. SANG, Urban Director of Passive Defense - Deputy Mayor on the
bombings of May 27 and
28, 1944
During these days of May 27 and 28, 1944, the town of Sartrouville was bombed 7
times in 30 hours.
The victims are numerous and the damage very significant. It was impossible to
establish a detailed
report for each bombing separately, too close to each other, we cannot determine
exactly which are
the victims and destructions attributable to each of them. Consequently, we
indicate below, grouped
in a single questionnaire, the main characteristics of these disasters. Attached
is a plan of
Sartrouville showing the points of impact, the hatched parts representing the
disaster areas.
Bombings of May 27 and 28, 1944
Number of bombings: 27 May 13:30 to 14:10
Types of aircraft: American four-engine bombers
Average altitude: Likely 3000/3500 m
Direction of aircraft during attack: 1st and 2nd: West/East
Following: Southwest/Northeast
Number of squadrons: ?
Targets: Main target: Railway bridge. Secondary target: road bridge. All these
points apply to the 7
bombings.
Points hit
- 1st bombing: Station (a train arriving from Paris was hit and caught fire) - Bains douches (corner Leon Fontaine and Palis streets)
- Old Town Hall (St-Germain
street)
- 2nd bombing: Avenue Dijou - Kleber street - Pierree street - Carnot street - Victor Hugo street
- 3rd bombing: Quai du Pecq, on both sides of the bridge - Hortense Foubert
street
- 4th bombing: New Town Hall - Fire station (Ferme street) - Main garage (Hotel
de Ville street)
- 5th bombing: Between the new Town Hall and the Seine
- 6th bombing: Between the new Town Hall, the railway line and the Seine - Avenue Dijou
- 7th bombing: New Town Hall - Avenue Foch - Palis street - Constituante street
Number of projectiles: About a thousand
Nature of projectiles: Explosive bombs. Some bombs did not explode
Number of large buildings destroyed or damaged: About 500 buildings and
pavilions irreparable
according to approximate evaluation of the building reconstruction services
Number of pavilions destroyed or damaged: ?
Implementation of rescue
- Rescue organizations: Passive Defense - Red Cross emergency team - National
Equipment - C.O.S.I. - National Relief - A.S.A - C.R.C. - Bridges and Roads - Firefighters (Argenteuil sector)
- Evacuation of the dead: Gathering of bodies at the market for identification
and coffining
- Evacuation of the wounded: At the Dispensary for first aid and evacuation to
the hospitals of St-Germain, Argenteuil, Montmorency, Paris
- Number of dead: Approximately 250
- Number of wounded treated at the dispensary or on site: 700 to 800
- Number of wounded sent to hospitals: 150 to 200
- Number of disaster victims: About 3,500
Original source: http://www.arqm.asso.fr/documents/histoire/La_vaudoire_en_1944.pdf
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