80th anniversary of the Normandy Landings: Le Havre, liberation in mourning (end of Battle, 9/9)

In the port of Haven, the Allies hope to land their equipment. Launched in pursuit of Germans towards the east, they cannot afford to keep the thorn of Le Havre behind their backs. The city must therefore to fall. Quickly.

As for the Germans, they want to keep Le Havre as they already guard other port cities in the west of France: Lorient, Saint-Nazaire… The war is not finished yet.

A challenge

From September 3, the city was surrounded and the General Crockercommander of the Allied forces, proposed to his German counterpart, Colonel Eberhard Wildermuth an unconditional surrender.

The German officer declined the invitation, asked his troops confined for the most part on the heights of the city to prepare for theassault. As for the people of Le Havre, they are hiding in the shelters of the city center and their cellars.

It will therefore be necessary to fight. Or rather, try to neutralize enemy batteries to seize the installations portwhile sparing the city and the civilians… A challenge.

On September 5, anchored off the beachthe monitor HMS Erebus and the battleship HMS Warspite kick off theOperation Astonia pulling 4,000 shells on German batteries.

A flood of fire

At the end of the afternoon, 348 aircraft from the Royal Air Force take over for a flood of fire.

1,800 tonnes explosive bombs, 30,000 bombs incendiaries were dropped in the space of barely two hours, transforming the city into a huge blaze. Witnesses would later say that the flames sometimes rose up to 300 meters.

This bombing raid of September 5 remains in history as the most dramatic never suffered by the city of Le Havre.

Others raidsless intense, will be carried out the next day, then on September 8, 9, 10 and 11, 1944. In total, more than 10,000 tonnes of bombs which crush the city in the space of a week.

Like Dresden and Hamburg

The results are appalling with more than 2,000 civilians killed or missing, 15,000 buildings including the Town Hall, the Saint-Michel church, the theater, the beautiful buildings boulevard François 1er, the Saint-Vincent de Paul district, rue de Paris… totally shaved.

The city is 85% destroyedto the point that it will then be compared to the German cities of Hamburg or Dresden shelled by Allied aircraft.

“It’s a systematic destruction…”

The Le Havre writer Bernard Esdras-Gosse will subsequently write an account of rare precision on these dramatic events: “House by house, stone by stone, under the blows, the most beautiful neighborhoods of Le Havre are crumbling, falling in dust… It’s a systematic destruction…”

He continues: “Under the ruins of the great Theater lie the FFI who had hidden there while waiting for the time of action… There are also civiliansmen, women, children that the fire threatens, that the fire torture… “

Astonishment

On September 12, believing that the fight is lost and he must worry about the lives of his men, Colonel Wildermuth finally signs his surrender. But in Le Havre, the time is not for celebration and jubilation. The time is at grief.

We bury the dead, we mourn the missing. There is not a single Le Havre resident who has not lost at least one person of his entourage.

Certainly, the population remaining in town, buried in cellars and shelters for a week, was relieved to see the arrival of liberators. But it is a state of astonishment which dominates after bombings who preceded.

The population is like dazed by so much violence and fire. In total, 80,000 Le Havre are affected, including 35,000 who have lost everything.

Bodies buried in haste

From September 12, we bury the bodies Quickly, where there is space: in Square Saint-Roch, on Place Thiers and Place Gambetta. THE body which could not be identified are burned on site to avoid epidemics. No, that day, Le Havre doesn’t have the heart to celebrate.

In the evening, the mayor, Pierre Courant, went to the Memorial who miraculously escaped destruction. Thousands of people from Le Havre are there to share this moment of newfound freedom, but also to give back tribute to the victims.

We sing the Marseillaise tears in my eyes, holding high flags tricolors decorated with black crepe.

No ball for the liberators

“We should never have allowed these bombings of part of the city which had the consequence of stopping life in what remained of it…”

The atmosphere is heavy. The British Captain Martin Lindsay notes in his diary that he cannot help but notice that the residents are fresh towards him.

“We should never have allowed these bombings of a part of the city which had the consequence of stopping the life in what remains of it… This made us very unpopular. »

The English who hoped that a ball could be organized, to celebrate the Release, as was done elsewhere, remain hungry. There was not a single one Le Havre to decide to organize the party.

Smile

You have to wait until October 7 and the visit of General de Gaulle so that the city finally finds the smile. It’s in a big fervor popular that the population welcomes the one who refused to abdicate in the face of Nazism.

“We must revive France at all costs…”

Crossing the city in ruinsthe General is deeply marked and declares: “We must raise the France no matter the cost… “

On the balcony of the Prefecture, he will launch “Au Haven wounded for France, but alive, and who will be great.” The call of General will be heard.

From the winter of 1945, the traffic resumes, the tram and the funicular are working again, while the port gets up quickly.

Author: Philippe Rifflet

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