Women of Valor
Authors: Ellen Hampton
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Contents
3. Fear and the Back Roads of the
Bocage
5. Romance, the River, and a Few Close Calls
6. A Warm Kitchen and a Cold Cellar
7. Grussenheim: The End of Winter
Epilogue: Coming Home is the Hardest Part
Appendix I: Toto’s Rules of Rochambelle Order
Appendix II: Timeline of Events
This book is dedicated to my dear uncles, who brought home from World War II stories to last a lifetime:
John H. Meyer †, Col.,
4
th
Infantry Division, 12
th
regiment,
and
Robert I. Gilbert, Lt.,
2
nd
Infantry Division, 38
th
Regiment.
Many Rochambelles gave much of their time and opened up their personal archives in order to bring this story to light. Jacqueline (“Jacotte”) Fournier, the eldest of the group, spent many hours remembering the tiniest details of her life as an ambulance driver sixty years ago. It wasn’t easy, and it is a measure of her patience that it wasn’t until nearly the end that she threw up her hands: “Ellen, you squeeze me like a lemon!” Jacqueline and her sister Suzanne were of invaluable assistance, as were Jacqueline’s memoirs. Rosette Trinquet Peschaud and Marie-Thérèse Pezet Tarkoy also were kind enough to let me read and use material from letters they wrote home during the war. They answered far too many questions, and Rosette patiently explained the jokes in Toto’s Rules when they were less than clear to me. Raymonde Jeanmougin took time out from her busy days at the Maison de la 2e DB to find books, dossiers, and phone numbers, and also to recount her own experiences. Danièle Heintz Clément and her husband Jacques were delightful hosts on several occasions, and Danièle’s well-thought-out perspectives on the war experience were particularly helpful. Edith Schaller Vézy, a monument to energy and verve, provided stories, along with permission to use material from her memoir, which were vital to this book. Many thanks also are due Arlette Hautefeuille Ratard, Madeleine Collomb Bessières, Anne Hastings, Janine Bocquentin Barral, Christiane Petit, Laure de Breteuil, and Michette de Steinheil. I am grateful to the volunteers and staff of the Mémorial du Maréchal Leclerc de Hauteclocque et de la Libération de Paris, particularly Charles Pegelu de Rovin, whose patience and knowledge were unending. Any mistakes in the book are my own and despite their great assistance.
I also would like to thank my agent, Robert Shepard, whose unflagging support and enthusiasm for the Rochambelles has been an inspiration, and my editor at Palgrave Macmillan, Alessandra Bastagli, whose clear vision greatly improved the story’s shape.
Many friends and family members have been steadfast in their certainty that the story of the Rochambelles would see the light of publication, and I appreciate their faith! I also would like to thank those whose comments and suggestions on the manuscript were most helpful: Christine Toomey, Nancy L. Green, Patricia Leroy, Charles Trueheart. Last but far from least, I would like to thank my husband and children for the time and energy they also gave to this project.
Florence Conrad
(1886–1966). American. Served as a nurse in WWI; as an ambulance driver, cantine organizer, and mail transporter in 1939–40; and organized the Rochambeau Group in New York in 1943. Appointed major in the Free French Army and led the Rochambelles until August 1944.
Suzanne Torrès
(1908–1977). French. Served as an ambulance driver in 1939–40, joined the Rochambeau Group in September 1943, and was appointed lieutenant in the Free French Army. Led the group until the German surrender, on May 8, 1945.
Joined the group
in New York
in spring 1943
(the “Archi-pures”)
Jacqueline Fournier
(1910– ). French. Served as an ambulance driver through the war, returning to civilian life in June 1945.
Germaine de Bray.
French. Left the group in December 1943 to join the Free French organization in Algiers.
Laure de Breteuil
(1924– ). French. Worked in hospital at Rabat, Morocco, married a French soldier there, and remained behind when the Rochambeau Group moved on.
Elizabeth de Breteuil
(1903–1962). French. Helped Florence Conrad get the group accepted into the Free French Army. Left the group in December 1943 to join the Free French organization in Algiers.
Anne de Bourbon-Parme
(1923– ). French. Left in December 1943 to join the Free French organization in Algiers.
Anne Ebrard Hastings
(1924– ). French, married to an American. Served as an ambulance driver through the German surrender in 1945.
Marianne Glaser
(?–1971). Austrian. Trained as an ambulance driver, but served as a translator for the U.S. Army from landing in France in August 1944 until wounded in Paris later that month.
Jacqueline Lambert de Guise
(?–1996). French. Served as a nurse until November 1944, then switched to ambulance driving, and continued on to Indochina.
Hélène Fabre.
French. Served as a nurse through to the German surrender in May 1945.
Marie-Louise “You” Courou-Mangin
(1917–2000). French. Married a French officer in Rabat in March 1944; left the group in August 1944 because of pregnancy.
Ena Bratianu
(?–1995). Romanian. Served as a nurse through the end of the war.
Yvonne Barbier
(1896–1987). French. Served as a nurse through the end of the war.
Joined the group
in Morocco
(the “Moroccans”)
Raymonde Jeanmougin Brindjonc
(1922– ). French. Served as an ambulance driver through the European campaign.
Christiane Petit
(1919– ). French. Served as an ambulance driver through the German surrender.
Rosette Trinquet
(1920– ). French. Served as an ambulance driver through the German surrender and continued on to Indochina.
Arlette Hautefeuille
(1919– ). French. Served as an ambulance driver through September 1944. Married a French officer in Paris in August 1944 and quit because of pregnancy.
Madeleine Collomb
(1917– ). French. Served as an ambulance driver through the German surrender and continued on to Indochina.
Lucie Deplancke
(?–1985). French. Served as an ambulance driver through November, and then returned to the group for Indochina.
Zizon Sicco
(?–1974). French. Served as an ambulance driver through the German surrender.
Edith Schaller
(1910– ). French. Served as an ambulance driver through the German surrender and continued on to Indochina.
Michette de Steinheil
(1920– ). French. Served as an ambulance driver through the German surrender.
Anne-Marie Davion
(1911–1984). French. Served as an ambulance driver through the German surrender.
Marguerite Benicourt Marchandeau
(1920– ). French. Served as an ambulance driver through November 1944.
Denise Colin
(?–1980). French. Served as an ambulance driver through January 1945; left due to illness.
Crapette Demay
(?–1987). French. Served as an ambulance driver through the German surrender and continued on to Indochina.
Kyra de Widstedt, Paulette Baudin, Antoinette Berger, Lucienne Berthelet, Liliane Walter, Biquette Ragache
and
Geneviève Roland
also joined the group in Morocco and served through the European campaign. Paule Debelle and Yvonne Negre joined in Morocco, served through Europe, and continued on to Indochina.
Joined the group
in England,
July 1944
Polly Wordsmith
(?–1965). American. Left the group in August 1944, severely wounded in the first week after landing in France.
Micheline Grimprel
(1918–?). French. Disappeared in August 1944 in Normandy.
Ghislaine Bechmann.
French. Served through the European campaign.
Christiane Portalier.
French. Left the group in Normandy.
Joined the group
in France
Danièle Heintz
(1922– ). French. Joined the group outside Paris and served through the European campaign.
Marie-Thérèse Pezet
(1913– ). French. Joined the group in Paris and served through the European campaign.
Janine Bocquentin
(1923– ). French. Applied to the group in Paris, worked at Val de Grace hospital there until called to join the group in Lorraine, October 1944. Served through the European campaign and continued on to Indochina.
Michelle “Plumeau” Mirande
(?–1989). French. Served through the European campaign and continued on to Indochina.
Tony Rostand
(?–2001). French. Served through the European campaign.
Suzanne Evrard, Berthe Brunet, Nicole Mangini, Amicie Berne, Jeanne Challier, Hélène Langé, Geneviève Vaudoyer,
and
Yvette Verge
also joined the group in France and served through the European campaign.
Women in an armored division! General Leclerc had never heard of such a thing. But there was the offer: if he wanted 19 brand-new Dodge ambulances for his fledgling division, he would have to take the women drivers with them. The women had been organized in New York months before by a wealthy American widow, Florence Conrad. She had brought the ambulances and drivers to Morocco in October 1943 by U.S. military transport, and there she was at the other end of the telephone line, insisting that the women’s ambulance group join Leclerc’s Second Armored Division. In a moment of surprised silence, Leclerc calculated. Ambulances driven by women were better than no ambulances at all. He probably figured the women would cut and run at the first firefight, and then he could replace them with proper male drivers. He relented. He told Conrad that the women could join the division if they could get through the rigorous training there in Morocco.
Accepting women into an armored division was an iconoclastic move on Leclerc’s part, but it fit perfectly in the context of his military strategy. Leclerc had a way of doing the unexpected, the audacious, the foolhardy—and making it look brilliant. Women certainly were unexpected in an armored division in 1943. At that time, women in France could not vote and had no more property rights than minors. They were not full-fledged citizens. Yet neither were they strangers to war.
Women have always been in the rocket’s red glare, French women perhaps even more than those of other nations. Napoleon’s
Grande Armée
counted scores of women working as food and goods suppliers, laundresses and prostitutes, as well as fighting soldiers, one of whom was decorated for bravery by Napoleon himself. Women stood fast at Austerlitz, retreated across the Berezina, and surely cried at Waterloo. The
Grande Armée,
which was the prototype of the modern army, also invented the ambulance, using horse-drawn wagons and removable stretchers.
