In France, Father’s Day takes place on the 18th of June. While this important day may be over for this year, the question “What did you do in the War, Daddy?” is something children ask year round. From her home in France, Julia McLean tells the story of what happens in France of the 18th of June.
Most Canadians remember de Gaulle’s visit to Quebec in 1967 when he seemed to think it was a good idea to encourage the Quebecois to secede from Canada with his famous ‘Vivre le Quebec Libre’. Fortunately for Canada the Quebeckers stayed and he was ushered home to Paris ‘quick smart’. The fact the France’s great military leader, Napoleon, was defeated by Wellington at Waterloo probably still rankled with him.
However that may be, his call to arms on 18 June 1940 sparked the Free French movement which eventually led to many resistance movements and the ultimate defeat of the Nazis with a little help from his friends, the Allies. It must have riled De Gaulle that he had to call upon the British for help on the anniversary of the fateful defeat at Waterloo but, needs must, his France had to be saved.
De Gaulle fled occupied France on the 15th June and flew to London in a bi-plane. ‘To fly to over the English Channel was akin to crossing the Rubicon’ according to the historian, Antony Beevor, ‘De Gaulle was now technically a rebel and a deserter from the French army he loved.’
At the very moment De Gaulle landed in London, Petain was announcing an armistice to the French. De Gaulle met with Churchill and asked to be allowed to broadcast to the defeated French in order to try and raise an army to invade with the allies.
On the 18th June, the General gave a brief address ‘rich in the rhetoric of defiance’. “His language,” says Antony Beevor, “using the wave-like repetitions of classical oratory, acts like a poetic drum-roll”.
One of the few to hear this call to arms was the light house keeper on the tiny island of Sein (Ile de Sein) off the Pointe de Raz — the westernmost point of Brittany in north-west France. He immediately spread the news and gathered the small population of around 300 souls to hear the next edition on the 20th of June.
The 124 or so men on the island, took the immediate decision to leave for England and join the Free French forces. They set off in small fishing boats, crab boats and the light house boat itself for Newlyn in Cornwall. These Breton fishermen from ‘Little Britain’(Bretagne) all knew the way for they had been fishing and selling their produce in Cornwall (Great Britain) since the 1900’s.
They had friends there and some had married local girls. Between the 20th and the 26th of June, as word spread, more and more volunteers left various ports in Brittany for Cornwall. The mail boat Ar Zenith left from Audierne with soldiers from a local garrison and around 108 young pilots deserted from French Air Force base at Morlaix, sailing from Douarnenez on an accompanying crawfish boat.
None of these young men saw their families again till 1945. Many died and are commemorated on monuments at Ile de Sein, St Servan near St Malo, and Douarnenez.
All the hotels around Audierne were full in that week of June as French families gathered to celebrate the father of their country and his call to arms of the 18th June and film crews made short documentaries for broadcast in the evening news.
Families piled into tourist boats and crossed to the Ile de Sein for long lunches and bracing walks while the children plied them with “What did you do in the War, Daddy?” for like many children they have no concept of time, war nor the responsibilities of fatherhood.
More photos of Ile de Sein on these websites:
www.pbase.com/henkbinnendijk/sein
www.breizh-poellrezh.eu/ledesein,html
www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/iledesein29
References
Antony Beevor is the author of Stalingrad, Berlin: The Downfall, The Spanish Civil War and he co-authored Paris after the Liberation. Quotes are from an article in The Guardian on-line www.theguardian.co.uk on 27 April 2007.
A Century of Friendship by John McWilliams
Photos © J Mclean
Fishing boat in Audierne
Poulgoazec, Village and Church on Audierne inlet
Cottages on Audierne inlet-looking out to sea
Old docks at Audierne
Californian says
Fascinating article. There are many untold stories about the French who braved everything during WW ll. Thank you for the research and details.