Fernand OLARD, 5 years old in 1944 his memories of 6 June
Testimony very alive. Some facts could be put back in time. These are the memories of a 5-year-old.
I was born in 1939 and grew up with war.
On D-Day we were a family of 10 people including 8 children and lived in Rue Pavée in Vierville on sea.
The risks of landing were clear, people dug trenches in their garden or other places to avoid bombings.
Our mother had us do some rehearsals: when she told us, we each had to take our small pack of Sunday clothes and our pillow and come to their room to dress up. To go faster we had to go through a hatch that was on the landing. The four girls were in another room. Then we had to go to the grandparents' house with our pillows on our heads.
We're just a few days away from the landing, even though we're just kids, we realize something's wrong with our parents' behavior, we're waiting for us to know what.
At last the D-Day arrived,
This 6th of June it was supposed to be about 6 a.m. when our mother called us from the famous hatch. This did not happen as planned: my 2 older brothers did not take care of me who was asleep. I answered the second call, and when I saw myself alone I started crying for fear. After climbing the hatch I arrived in pajamas without my luggage and didn't want to go look for them, I woke up badly. Finally everything came in order, we went with our pillows on our heads to take refuge in the house of the grandparents on the side of the road, our father huddled us all in the fireplace.
A few minutes later there was a huge explosion, the windows and curtains of the window of the kitchen where we were crossed the room, we could no longer go out because the neighbouring house had just collapsed completely blocking the exits. It was Madame HELENE and her son Louis (worried not to see us arrive as planned) who came to our aid. While leaving us one by one out of the window that was on the road, Madame HELENE yelled at our father for putting us in a house when there was a trench for that. We had 50 meters to make, the shelter was in Mr. BLIN's garden. Having arrived the last, always with our pillows, we were the first to come out. I was in fourth or fifth position, all lying at the bottom of the trench. Our father was right at the entrance and stood up.
The bombardment was well under way, shrapnel fell everywhere, cracking on the slugs that covered the trench. At one point there was a shrapnel that crossed, it fell on the shoulder of my brother Jacques, it was Louis HELENE who was behind him who brought him down with an energetic hand.
Time passed, the shots were no longer continuous, there were a few tears from there. The bombardments resumed and stopped, some Americans arrived with people and asked us to come with them to the school where they gathered us all in order to get us down to the sea and embark on a boat. They did not understand that the village had not been evacuated before the landing, because being blocked on the beach they would certainly bomb our village.
We were very numerous under the school's roof, there were only 4 or 5 Americans with us. They were ready to take us down to the sea when a huge explosion flew the plates and the structure of the meadow and collapsed part of the post office, there was only one civilian victim and an American killed (this is certainly the bombing of the Vierville junction by the Germans on June 7th, not June 6th, around 8:30pm GMT+2). We were in a black smoke that smelled the powder and dust of the destroyed houses. The attempt at boarding had just failed because people left in every direction.
The day of June 6, 1944 ended, it was dark in the trench where we were all settled to sleep.
On the morning of June 7, by group, we left for St Laurent. There were shots that were supposed to come from the Picquenot farm. As my brothers Jacques and Louis were in another group, my father wanted to go and find them all to stay together. To do this he confided my sister Jacqueline (3 years old) to an American who spoke French, this soldier said to him "give me, I will hold her". My father crawled away, a few meters further the girl had joined him, he turned half to give it back to the American: he was dead (he was a Canadian). My father stayed with us because he saw the group to stop him too. When it was quieter, our group left and joined the one where our 2 brothers were. When we arrived, the group left slowly but arrived in front of the garage (at the exit from Vierville) we were stopped for the rest of the day. All the groups crossed the great slope and sheltered themselves in the hollow of the ditch opposite the road, it was the end of the second day
(It is probably here that the entire population of Vierville, near the school, must be regrouped on June 7 at the end of the day, which ended with the German bombardment of the crossroads and the destruction of the school, post office and associated housing.)
When we woke up on the morning of the 8th, many of us came out of this great ditch. We slept without our pillows abandoned the day before but wrapped in American blankets. I was very surprised to see so many people coming out of the ditch and regrouping in the field to know what direction to take. We were among the Americans, we felt protected. After talking to the Americans, our father made the decision to go down to the sea to put his family safe as he was proposed on June 6. We went through the field, we passed behind Mr. Picquenot's farm, crossed the great field of the Auperonne and arrived right in front of the church that had suffered enormous damage, we crossed the presbytery which was now a pile of stones.
When we arrived on the road there was no longer a single house standing: until the crossroads everything had been destroyed: the houses, the post office, the school, the hotel of "the headpiece", the station and many others ... Large American bulldozers cleared the roads so that all kinds of gear that went up from the sea could pass. Without stopping us we descended the only little road leading to the sea. When we arrived at the beach it was an amazing show, we couldn't move forward, we remained frozen, looking, trying to understand. As far as we are concerned, our father is determined to embark for England to make us safe. The Americans tell him that it may be possible, but for this it is necessary to go to exit E1, that is to say to the Ruquet (in St Laurent).
Then begins an unimaginable journey on this morning of 8 June: we will cross the 3 kilometers of beach in an inextricable capharnaum. The sea, as far as you can see, is filled with boats of all shapes and sizes. There's no road anymore, it's just barges, trucks, vehicles of all kinds reduced to piles of scrap. From the beginning it was necessary to make a passage among all this imbroglio, but there was even worse! A hundred metres further away, (in the location of the 1st1st There were thousands of dead soldiers that we had to cross in order to get through. Our sister Monique, who was carrying the first aid box, was not supposed to lift her legs high enough because she stumbled on several corpses, she made signs of a cross while praying. Some were stacked about 3 or 4 in thickness and several tens of meters in length. The Americans used white cloth tarpaulins to cover them after they sprinkled them with white powder. It was large coils about 2 meters wide with handles through each end that 2 soldiers ran. Our father said: "It's nothing they sleep, go forward, move forward, don't stop." My sister Odette, who was holding my hand, said to me, "Look at these, the poor were butchers," they were in pieces, and there were many. A little further, soldiers kept bringing them on stretchers, this is where they were identified, for us it was a terrible spectacle. We continued our journey, we did not move forward fast, because sometimes we had to make big differences to find a way.
Finally we arrived at St Laurent: there might have been more equipment on the beach but less scrap metal than in Vierville. We always go to the Ruquet, we see a house that is not completely destroyed: our father decided to stop there for a while before leaving, we had little more to drink and eat.
(see above picture of the Olard family installed in the Ruquet, and the photo with identification of parents and 8 children)
Hardly settled, some Americans came out of us: for them, the house no longer stood, they asked our father what we were doing here, he explained to them his desire to embark for England. The Americans escorted us to the headquarters at the Ruquet Blockhouse.
We were well received, they gave us a drink and distributed us rations. It was no longer about going to the English, all for nothing? The officers explained to our parents that the area was secure, that there was nothing to be afraid of, that we could go home.
There were thousands of soldiers climbing through the cliff, for the only small trail that existed at that time could only receive small vehicles. They took us with them to the top of the cliff, and there, turning towards the sea, I could never explain what I saw from this place. The panorama was beautiful. It was only in the film "I must save Private Ryan" that I found the most beautiful reproduction of this place. (This is a very beautiful document for those who have not known this passage of history).
We quickly arrived at the first houses in St Laurent, we stopped at the house called "the barracks" where the BISSON family lives. Seeing in the state of fatigue where we were, Madame BISSON gave us a little snack with a little coffee left behind. Then we took the road back to the house of the CORDIER where we spent the night and then left for Vierville.
Finally we arrived in front of the house, it was June 10. A pleasant surprise was waiting for us: on the pile of stone of the house which had collapsed on the morning of June 6 and which always closed the entrance, there was our black chicken with its chicks. We're all up on the pile of rocks to get the chicks back and put them safe with their mother. We were all happy: she had waited for us.