The American Spectator : D-Day and the Aging Frenchman

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D-Day and the Aging Frenchman

He lived a double life under Nazi occupation -- and loves what America did to liberate France.

André Bidet, still dapper and spry at 95, loves Americans. With poignant memories of living through the German occupation of France during World War II, he is one of a fast-fading generation of French men and women who think of the American soldiers who landed on Omaha and Utah beaches on June 6, 1944, as the most wondrous of "liberators."

That alone makes his story a worthy and necessary counterpoint to the vivid tales of heroic military actions by American and Allied forces, as told by President Barack Obama, and other heads of state, at the recent celebration of the 65th anniversary of D-Day.

During the occupation, millions of French people lived in a kind of netherworld between collaboration and resistance -- yearning for the day when the Germans would be driven out, yet forced to lend direct or indirect support to the Nazi war effort if they hoped to live any sort of a halfway comfortable or normal life. Living in this situation, Mr. Bidet found a quiet but most effective way of rebelling against Nazis: He supplied dynamite to the Resistance.

At the outset of the war, Mr. Bidet, a graduate of the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique, was pressed into service designing bomb bays for the French air corps. This was supposed to be a temporary assignment for the 31-year-old engineer. At any day, he expected to be re-assigned to his regiment in the French army as a tank commander. But then the Germany army and Panzer corps delivered a sudden and unexpected knockout punch -- crushing the French army and its tanks in the opening battle between the two armies.

Suddenly, Mr. Bidet was orphaned. He found himself, as he puts it, "a tank commander with no tanks" -- and, worse still, an army officer with no army after the swift and cataclysmic collapse of the whole army and government.

With a wife and one child (and six more to come -- three during and three after the war), Mr. Bidet moved to Brittany's Loire valley, where he found work as director of public works in a small town that owned a quarry. He wished for nothing more than "a place where there were no Germans," thinking he would make a separate peace for himself and his growing family. This turned out to be delusion.

In the spring of 1942, Hitler entrusted Albert Speer, his minister of munitions, with task of building the Atlantic Wall -- a 3,000-mile long string of bunkers, canons and other fortifications stretching from Norway to Spain -- and all along the French coast. The wall was to serve as a shield against any attempt at a seaborne invasion along the Atlantic coast -- making it impossible for Allied force to seize a major port, or to secure a beachhead between ports for any longer than it would take for the German army to rush several Panzer divisions to the spot and crush the invasion in its infancy. Speer called on the Todt construction company -- famed for building the German autobahn in record time -- to tackle this immense engineering exercise.

To build the wall, Todt required millions of tons of stone and cement, and needed skilled local engineers to supervise the work of blasting out rock and filling a never-ending stream of trains going back and forth from the interior to the coast. At the same time, with the help of Gestapo in instilling fear, they had to entrust some of their French helpers -- people like Mr. Bidet, compelled to take part in the enterprise as a seasoned executive and engineer -- with supplies of explosives. This, too, proved to be a mistake.

Even as work on the Atlantic Wall reached peak intensity, Mr. Bidet became sure that the tide had turned against the Germans. Secretly, with the news he picked up on a home-made radio, he kept a map tracking the advances that the Russian army was making against the Germans inside Russia. With his own eyes, he saw how the German army had been forced to take younger soldiers out of France and replace them with aging and infirm troops -- a sure sign of increased vulnerability to an Allied invasion.

Mr. Bidet gambled with his own life. Despite close surveillance and questioning by the Gestapo, he managed to secrete more than 50 kilos of dynamite and divert it to friends in the Resistance. This, in turn, was used to blow up bridges and trains and -- at the critical moment -- delay the rush of German reinforcements to the invasion area.

The Allies did not attempt a head-on assault of any port along the French coast. Instead, they defeated the Atlantic Wall through the brilliant stratagem of building an artificial, floating harbor -- code-named Mulberry -- for the purpose of unloading hundreds and thousands of jeeps, trucks, pieces of artillery and other equipment. To create a breakwater along a wild and unprotected stretch of beach, the Allies sunk old ships and huge concrete caissons; within the breakwater, they installed pontoon piers as landing ramps. This is how Albert Speer described the magnificent feat of Allied engineering (also more than two years in the making) that trumped his wall:

To construct these defenses, we had, in barely two years of hurried work, used 13,302,000 cubic meters of concrete, together with 1,200,000 tons of steel obtained from the armaments industry. A fortnight after the first (Normandy) landings, this costly effort was brought to nothing, thanks to an idea of simple genius. As we now know, the invasion forces brought their own harbors with them, and built, near Arromanches and Omaha, on an unprotected coast, the necessary landing ramps.

Omaha Beach was well defended. The loss of 1,465 American soldiers storming the beach testifies to that fact. Nevertheless, thanks the floating harbor established at Arromanches, to the east of Omaha Beach, the Allied forces were able to sustain their beachhead and go on the attack. No one was more ecstatic about that than Mr. Bidet. Within France, news of the landing "spread like wildfire," he says. Speaking as an engineer, he calls the Mulberry floating harbor -- "sensational, extraordinaire, phenomenal."

After the war, Mr. Bidet applied his engineering talents to the reconstruction of many of the French villages and towns that were destroyed by Allied bombing during the war. He became one of the leading executives in Richier, a French engineering company that made building cranes, cement mixers and other equipment used in the massive reconstruction effort made possible by the U.S.-funded Marshall Plan.

Just a little more than four years shy of his 100th birthday, Mr. Bidet remains physically and mentally fit. He darts about the harbor city of St. Malo (about a hundred miles south and west of Omaha beach) in his own car and he ambles happily up and down hillside parks and monuments without a cane or other assistance. I met the ebullient Frenchman on a two-week tour of contested cities and towns close to the D-Day beaches in which I sought out interviews with as many people as possible who had personal recollections of this historic event.

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topics:
World War II, D-Day, France

About the Author

Andrew B. Wilson is a freelance writer living in St. Louis.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (15) | Leave a comment

IMKessel| 6.16.09 @ 10:25AM

Welcome to the true believers, jeans.

Old Texican| 6.16.09 @ 11:32AM

I spent a lot of time in France during the 70s, when many WWII surviving Frenchmen were still out and about.
Almost Every time I ordered a meal or a drink, (In my Texican accent, Heh), I got a free glass of wine from one of those older gentlemen.

I must mention that I always wore my Stetson and boots when in Europe. The response was so common that I still get a tickle out of it...
"Ahhh Texxxxaaaas...merci' beau coup...to your fathers."

Pete| 6.16.09 @ 12:03PM

Too bad the younger generations of French people have been (re)educated just like in the US.

Marc Jeric| 6.16.09 @ 3:00PM

I visited those Normandie beaches on the 1985 anniversary. It was of interest for me to see a number of elderly German officers walking the Omaha Beach - they must have been wondering how those Texas rangers could have done it. Another sight was the graveyard with 9,900 American graves - with names of those 20-year olds from Kansas, Nebraska, etc. Why did they have to die so those salon communists in Paris could discuss the inferiority of Americans?

Al Adab| 6.16.09 @ 3:07PM

Ah Old Texican my friend, you put it well. I envy you for I have not made a pilgrimage to Normandy. nonetheless I would second your sentiments but must wonder, would we find the courage to do it again?

=Old Texican| 6.16.09 @ 6:10PM

Al Adab
God bless you, sir.
Will we do it again?...Heh!

We ARE doing it again...in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

Without us, those poor people would still have NO chance at liberty.

With our help...those people have a CHANCE at freedom.
Every one of our soldiers and Marines are volunteers...every single one.
Not one of them expects glory or pillage. Not one of them.
Thank God for these kinds of young men. I am frightened that our present admin simply doesn't get it either.
One day soon...the worry about these young men and women joining "terrorist ranks" may come true...if "terrorists" fight for our constitution as they each one swore to do.

Al Adab| 6.16.09 @ 6:45PM

Texican, it's just Al, thanks.
I have friends right today who are over there. Let us all pray that we never have to defend out Constitution against our own government.

Richard Baker| 6.16.09 @ 6:49PM

Sad that the next generation of Frenchmen were raised to think of the US as terrible. I think it's because DeGaulle hated for the Americans to do anything for him, so said General Bradley. Makes me wonder how many times we have to save the French from themselves. To the Maquis and the rest of the Resistance, Vive La France!

Alan Brooks| 6.16.09 @ 9:28PM

French believe in Liberte Egalite and Fraternite-- zat eez why so many Frenchman fraternized with zee Boches 1940- '44!

Mike Lee| 6.16.09 @ 10:32PM

We did it for them because for all of their ungratefulness they were a free nation attacked by a dictatorship. We don't have to always like each other but that is what free nations do.

Nick| 6.16.09 @ 11:11PM

The French are still paying the price for all the priests and nuns their ancestors murdered during the Reign of Terror.

Frank| 6.17.09 @ 2:46AM

True this generation of French people dont realize what we did for them twice.DeGaule was the first to start this hate America idea,Got American troops out of France France out of Nato.But The Soviets could have marched to the Channel anytime they wanted if the US didnt have thousands of Troops and equipment in Germsany for more than 40 years.
Some of the Marqui faught bravely--Especially when they realized the germans were going to lose.They helped a lot then,but were more brutal than the Germans who treated the French pretty well ,always hoping they might join them in the war.They did produce a lot for the German war effort,but the Allies gave them probably more civilian casualties than the Germans.With bombing raids,and the fighting after the invasion.DeGaule thought the Free French Did so much to liberate France,but maybe Polish ,Even Japanese Americans did more.

matt jones| 6.17.09 @ 3:45AM

hardly a counterpoint this is. rather it is an adjoining highlight which is cheapened by the unneccessary comment on President Obama's appearence. apparently the idea that people hate America are so denoted by those who criticize, yet here we are, constantly making criticisms under the right to free speech. while those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, those who do not consider how America responds to current crisises are under the very same category of those who fail to realize the impact these United States have.

Richard Baker| 6.18.09 @ 12:07AM

Al Adab:
Read Patrick Henry's speech on Liberty and Death. Also read Mr. Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. If Liberty and Freedom aren't worth fighting for then why have millions fought for just that over US history? Remember, Barry Goldwater said in 1964 that "Extremism in the pursuit of Liberty is no vice". Good advice, that.

poptropica | 4.9.10 @ 12:17AM

I’ll have a Poptropica full written walkthrough very soon, but in the meantime, here are some answers to some of the frequently asked questions about Mythology Island. Having trouble? Post a question in the comments and I’ll try to answer it!
Getting Hercules to Help You Poptropica

Hercules won’t help you until you have all five items from Zeus’ quest. Once you have the five items, bring them to Athena. Zeus will appear and steal them. The big jerk! Once this happens, talk to Athena and she will tell you that Hercules will help you. You’ll need to have the magic mirror from Aphrodite because Hercules doesn’t want to have to walk. He’s so lazy!
Getting the Hydra Scale Poptropica

You can see how to do this in the videos, but basically you need to jump up when the Hydra is about to strike. He will rear one of his heads back to attack and his eyes will bulge out. Poptropica When this happens, jump up in the air and then try to land on top of his head. That head will get knocked out. When all five heads get knocked out, the Hydra will be asleep and you can click on him to get one of the scales. Poptropica I’ll have a full written walkthrough very soon, but in the meantime, here are some answers to some of the frequently asked questions about Mythology Island. Having trouble? Post a question in the comments and I’ll try to answer it!
Getting Hercules to Help You

Hercules won’t help you until you have all five items from Zeus’ quest. Poptropica Once you have the five items, bring them to Athena. Zeus will appear and steal them. The big jerk! Once this happens, talk to Athena and she will tell you that Hercules will help you.Poptropica. You’ll need to have the magic mirror from Aphrodite because Hercules doesn’t want to have to walk. He’s so lazy!
Getting the Hydra Scale

You can see how to do this in the videos, but basically you need to jump up when the Hydra is about to strike. He will rear one of his heads back to attack and his eyes will bulge out.Poptropica When this happens, jump up in the air and then try to land on top of his head. That head will get knocked out. When all five heads get knocked out, the Hydra will be asleep and you can click on him to get one of the scales. Poptropica