Le Chas d’Af, Chéchia rouge à 3 bandes noires dans le bas. La veste dans le pantalon, ceinture rouge, ceinturon et les fameuses bandes molletières !



Au 1^er RCA. Etape sur la route de Mediouna. Je suis le personnage debout à gauche et revêtu de la gandoura blanche. (Djellaba légère en voile, alors que la djellaba est en drap.)





A Mediouna, en djellaba, bandes molletières et armé du « mousqueton », petite carabine à un coup qui équipait, à l’époque, la cavalerie, tant à cheval que motorisée.
















Eté 42. Mon peloton lors d’un déplacements en vélo à Mediouna. Je suis quelques part dans le fond, Au premier rang, au centre, mon ami Lamotte, qui sera tué le 21 avril 1944 dans son char à Vaihingen, faubourg de Stuttgart.




















Au 1^er RCA, avec, au premier rang, Lasserre, moi et derrière, Ver Haegen, Ferret, Sampieri et (bandeau sur l’œil) Samson, qui sera tué lors du débarquement du 8 Novembre 1942.

Au 1^er RCA en treillis bourgeron, ceinture rouge et ceinturon, lors d’une garde aux garages à Casa, Au camp de la Jonquière.

Year 1942.

Up until the 8th of November 1942, nothing much happens in my life as a soldier, but I will quickly go over this period during which, after my basic training, I join my squadron’s office as a secretary. I’m in charge of maintaining the staff’s military records and of setting up the troops’ salary. I must have at least a year of service before I can be considered to enter the corporal-sergeant course; that’s the way it was then.

At the end of my training, I have managed to obtain the motorbike license and, in the event of a mobilization, I will be used as a motorized courier. Also I am handed a small 125cc Terrot motor bike; I only use it at the rare times of military exercises but I am in charge of its maintenance and I must present it at each Saturday’s equipment review. I also take part in the squadron’s marches. At least twice a month we go, by foot of course, to firing practice at the camp of Mediouna (approximately 20 km from Casablanca); we also go cliff climbing on the oceanfront, in the south of Casa, very close to Anfa.

On this subject here is an anecdote: when we return from this last exercise, we have to walk past the Hotel of Anfa where is installed the German Armistice Council and, in quick time and in row of three, weapon on the shoulder, we sing at the top of our lungs the song of our regiment and, more particularly the following passage: “Even in Sedan, of tragic memory, the old chaps of Af' charged with a smile, the Boches could hardly believe it and in spite of themselves they said: Ah! Good people!.” To my knowledge, that never brought us any trouble.

In response to inter-zones cards I sent to both my mother and my father in December, I receive, in March, an answer announcing that my mother left Mont of Marsan and returned to Parentis en Born back with my father whom she had divorced in 1931. Without much hope that they reach them, I address them some photographs of their soldier son. They will not go further than Marseilles from where they will be returned to me with the mention “no dispatching”.

In spring, a new batch of recruits arrives and, among them, a young Marseillais, Jacques Lamotte, who will also become an excellent friend. And it is the garrison life, day after day. From time to time our officers keep us informed of what they know and they ask us to continue hoping that the day will come when we can take our revenge. To tell the truth, at the moment that seems rather unlikely since, if the Russians still defend Stalingrad bitterly, on the other hand, in front of El Alamein, Rommel makes it hard for the 8th Army now commanded by Marshal Montgomery. We have no radio to keep us up to date with the news but we read the local newspapers (Le Petit Marocain and La Vigie) that yaouleds come to offer us within the camp’s enclosure. These newspapers are mostly uncensored - they circulate the information aired by Radio Tangier and Radio Sottens, which are wholly neutral.

At the end of October, I am 19 years old and have 1 year of service; I am about to follow the group of student officers’ courses that is starting soon…

We are now in November 1942 that will mark a critical turning point, not only in my life, but also in the history of the second world war.

November 7, 1942

If I remember well, it falls on a Saturday. Lasserre, Lamotte and I left the camp at around 6 p.m., on leave for entertainment until midnight. All is very calm when we leave. After a halt at L’Automatic we go to the cinema, Place de France, to watch an American film the name of which I forgot. After the current events and the interval, the film has been running for a little while when suddenly the projection is stopped, the light floods the room, the manager goes up on the stage and declares: “The military authority gives the order to all the soldiers present to join their units immediately, trucks await them to bring them back.” All three of us leave and, in the trucks, we find other comrades. Our group is actively scrutinizing the situation. What’s happening? Did the Germans attack Spain? Or has Pétain been assassinated? In fact, none of us thinks for one instant of the imminence of the Anglo-American landings in North Africa: Operation Torch.

When we arrive at the Camp we find it bubbling with anticipation. We are given the order to get in battle dress and to be ready for operations within two hours. Initially, we have to go to the garages, to set all the vehicles to run on gasoline (it is a simple operation for which we have all been trained and that consists in simply switching the carburetors’ nozzles). Then we collect our armament, ammunition, food, clothes and we get our pack ready for campaign. The preparations are quickly carried out, without panic, because if we do not know exactly the reason for this “battle footing”, there are rumours amongst us that the English and the Americans are preparing landings in North Africa and more importantly, on the Moroccan coast. We have been anxiously following the current events: on the one hand the Japanese invasion in the South Pacific, on the other hand the inexorable advance of Rommel and his Afrika Korps towards Cairo. Also we are a little perplexed and we wonder how, when they are in such deep sh..ugar , the Anglo-Americans can set up such a monumental operation - and yet they do!

Four a.m., November the 8th. My squadron has been ready to leave for a long time; we are awaiting the orders. All is calm and silent. Suddenly, towards the West, a humming of planes can be heard that swells in a few seconds; we can see their side-lights, the planes come from the ocean and fly very low. Not a shot, not a bomb, but a multitude of leaflets that are dropped on the camp and its surroundings. I collect one of them; it is written in French and Arabic. It bears the signature of the General Dwight Eisenhower and it says something like: “We come as friends to help you rid of the Nazi yoke, do not shoot at us and you will not be harmed.” Operation Torch has just begun.

Unfortunately the General Nogues, who commands in Morocco, decided that he would oppose by force any attacker, whoever it is. We will learn later that he even had the General Béthouart, his assistant, put under arrest since Béthouart did not want to fight the Anglo-American force. Obeying the orders of Nogues, the aviators and sailors with AA defense open fire on the leaflet droppers who, later in the morning, will return with something other than leaflets…

Around 7 a.m. we receive the order to leave for Casablanca seaport where there are a few units of the navy: one of them is the battleship Jean Bart that, while in its final stage of construction, succeeded to leave Brest in June 1940, just hours before the arrival of the Germans. It is docked and cannot put out to sea, its machines are not sea worthy, and it has only one turret of three 380mm guns with which, in the morning, it will fire on the US squadron that is off the coast. There are also the cruisers Gloire and Primauget as well as two or three smaller ships (torpedo-boats or destroyers I believe), one of them being Le Milan.

On the port, there is not much we can do but keep score, since indeed the US planes are back, quite recognizable with their square wings ends (I will learn later that they are the US Navy’s Grummann Martlets). First they take it out on the aerodrome of the Cazes Camp where there are some French planes and where the AA batteries were first to open fire; we hear bombs explode and, soon, we see a large black cloud going up in the sky. The aerodrome’s fuel and ammunition depots are burning. From the quay, still moored, the Jean Bart fires towards the sea with its 380mm guns. Without delay, around 9 a.m., we get the response. From where I am, I see Grummann Martlets, very high above the seaport, topple one after the other and dive on the French ships that managed to cross the channel and are firing with all their AA weaponry. Eating into their resources, the planes start releasing their bombs. Le Milan, sailing approximately 2km from us, gets one right on its back and, emerging from the smoke of the explosion, through the binoculars I see a heavy machine gun turning around its axis, on its own, pointed towards the sky, but there is no trace of its servant -undoubtedly volatilized.

It is crazy to witness the war this way, as a spectator, as at the cinema, since we can see full well that these bombs are not intended for us!

Soon the planes are not alone to enter in action and, with a big whoosh of air, a flight of large shells fired by the US battleships (at least from the 380mm) falls down on the port and its surroundings. I do not have time to be afraid because the closest explosions land several hundred meters behind us, in waste grounds. And that goes on, in a sporadic way, throughout the day.

In the afternoon, a group from my squadron is sent in reconnaissance on the Casa-Rabat coastal road, to check whether the route is free because the group of squadrons from CASA received the order to join as soon as possible most of the 1st RCA in Rabat. Before arriving in Fedala (approximately halfway between Casa and Rabat), the group must turn back: they have observed that a great number of Americans are landing on the beaches with amphibious tanks and that the road is cut. Thus to reach Rabat we will have to make a large detour inland. So at the end of the afternoon we leave for Camp Boulhaut, then Camp Marchand where we will spend the night.

On November 9th, it rains; we have left the tarred road and drive on tracks in the direction of Temara where we will find the direct road Casa - Rabat, approximately 10 km before Rabat. Driving on tracks does not present particular difficulties neither for the trucks of my squadron nor for the Hotchkiss and Renault tanks of the 2nd Squadron. But for the rather inexperienced motorcyclist that I am, with my small Terrot 125 cc, it is a real struggle to drive on this very wet clay track. Indeed, every 300 or 400 meters I have to stop and remove the lumps of clay wedged between the mud-guard and the wheels and which prevent me from moving. It’s a living hell and it’s not long before I find myself on my own, though I’m not last since the breakdown van is far behind me, busy repairing other broken down vehicles. 300 meters after 300 meters, I continue to move on in a plain of reddish mud, with no tree in sight, nor a house or even a “mechta” (Arab house); I’m in a ‘bled’ in all its meanings , whereupon the rain finally stops.

Just before midday, while I am once more busy pulling the bike out of the mud, there comes a visitor. A Grummann passes by, hedgehopping. I am rather worried but, since I have my carbine (a sort of rifle) slung over the shoulder, the pilot can see that I have no hostile intention towards him (anyway, that would be a bit presumptuous of my part, to say the very least!). Therefore he just turns twice above me, waving from behind his cockpit, which I take as encouragement to continue my work and, gaining altitude, he heads for the West. At last, I connect with the column that had stopped to allow a regrouping of its units before arriving in Temara; then, after a little while, we set out again. At the head, behind the car of the Captain Blacas, there is a group of three Laffly armoured cars: they are antiquated machines equipped with a sliding roof that allows the shooting of planes from a rifle machine gunner 24-29 (manufactured in 1924, modified in 1929). Then, surrounded by the motorcyclists who come and go along the column, comes a stream of troops and gear trucks down to the good old traveling kitchen, commonly called ‘la roulante’.

The column starts on the Casa-Rabat road and enters Temara when a flotilla of Grummann appears. In a few seconds it all goes wrong. We are no longer the spectators but the actors and also the victims of a appalling war film, of a terrible tragedy.

Who gave the Laffly armoured cars the order to open fire? Undoubtedly someone who felt compelled to obey the orders of General Nogues. The thing is, the shooting of our light machine guns has no other effect on the planes than to set off a particularly bloody response. Taking the road of row, they fire all of their caliber 50 machine-guns, causing real carnage: about thirty of ours are killed. The captain Blacas is one of them, shot down in his car, a bullet straight in the head, and there are also my comrades Samson, Letang, Verpilier, Vesperini, Muiron, Philippoteaux. We also have about sixty wounded, more or less seriously injured. It suffices to say that, in a few minutes, my squadron has practically ceased to exist.

As far as I am concerned, as soon as the machine-gunning starts I find myself in a ditch, with my motor bike, and under a thicket of prickly opuntia (a species of cactus) of which I truly can’t feel the prickles. Most of our trucks are in flames; from everywhere arise shrieks and howls of pain. The planes are gone, I stand up. For me, this is the apocalypse, a living nightmare. Through the smoke I see the shadows emerge of comrades as stupefied as I am, struck by the enormity of the disaster that has just taken place. I find Lasserre and Lamotte who, just like me, are lucky to be unhurt. With other comrades we set about pulling the wounded away from the flames and helping them the best we can. The place reeks of the terrible stench of roasted flesh. Some ranked survivors restore some sort of order and draw up a first assessment. The truck that transports the squadron’s office did not suffer too much, however the chief accountant (Major Douillet) is seriously wounded and Sergeant Oswald is also wounded, though more slightly.

That is how, at hardly 19, I receive my baptism of fire. Still the Anglo-Americans had come as friends and they were constrained to fire at us, just as in Mers El Kebir. Woe to those responsible!

In the evening, what remains of our 5th squadron manages painstakingly to reach Rabat where, since operationally speaking the squadron does not represent anything any more, we are put at rest to tend to our wounds. We learn that, as in Fedala, the Americans landed at the north of Rabat, in Sidi Bou Knadel and Mehdia in spite of the “very muscular” defense of the 8th RTM (Regiment of Moroccan Riflemen). In Oran and Algiers too the English landed but, since some French leaders, civil and military, were in the know, contrarily to what happened in Morocco there was no reported resistance on the part of the French Army. Just as well, otherwise Hitler would have had time to seriously reinforce Von Arnim’s army: he had sent it to Tunisia to protect the back of the Afrika Korps and to fight the storming of Bizerte by the Anglo-Americans.

On November 11th, the French Army of Morocco ceases all resistance. To be sure, November 11th seems dedicated to the ends of conflicts but this one will never be particularly celebrated. On November 12th, what remains of the 5th squadron of the 1st Regiment of Hunters of Africa returns to the camp of Jonquière in Casablanca in order to restore our condition and to prepare for our permanent relocation in Rabat, in a few weeks.

Heavy-hearted, we find ourselves very few in the buildings that we left only five days before - but what days. This evening, a new trumpet sounds the taps. From our windows we sadly look down to the main courtyard at the four corners of which our comrade Philippoteaux, a talented trumpet, used to sound the taps. When he played, for our greatest pleasure, the “fancy” call, full of arabesques and trills, we were moved and that encouraged us to think of our loved ones. It was a true moment of emotion and those who have seen the excellent film of F. Zinneman “From here to eternity” (1953) will understand: in the film, the bugler Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) sounds a very moving taps after the death of his friend Maggio (Frank Sinatra). Our comrade, our friend Poteau, as we called him, and many others, are no more. This first evening we mourn them.

For 48 hours we are kept at the camp; the blood of our dead is still too present in our mind for us to go and meet the GI's who are now numerous in Casa. Admittedly, they did not shoot first and many of us do not hold them responsible for the tragedy that plunged us in mourning. And then, very quickly, everyone understands that the page must be turned; all the more since we learn that in France, in reaction to operation Torch, the Free Zone was invaded by the German army and that in Toulon the French fleet was scuttled to prevent it from landing in Hitler’s hands. In addition, the first landed US divisions, fighting jointly with the French troops of Tunisia, made contact with the German troops of Von Arnim at the border of Tunisia and Algeria.

The Americans

Soon after mid-November we are allowed to go downtown and there we meet our first Rangers (Commandos) who were the first to land on the beaches, high in colour, loud-mouthed, showing off, a Colt 45 slung rather low in its leather case fastened to the canvas belt, they chew gum or for some (in particular the black), they chew something that resembles chocolate but that they spit out in dark spurts: they are actually chewing a honey-dipped tobacco. They also smoke cigarettes the taste of which we have forgotten some long months ago and whose smoke we smell with delight. The Rangers are generous with their cigarettes, so the Lucky Strike, Old Gold, Camels, Chesterfields and other Philip Morris find many enthusiasts; this is a pleasant change from the cigarettes known as “troop” to which we had become used.

From the start, the Rangers seek to become our friends. Contrarily to us they are not missing anything and they often make us presents also, on our leave, it is often that we return to the Camp with a few packs of cigarettes, chewing-gum or chocolate bars, but also sometimes cans of pork and jam, meat and beans, or the far less popular meat and vegetable stew.

We are filled with admiration for their equipment, the quality of their uniforms and how well adapted it is to the campaign life. On the other hand, they seem bewildered by our outfit. Our red chechia (hat) with 3 black bands makes them wonder, and so does the way we wear our uniform: our jacket is tucked in the trousers, around the waist we roll a broad red flannel belt and buckle a leather belt over it all. But there is one obsolete item of our equipment that makes the Americans laugh openly: the puttees. The GIs really do not understand how the French Army seems unaware that leggings have been around for years. Some GIs ask for our puttees as “souvenirs” and readily swap a cartridge of cigarettes for a pair, even worn, of these famous “bands”.

As for us , it is the sophistication of their equipment that astonishes us. Theirs is light years ahead of ours! First of all, these were amphibious tanks that brought the waves of Rangers onto the beaches. Floating tanks that can move thanks to their vanes- fitted tracks. This seems so unreal, we cannot believe our eyes, and yet it’s true! For my part, thereafter I will have the occasion to get much closer to the famous LVT (Landing Vehicle Tank) when, from 1952 to 1954 in Vietnam, I have ten of them under my command at the Foreign Legion where I served as Lieutenant for the 1st Amphibious Group of the 1st Foreign Regiment of Cavalry. There it will be equipment that the US Navy had used in the War of the Pacific, that of the glorious veterans survivors of the landings of Tarawa, Kwajalein, Saipan, Leyte, Ivojima or Okinawa and who were going to finish their career on the beaches of Annam or in the mud of the rice plantations of Cochinchine or Tonkin.

Another vehicle that also surprises us very much is this small cross-country car manufactured by Willys Overland, a General Purpose vehicle, in summary a GP and that is already known as the Jeep. I’m only 19 and many things astonish me; the vehicle looks like a toy, but a toy that will very quickly becomes essential and that will go through the phenomenal craze that it still retains.

Even before November is over, the traffic in Casablanca has vastly intensified . The seaport’s equipment virtually did not suffer from the combat and the “Liberty ships” and other cargo liners coming from US and UK follow one another at increasingly short intervals. The quays literally overflow with supplies: tanks, trucks, jeeps, guns, planes in boxes, ammunition, gasoline, food, clothing, in short all that is necessary for an army in campaign and which get bigger day after day. All of this gives the impression of being perfectly planned and organized and unravels in a remarkably orderly way.

In mid-December, my squadron, somewhat pepped up and its officering reorganised - we have a new captain: Captain Guibert, that, among us, we nickname “P’tit Louis” on account of his first name and small size – definitively leaves Casablanca to join up with the main part of the Regiment in Rabat where I integrate, finally, with the group of ranked students and which I will leave in February 1943 with the rank of sergeant (corporal).

Since Morocco and Algeria are freed from the German supervision, all the Frenchmen in age to bear arms are mobilized and they come to enlarge our regiment and to make new ones. Thus at the end of 1942, the 1st Regiment of Hunters of Africa, that hitherto comprised 6 squadrons of combat, now has 12 of them.

The Year 1942 thus comes to an end. It is now out of the question to get news from our families. There are fights in Tunisia where the General Patton’s Sherman American tanks, if I remember well, at the passage of Kasserine, clashed with the German Panther and Tiger tanks and suffered some losses.

On the other hand, happy, very happy news, in El Alamein where Monty has just forced Rommel to beat a retreat and in Stalingrad, where Von Paulus’s VIth Army is being surrounded by the “Popov”. In the Pacific, the Marines who landed in Guadalcanal in August are gaining the upper hand after having resisted the Japanese attacks, and are about to force the Mikado’s troops to either re-embark or die on the spot.

For what concerns us, from now on it is hand in hand with the Americans and the English that we now enter the dance and try to erase the shame of 1940. But, before, we must be equipped “from head to toe” because it is obviously unthinkable that we take part in this war with the little gear, largely out-of-date, that the Germans agreed to leave us, in the clauses of the Armistice. Also, as of the end of December, some comrades, mechanics by trade, set out for Casa to take part in the US assembly lines, with the conditioning of the Sherman tanks and the other vehicles with which we will be equipped as of February 1943.

I finish this year 1942 with a story that nevertheless relates to a dramatic incident that occurred at this time. On December the 24th at around 10 pm some of us are getting ready to go and attend the midnight mass that will be held in the vault of the Garnier Camp. My comrade Huisse, whose bed is next to mine, is already in bed and apparently asleep. A clever handyman, with an empty box of cigars, a piece of galena (a kind of lead-ore) that he got I do not know where from, some electric wire and some points and pins, an ear-phone, he managed to manufacture a small radio station. Because of the way he is turned and his blankets brought up to his eyes, I cannot see that he is wearing his ear-phones. All is calm in the room when suddenly Huisse abruptly sits up and howls: Darlan has been killed. A crazed look on his face he adds “no, I did not dream it, I just heard it on my radio!” Thus I will learn that this very controversial character died. The Admiral Darlan, sent by the Pétain Marshal, had found himself on mission in Algeria on November the 8th; he did not seem to be one of the leaders that knew about the planned landing. There was nothing he could do but concede in front of the fait accompli and considered he should be regarded as the only “legal representative” of France. And this, undoubtedly, was not to everyone’s taste!

Who armed Bonnier de la Chapelle, a student of just 20? Still now the opinions diverge and the truth will undoubtedly never be known since, arrested on the spot and condemned to death by a martial court, Bonnier de la Chapelle is executed on December the 26th.

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Year 1943                                                                          Top.