Evacuees
Tuesday, August 13, 2019 at 9:16AM Thursday, June 13, 1940
We were able to make contact with the army again. We found some officers to command us. We found parts of the 11th infantry reconnaissance group of our division, who are in trucks. We talked with the guys. Lucky. There are two men from the same village as the deputy corporal, Charles Poix, from Beuvry les Béthune. One guy’s from Denain, Maurice Larivière. Once the preparations had been made, we abandoned our (stolen) bikes and got into the covered Diamond-Studebaker trucks, with our new friends, towing a field kitchen. No shortage of food on board. Finally among other Northerners. The highest-ranking officer among us is a chief corporal, “Bibi” – it’s Alfred!
At random, we decided to go towards Mailly because the roads were full of evacuees. On the way, we picked up a grandma and her granddaughter (4 or 5 years old) who need to get to Angoulême. That’s not exactly next door. We brought them on board and promised to drop them off as close as we could to the capital of the Charente.