The Fighting Continues

As Jules Perret writes in his journal on Thursday, September 7, 1944, “Our maquis is known now.  They’re not being careful enough.  Their cooking is done at the parsonage, in the middle of the village.  How could we resist an attack with so few guns and such poor ammunition?  We are at the mercy of the unending columns of retreating Germans along the roads.”

The Etobonais were indeed taking risks. They had captured German soldiers whom they had wounded in small skirmishes. On Friday, September 8, some of the gendarmes who had become resistance ambushed a German soldier who was riding a bicycle near Chenebier and shot him in the leg. He was brought back to the parsonage where Mme. Marlier tended to his wounds.

On Saturday, September 9, a fateful battle took place along a main road through the woods. Jules Tournier, the field commander of the Etobon maquis, led a group of men to ambush a German convoy. They had planned to meet the convoy at a bend in the road, and had stationed a lookout to fire a warning shot as the Germans approached. Somehow, a shot was fired too soon.

A motorcycle guard and a carload of officers were the first of the convoy to reach the bend. The maquis opened fire. Then, two open trucks of soldiers with machine guns arrived and opened fire on the French. A full-scale battle began. Tournier, the commander, was shot through the heart and died on the road.



Death of an Occupier

The German officer who had fought to escape capture in Etobon lies in a field. Jules Perret had gone home to supper, but had to return to the place where the officer fell to see what would happen next:

"When I come back, I ask [my son] Jacques, “Is it over?”  “I think so, but he’s not completely dead.”  It’s the cook who has the sad honor to put an end to this battle.  They bring Besson back in a coma.  M.P. then tells me that they’ve killed another officer on the road at the head of a column of troops, as he gave orders to stop the retreat and hold their positions.  OK.  We can’t celebrate yet.

"Another German car.  It’s fired on.  It escapes on roads that aren’t even worthy of the name.  We’re paying attention now!

"We go to bed.  What a day!  We’re up again early.  A few of us are going to bury the officer.  We decide to put him in a dip in the ground, in Charles Suzette’s field, near my poplars.  We dig a little and then go to get him.  It’s raining.  It is a moving sight.  There he is, lying on his back, stretched out, hands folded on his chest, eyes closed, helmet on his head.  Alfred says, “I’m the one who closed his eyes when he died.”

"I gather up his papers, his photos, to let his family know, later on.  He has a pretty wife, beautiful children.  This awful war!  We carry him on two shovel handles and lay him out with respect in his little grave, not deep enough, but we had to do it quickly.  According to his papers, he was a Catholic.  (I kept these papers a long time, but since I had to hide them, I can no longer find them.)

"I’ve been at war more than four years, the other one for five years, but it’s the first time I’ve seen a German soldier killed."

Covering Their Tracks

Thursday, September 14

The men of Etobon had to dispose of the body of the German officer, and Jules Perret knew there might be serious consequences to the village if it was discovered. They had already heard of the murder of a child at Chenebier following the death of a German soldier there. The Etobonais knew the Germans could uncover their clandestine operations if they searched the parsonage: it served as the central kitchen for the camps of resistance, the British solders and German prisoners in the woods surrounding the village. The men had to work quickly before anyone came to investigate the Lieutenant’s whereabouts. Perret writes:

"I spent part of my morning arranging the Lieutenant’s grave so that it wouldn’t be spotted, adding dirt, putting dry leaves and branches on it.  Three militiamen, supposedly joining the resistance, killed a German at Chenebier.  To avenge themselves, the survivors set fire to Pierre Goux’s house, completely destroying it, and savagely killed little Gérard Pillat, a child of nine or ten years old.  What news for his prisoner father!

"Everything happens at once.  We are hurrying to remove everything from the parsonage that could tip someone off.  M. Marlier and I carry casseroles and mess kits full of food to the church, and hide them under the communion table.  Four veal heads, cooked, in a basket hidden in the brambles of the old cemetery.  At Isaac’s Mill, stoves and boilers, jars of preserves, wheels of Gruyere, sacks of sugar and coffee.  And they brought the wounded Germans to the same mill!  As for Besson, he is dead.  Mama dressed him in one of my suits and we brought him to the church. 

"The cannons are getting closer.  Hope is returning.  As soon as I was in bed, Fernand Goux came to tell me that, without electricity, he couldn’t make Besson’s coffin that night, so that we could bury him at first light.  We decided to take the body to the cemetery and put it in the Coulon family tomb, where he can wait.  11:30 p.m.  I’m home.  It went well.  Poor boy!  His brother is very upset."

Update on Tuesday, October 16, 2012 at 9:15AM by Katherine Douglass

As I compose this blog, 68 years after the end of World War II, I think about the times I led worship in the church in Etobon. Each time I stood at the altar, I thought about what had been hidden there in the autumn of 1944. There had been explosives and ammunition hidden in the steeple above my head, and pots full of soup under the altar in front of me. The drama and tragedy of those times still live in that sacred space.

The Threat in the Woods

Monday, September 18

Jules Perret writes:

"What a night!  All night long, trucks rolled by, coming from Chenebier, going towards Belverne.  Are they bringing troops from Alsace?  All day, they keep coming.  Several trucks are pulling big cannons.  And horse-drawn wagons, too.  They stable their horses everywhere.  We have four, Jacques three.  The men are polite enough and don’t take anything without asking.  We don’t recognize ourselves in this confusion.  Are we French?  Collaborators?  A soldier from Wurtemburg told us he had come up from Perpignan, that they were on the march for four weeks, fighting Americans and “terrorists.”

The stone that marks the death of two maquis on September 18, 1944, located in the woods between Etobon and Clairegoutte

"I went up to the Goutte Evotte to check on the shelters under the big rock.  What should we do with our prisoners?  Our Hindus?  The resistants of Horse’s Head, regrouped at Arthur’s Well, near Magny d’Anigon, have suffered a lot.  What a mess!"

It was a mess. German soldiers were now searching the woods. Two members of the resistance, Fabbro Libero and Jean-Paul St. Maurice, were killed in a gun battle this day on the road near La Tête de Cheval, one of the main rendez-vous points for the Etobon maquis and those they were hiding.

Tuesday, September 19

Our maquis, gone to the Valettes [a group of hamlets a few kilometers south of Etobon], play hide and seek with the Germans.  Sometimes we have an attic full while the Germans are in the kitchen asking for eggs.  To get his orders, Jacques sometimes has to go out among the Germans with a scythe and a rake.

M.P., who has his own reasons to move around had to pass near a German battery, and told an officer that he was a teacher and had a field nearby, which he wanted to get to without being questioned.  “Wait for me for two minutes.  I have to go to Belverne.  You can go with me.”  And off they went together, talking like old buddies, the German lieutenant and the lieutenant of the maquis! 

Captain Aubert, back in the woods at last, said to Jacques, “wait for orders.”

Some Germans are patrolling the forest where I’ve set up a supply tent with lots of interesting things in it.  Jacques said to me, “Are you sure there aren’t labels with our names on them on those sacks?”  Apparently, there are!  The sacks are marked.  I get chills thinking about it.  Carrying a scythe, I climb up there, pull off the labels, hide the fire buckets marked “Etobon,” all my tools, hatchet, billhook, pick, saw, Jacques and Lamboley’s FFI backpacks.  Ouf!  Now I’m back home.

Just when I was closing the doors to go to bed for the night, a boche came up to me and, in a whisper, asked “Where can I find a girl to sleep with?”  “You’ll have to look for yourself, buddy!”

Cannon Fire and Desparation

Saturday, September 23

The occupying troops were becoming more and more desparate, killing the Etobonais' cows where they stood to provide meat. Didn't the people of Etobon sense how in danger they were? Perhaps they did, but could do nothing to avoid what was coming. Jules Perret writes:

"Woke up to cannon fire.  The battery at Bouloie is firing furiously.  We’re getting the cattle ready to transport.  It’s worse than the fair …  The mayor was at Belfort, so in my role of deputy, I received those who were asking for favors.  Here come four boches looking for one cow.  Even though I told them that 50 were on the road to Belfort, they argued.  One with glasses said to me, “Those won’t give us any meat.  Show me the house where there are some cows left.”  What a chore!  I took them to Guemann’s, Paul and Marthe started crying.  But what could I do?  The boches took, weighed, paid for – with Vichy money – and killed a pretty heifer, right then and there.  One of them dug a hole to bury the entrails.

"The Cossacks have attacked again and are trying to surround our maquis.  They had to abandon Voisin, wounded, where he lay.  Who will take care of him? (Emile Voisin was found dead in an attic, where, despite his broken leg and abdominal wound, he was able to crawl into for shelter.)

"Midnight.  Jacques, back from Belfort, and I killed our pig to keep it safe from looters.  We knocked it out and killed it near the rabbit cages, in the little shed , then dragged it through the orchard back to the stable."