Auguste's Story

"In August 1944, I was 17, and was living in a little house called la Boutinais with my parents and my sister Alice. The Clouard family and the Abraham family were our close neighbours.

The Germans occupied our place for a couple of weeks.  They settled the cookhouse near the well under the apple trees.  Troops took over the buildings, yards, orchards and hid vehicles in the sunken tracks.  We got to know two of the cooks, they tried to talk French with us, explaining their lives in Germany and they showed us pictures of their families.  They were about 40 years old.

August 2nd 1944
The fighting started with two shells falling on the fields, but they didn’t damage anything.  The Germans who occupied our house had to move, officers had been here for 3 weeks.  The cooks said they thought bad times were coming, as they gave my mother a hug and shook my father’s hand.  They said ‘Nous Kaput’ (We are dead) They left that morning to hide in the woods.  Thirty minutes later, the first American troops arrived on the D-79 road from le Mesnil-Adelée.  The line stopped at la Boutinais and didn’t reach le Mesnil-Tôve 800 yards away.

August 3rd 1944
The Americans were still around.  Behind our farm was a barn and we saw a couple of guns by the door.
We walked in and there, sat on the floor were 8 German soldiers who had deserted.  We called for the G.I.’s to come and take them away.  The soldiers had crossed their line and would not fight.  We had helped to save them.  On that same day, the Americans were backing up on the road.  We expected a really bad time, so we left the house – where we were hidden - and we walked in a sunken track between banks and shady hedges.  Shells were falling everywhere.  We wanted to be in a safer place. Each evening, Alice and I came home to check the farm animals and our house.

August 6th 1944
A shell fell on our barn and it burnt down.  That day was Alice’s birthday.

August 7th 1944
Mist was in the village that morning and through the window, we could see troops moving again on the road . They were moving to the west.  The Germans returned, which frightened us so, that day, we stayed at home.

When the mist disappeared, aircraft were firing on the lines.  All day long, life was hell.  In the evening, three Germans arrived in a side-car.  My parents sat on the bed, trying not to move.  The German soldiers kicked the door open and entered our home, asking where the Americans were.  They saw a pack of American cigarettes on our table and they each lit one.  Nervously, they left the house and as they reached the motorbike, we heard firing.  We didn’t move for about 30 minutes, then we heard crackling outside.  Alice said ‘it smells like burning’.  We decided to leave and outside we found the bodies of the three Germans, with their vehicle on fire on the road.  We left to go to Mesnil Rainfray and then to Reffuveille.

August 9th 1944
After the fighting, we wanted to come back to La Boutinais. As we made our way home, what we saw was so incredible. There were so many destroyed tanks on the road that getting to the farm that way was impossible.  There was debris more than 10ft high on the road and we had to go through the field to get around it.

There were many tanks abandoned in the village, many tanks and trucks abandoned on the little fields around.  There were also bodies strewn, both German and American. At our place, there were six Americans and six Germans.  Many buildings and barns were destroyed at La Boutinais, we lost all our machinery and our livestock.

The Abraham’s house, a little manor house behind the cottage at La Boutinais, was destroyed on August 15th by a German shell coming from the direction of Lingeard.

At La Boutinais, we had a war with machines; when the war reached Le Mesnil-Tôve it was hand-to-hand combat and the casualties were much higher."

Auguste Blouin

2004