After The Battle 156 - The Bombing of Dublin

IS PARIS BURNING? THE BOMBING OF DUBLIN A NIGHT AT THE ACROPOLIS No. 156

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NUMBER 156 © Copyright After the Battle 2012 Editor: Karel Margry Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey Published by Battle of Britain International Ltd., The Mews, Hobbs Cross House, Hobbs Cross, Old Harlow, Essex CM17 0NN, England Telephone: 01279 41 8833 Fax: 01279 41 9386 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.afterthebattle.com Printed in Great Britain by Warners Group Publications PLC, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH. After the Battle is published on the 15th of February, May, August and November. LONDON STOCKIST for the After the Battle range: Foyles Limited, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0EB. Telephone: 020 7437 5660. Fax: 020 7434 1574. E-mail: [email protected]. Web site: www.foyles.co.uk United Kingdom Newsagent Distribution: Warners Group Publications PLC, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH Australian Subscriptions and Back Issues: Renniks Publications Pty Limited Unit 3, 37-39 Green Street, Banksmeadow NSW 2019 Telephone: 61 2 9695 7055. Fax: 61 2 9695 7355 E-mail: [email protected]. Website: www.renniks.com Canadian Distribution and Subscriptions: Vanwell Publishing Ltd., 622 Welland Avenue, St. Catharines, Ontario Telephone: (905) 937 3100. Fax: (905) 937 1760 Toll Free: 1-800-661-6136 E-mail: [email protected] New Zealand Distribution: Dal McGuirk’s “MILITARY ARCHIVE”, PO Box 24486, Royal Oak, Auckland 1345, New Zealand Telephone: 021 627 870. Fax: 9-6252817 E-mail: [email protected] United States Distribution and Subscriptions: RZM Imports Inc, 184 North Ave., Stamford, CT 06901 Telephone: 1-203-324-5100. Fax: 1-203-324-5106 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.rzm.com Italian Distribution: Tuttostoria, PO Box 395, 1-43100 Parma Telephone: ++390521 29 27 33. Fax: ++390521 29 03 87 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.tuttostoria.it Dutch Language Edition: SI Publicaties/Quo Vadis, Postbus 188, 6860 AD Oosterbeek Telephone: 026-4462834. E-mail: [email protected]

CONTENTS THE BOMBING OF DUBLIN

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WAR FILM Is Paris Burning?

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PERSONALITY Lyndon B. Johnson’s Silver Star

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GREECE A Night at the Acropolis

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Front Cover: The liberation of Paris in August 1944 recreated for the war movie Is Paris Burning?, which was shot in the French capital in 1965. This scene shows the attack by tanks and soldiers of the 2ème Division Blindée, helped by FFI resistance fighters, on the German headquarters in the Hotel Meurice on Rue de Rivoli — then and now. (Karel Margry) Back Cover: The Greek flag flying over the Acropilis in Athens. It was here, on a moonlit night in May 1941, that two young Greeks — Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas – tore down the swastika flag in a famous act of defiance against the Nazi occupier. Today, a bronze plaque at the foot of the mast records their deed. (Sailko) Acknowledgements: For help with the Dublin story, the Editor thanks Jos Liefkens and William Lee, and for the feature on the film Is Paris Burning?, he is indebted to Egbert Barten, Thijs Ockerse, Adriaan Bijl and particularly Gilles Primout, webmaster of www.liberation-de-paris.gilles-primout.fr. Photo Credits: BA — Bundesarchiv; IWM — Imperial War Museum, London; LBJ Library — Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum, Austin, Texas; NIOD — Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, Amsterdam.

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Above and below: Rescue workers, Local Defence Force wardens and members of the St John’s Ambulance searching the ruins for survivors in North Strand Road after the Whit Saturday raid.

On the night of May 30/31, 1941, four Luftwaffe bombers, on their way to attack Liverpool, drifted off track and by mistake bombed the city of Dublin, the capital of the neutral state of Ireland. Their bombs hit a mostly working-class area of the city, including the areas of North Richmond Street, Rutland Place, Phoenix Park, and most especially hard hit, the North Strand.

The raid claimed the lives of over 40 people, injured more than 100, destroyed or damaged 300 houses, and left almost 2,000 persons homeless. The calamity — which occurred during the Whit bank holiday weekend — was a cataclysmic event in Dublin’s history and one that shocked all of Ireland. This is North Strand Road, the site that suffered the greatest havoc and destruction.

THE BOMBING OF DUBLIN ‘THE EMERGENCY’ Following the outbreak of hostilities in Europe in September 1939, Ireland’s Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Éamon de Valera reaffirmed his country’s neutrality amid what he termed ‘The Emergency’. Reiterating his position that ‘government policy is to keep this country out of the war, and nobody, either here or elsewhere, has any right to assume anything else’, Germany’s 1940 invasion of the neutral Low Countries came as a bitter blow. Addressing the largely apathetic public about the dangers of complacency, a troubled de Valera reminded them that for the first time in 700 years Ireland was on her own and no longer under Britain’s protection. Hopelessly incapable of repelling an invader, preparations were nevertheless taken to protect the populace from the dangers of aerial attack. A series of lookout posts (LOPs) were established to provide surveillance of airspace and seaward approaches. Those clustered around Carnsore Point, the south-eastern tip of the island, were particularly busy during the Blitz when Luftwaffe bombers flew over the

Irish Sea on their way to targets in Wales, the Clyde Valley and the Mersey towns, in particular Liverpool. Dublin’s defences included LOPs, sound locators and 14 anti-aircraft guns. A lack of ammunition, however, severely curtailed practice shoots and it was

By David Mitchelhill-Green only at the end of 1940 that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill relaxed an arms embargo to Éire.

WILLIAM LEE

The neutral state of Ireland was bombed by the Luftwaffe a number of times during the Second World War. By far the worst incident was the bombing of Dublin’s North Strand area early on the morning of May 31, 1941. The Irish Department of Defence described it as an ‘incident which had all the features of a major air raid’; the Evening Herald called it the city’s ‘Night of Horror’.

The same view today, looking in a southerly direction from a point just south of the Newcomen Bridge. The latter crosses the Royal Canal and divides North Strand Road into a southern and northern part. 3

LIVERPOOL

DUBLIN

BRISTOL

SCILLY ISLES

The four German bombers belonged to a group of some 90 aircraft from Luftflotte 3 detailed to attack Bristol and Liverpool, but why they accidentally bombed Dublin has never been established with certainty. Most likely it was just a case of a few crews losing their way. By May 1941 the night defences over mainland Britain had improved significantly and this resulted in Luftflotte 3 aircraft bound for Liverpool, Birkenhead, Glasgow and Belfast regularly routing via the Scillies and then up the length of the St George’s Channel towards Anglesey. On the night in question there was a strong easterly wind, much stronger than forecast, with extensive cloud over the British Isles and the aircraft responsible probably simply drifted off Civil defence measures involved the distribution of gas masks, the installation of air raid sirens and the erection of (mostly empty) concrete water tanks to aid fire-fighting. Nine large trenches capable of sheltering citizens were dug in public areas in addition to a handful of shallow underground shelters excavated in parks and public squares. As well as 47 nominated basement shelters, 64 flimsy above-ground concrete air raid shelters were hurriedly constructed throughout the city. Derided by locals as ‘hen houses’ or ‘hat boxes’, the shelters, if open, quickly saw public service as latrines or refuges for courting couples. Pamphlets hurriedly issued by the Department of Defence, such as Protect Your Home against Air Raids, advised citizens to tape their windows and to have buckets of sand and water available to extinguish fires. Even though Germany’s envoy in Ireland, Dr Eduard Hempel, assured de Valera that Irish neutrality would be respected so long as strict non-intervention was upheld, German bombs fell on Éire at least five times between August 1940 and February 1941. THE BOMBING OF NEUTRAL IRELAND The first ‘incident’ in which German aircraft disregarded Irish neutrality took place in broad daylight on the afternoon of August 26, 1940. Flying at low level, a Heinkel He 111 bomber dropped several bombs on a turnip field at Duncormack, County Wexford, narrowly missing the nearby railway station. The neighbouring village of Campile was not so fortunate. Three women were killed when a bomb from another Heinkel struck a creamery, a tragic incident for which Germany later paid £9,000 in compensation. While some held that the British were responsible, even having dropped captured 4

track to the west. Cloud would have prevented visual contact with the ground or sea, and with No. 80 Wing radio countermeasures in full operation, accurate DR navigation would have been very difficult. The crews probably assumed they were over Liverpool when the glow of fires was seen through the cloud. But that glow was actually caused by the streetlights of Dublin, and not by fires started in Liverpool by the Pathfinders or other preceding aircraft. From a typical operating height of around 13,000 feet, the lights were probably seen as no more than a faint glow through the dense cloud, and if that glow came into sight roughly on the estimated time of arrival over the target, as it most likely did, the bombing becomes understandable.

German bombs, the Irish Independent felt that the ‘tragic occurrence was due to an error on the part of German airmen’. Such errors, however, were to be repeated. Errant bombs fell on open countryside in County Wicklow on October 25 and Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, Sandycove Railway Station and Dun Laoghaire on December 20. While these first incursions were little more than German aircraft jettisoning their payload before returning home, on December 29, a Junkers Ju 88 flew a reconnaissance mission over Dublin, purportedly photographing Baldonnel airfield and approaches. Although Hitler had postponed his cross-Channel invasion — Fall Grün (Plan Green), which included the invasion of Ireland — in December 1941 he had ordered a study into the feasibility of occupying Ireland, but ‘only if Ireland requests help’. On the pre-condition that de Valera desired support, an optimistic assessment that the occupation of Ireland ‘might lead to the end of the war’ aroused only lukewarm support at a senior level and quickly became redundant after Germany invaded Russia in June the following year. The German ‘raids’ on Éire continued into the New Year as an unfortunate consequence of the ongoing Blitz against Britain. The Meath villages of Duleek and Julianstown were struck by eight small bombs on January 1, 1941, though fortunately without casualties. That same day disaster struck the mountainous district of Knockroe when eight more bombs were dropped near a remote farmhouse, killing three female members of the Shannon family. Dublin was hit for the first time shortly after 6 a.m. on the morning of January 2 when four bombs struck the Terenure area. Several houses were destroyed though no

lives were lost. In a separate incident, nearly 40 incendiary and high-explosive bombs were jettisoned over open countryside in County Kildare and three in County Wexford in separate incidents the following day. Shortly before 4 a.m. on January 3, another bomb fell with a ‘terrific thud’ in Dublin’s South Circular Road area, destroying two homes and causing significant damage to the Donore Presbyterian Church and the South Circular Road Synagogue, again without loss of life. Despite the fact that bombs had now fallen on their city, Dubliners, on the whole, found the incursions more a nuisance than a cause for concern. The Minister for Supplies, Séan Lemass, reprimanded those who acted as if the ‘war was being fought on another planet’ and were supposedly ‘immune’ from it. Across the Atlantic, news of the German bombings provoked a far more impassioned response. Life on January 13 reported that ‘German bombs [had] plucked shamrocks from the Emerald Isle’ leaving ‘scores of Irishmen’ dead or wounded. Speculating as to the reason for the attacks, the magazine surmised that the ‘bombs served to warn Éire against opening its ports to British warships or convoys bringing US aid to Britain. Possibly too the Nazis had put Éire on guard against invasion just to see what precautions the Irish would or would not take’. Shocked, the US Irish community lodged a formal protest against the ‘unwarranted invasion of Ireland’. Berlin retorted that the ‘bombs are English or they are imaginary. Our fliers have not been over Ireland, and have not been sent there, so someone else will have to explain these bombs’. Éire’s northerly neighbour — Northern Ireland with its capital Belfast — was however a legitimate target.

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Ordnance Survey Ireland Permit No. 8819 © Ordnance Survey Ireland/Government of Ireland

In all, just four bombs were dropped. Three of them landed in the North Strand area and one — the third one to be released THE BOMBING OF BELFAST The port of Belfast had been singled out for attention by Adolf Hitler in his Directive No. 9, dated November 29, 1939. Nearly 18 months later on the night of April 15/16, 1941, the city described as the ‘most unprotected in the United Kingdom’, was attacked by 180 aircraft from Luftflotten 2 and 3. As well as the lowest number of air raid shelters per head of any British city, Belfast also lacked searchlights and night fighter protection. With only 24 heavy and 12 light anti-aircraft guns available to defend the entire province, the vulnerable city was rocked by 203 tonnes of high explosives and 20,091 incendiaries. Tragically, over 800 civilians were killed, more than 1,500 injured and 20,000 made homeless; the city ablaze. To help battle the raging conflagration, the Belfast Commissioner of the Royal Ulster Constabulary called upon the Irish War Room to provide urgent assistance. An hour after de Valera was notified, 71 firemen and 13 tenders were racing north. Within 24 hours, however, the exhausted men returned back across the border as de Valera could ill afford casualties should the Luftwaffe return the following night. News of the mercy dash — summed up by the Irish Times: ‘when all is said and done, the people of the Six Counties are own folk; and blood is stronger than the highest explosive’ — made news not only in Ireland, but across Britain and the continent. Even German envoy Hempel stated afterwards that he ‘understood the emotional and political reasons behind the act’. The attack was followed by an influx of several thousand refugees from the north in search of shelter and asylum; a second compassionate act that could well be viewed as a further violation of neutrality. In response, the English voice of

— exploding in Phoenix Park near the Dublin Zoo some three miles further west.

German propaganda, William Joyce — known as ‘Lord Haw Haw’ (see After the Battle No. 136) — broadcast a threat to bomb Amiens Street (now Connolly Street) railway station, disembarkation point for the refugees arriving from the north. A significant increase in enemy air activity was noted in May with nearly 2,700 German bombers recorded above or close to Dublin on their way to targets in the south or west of Britain. The Irish Times warned ‘spectators’ of the risk of falling metal splinters from warning shots — ‘there is no need for panicky rush to shelter, but “rubber-necking” may well lead to unnecessary danger’. The aircraft passing overhead on the night of May 4/5 again struck Belfast. Although the city was better prepared, assistance from the South was again requested, though de Valera specified that the 53 men, six tenders and seven ambulances sent north were solely for ‘rescue activities to private homes rather than military objectives’. New air raid precautions were introduced in Dublin as the danger of attack escalated. Under the Emergency Powers Order, Dublin’s city manager P. J. Hernon announced new black-out laws banning all illuminated signs, advertisements and shop-front lighting with interior lighting permitted only during business hours. Exterior lighting was also prohibited outside public venues such as theatres and cinemas, however no restrictions were applied to residential homes. The city’s most-realistic air raid drill to date was conducted on May 25 using houses earmarked for demolition, ironically, in the North Strand area. Intended to prepare its citizens ‘to the terrors of an enemy air raid’, the exercise was deemed a success; the ARP wardens confident that Dublin could effectively respond to an actual attack.

THE BOMBING OF NORTH STRAND The weekend of May 30 began with a clear moonlight evening, the streets filled with revellers celebrating the beginning of Whitsun, a three-day weekend. Shortly after midnight (May 30/31) the familiar drone of foreign intruders grew louder and the city’s searchlights began probing the skies for the ‘large numbers of aircraft proceeding northwards and southwards’ along the country’s east coast. Especially puzzling was the route of the bombers towards the south. Where were they headed? On the ground Captain Aidan A. Quigley estimated that ‘as far as could be ascertained from Air Defence Command, there were 20 planes, some grouped in fives’. Some witnesses guessed more, up to twice this number, though it proved difficult to count individual bombers as several ‘kept circling’. The order was given at 00.18 a.m. to fire three tri-colour flares, signalling the incursion over neutral Irish territory. Several red flares followed, a warning to the aircraft that they would be fired upon. Fifteen minutes later, the prescribed waiting period, the 3.7-inch heavy battery at Clontarf opened up, firing four rounds. Many Dubliners now stood by their windows or ventured outside to watch the spectacle. An ominous sound, described afterwards as ‘a peculiar whistle’, preceded the first bomb. Falling near the intersection of North Circular Road and North Richmond Street at 1.28 a.m., the detonation ‘lit up the sky’. Several homes collapsed and a small fire was started. A second bomb exploded nearby in Summerhill Parade a minute later, also destroying several homes and shops. A third bomb at 1.31 a.m. left a large crater in Phoenix Park, shattering nearby windows and causing panic among the animals caged inside the park’s zoo. Although the distinc5

WILLIAM LEE

DUBLIN CITY ARCHIVE

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The second bomb came down just around the corner in Summerhill Parade at 1.29 a.m. It detonated just outside the shops of Jane Fitzgerald at No. 43 and Catherine Slater at No. 44, leaving a large mound of rubble beneath which at least nine victims were reportedly trapped. All the occupants of No. 43 managed to free themselves or were dug out by rescue workers. Miss Slater at No. 44 was completely buried and rescuers needed to take considerable time before she was found and dug out, seriously injured.

WILLIAM LEE

tive drone of massed aircraft engines continued, the bombing appeared to have stopped. A number of the bombers continued north, though some remained overhead. The peculiar flight path of one bomber attracted special attention. Air Defence Command Observers recorded how it ‘proceeded north only as far as Collinstown, and when engaged by the anti-aircraft battery there, turned south again’. To those on the ground it appeared to ‘have been hovering around as if it was awaiting instructions’, purportedly swooping low and wide over the city before returning to a safer altitude. Both heavy and medium anti-aircraft guns fired upon the intruder while machine-gunners opened up whenever the ‘mystery plane’ came into range. According to Quigley, the shadowy bomber circled ‘for approximately an hour’. Just before 2 a.m. it began a series of low passes over North Strand; witnesses later concurred that the pilot’s face was easily discernable. The prolonged absence of any air raid siren may perhaps have lulled those below into a false sense of security as they watched the antics of this rogue pilot. So low was the aircraft that several observers recalled hearing the actual sound of the aircraft’s bomb bay mechanism as the pilot prepared to release what was by far the largest and most lethal warhead dropped that night. Wrote the Irish Independent: ’While firemen and other services worked frantically by the glow of lamps to get to the injured, a warning cry was raised and people flung themselves on the glass-strewn street’. It was 2.05 a.m. as the fourth and last bomb fell to earth. The Irish Times afterwards reported how the offending ‘aeroplane hum rose, and then there was a blinding flash and a deafening smash’. The massive explosion from the bomb — almost certainly a parachute mine, either a 500kg Luftmine A or a 1,000kg Luftmine B — wrought havoc and destruction. (As a few eyewitnesses later remembered having heard a ‘whistling’ or ‘screaming’ sound as the bomb came down, this might indicate that it was a 1,000kg Bombenmine which was a conventional bomb not fitted with a parachute.) Detonating upon the hard cobblestone surface of North Strand, the deadly shock wave tore through nearby homes and small businesses. Tramlines were pulled from the road and hurled through the air while countless windows were shattered. The Department of Defence later concluded that the ‘cone of the blast [was] very flat, and therefore had maximum effect’. A number of the curious onlookers caught within the deadly radius of the blast were killed instantly, their bodies, in the words of the

bricks and timbers but neighbours and rescue workers managed to free them all. They were badly shaken but otherwise unhurt. Right: Nicely repaired, the block between Rutland Place and Summer Street shows little signs of the devastation that once struck it.

DUBLIN CITY ARCHIVE

Left: The first bomb, dropped at 1.28 a.m., fell near the intersection of North Circular Road and Rutland Place. Two adjoining houses collapsed, one of them the tobacco shop of William Grice at No. 582 North Circular Road. Several people were trapped beneath the

New houses now occupy the plot. The small street in between Nos. 44 and 45 is Richmond Cottages North.

DUBLIN CITY ARCHIVE DAVID MITCHELHILL-GREEN

New flats, built in the late 1960s, now occupy the site which is on the western side of the street just south of the Newcomen Bridge. Picture taken by David MitchelhillGreen in April 2011.

WILLIAM LEE

DUBLIN CITY ARCHIVE

Above: The greatest mayhem was caused by the bomb — either a 500kg or 1,000kg Luftmine or perhaps a 1,000Kg Bombenmine — that fell in North Strand Road at 2.05 a.m. It struck the hardest surface possible — steel tram tracks and thick cobblestones — unleashing the full fury of its pulverising power in a blast at ground level, which therefore had maximum effect. A reporter from the Irish Independent described the destruction which had been wrought: ‘The area from the Five Lamps to Newcomen Bridge was practically wiped out by a highexplosive bomb . . . it demolished residences and shops on each side of the street. Burst gas pipes threw an eerie light on the scene of desolation . . . the roadway was littered with broken glass, slates and other debris while overhead tramway cables were blown down. The left side from North Clarence Street to the bridge was a mass of flames’. Above: This is all that remained of Nos. 23 to 29 along that side of the street. Many of the fatalities occurred here. At No. 25 alone, all seven members of the Browne family were wiped out and at No. 28 butcher Richard Fitzpatrick and his wife were killed.

The same ruins but now seen from the other side, looking south, back towards the city centre.

The high-rise flats that were erected on the bomb-site clearly stand out from the surrounding area. 7

DUBLIN CITY ARCHIVE

normally conservative Irish Times, ‘horribly mutilated’. Others perished when their homes folded under the weight of the blast or were dragged down by the collapse of adjoining buildings. The dead and injured were ferried to nearby hospitals while the Irish Red Cross provided emergency shelter for residents left homeless. De Valera and members of his Government visited North Strand that morning, stunned by the bloodshed on a scale not seen in the city since the Civil War in 1922. Hempel too was shocked by the raid — ‘I was staggered’ — and went ‘immediately to Mr Walshe [Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs] to find out about it and I also saw Mr de Valera. My first very immediate reaction was one of suspicion and I wondered if the bombing had been done by the British with captured German planes. It could have been easy for them to have done something like that to upset Irish neutrality’ and provoke de Valera to enter the war. Seriously weakened by the final massive explosion, three dilapidated tenement houses collapsed on the morning of Sunday, June 1, a tragic sequel that killed another three and injured many more. De Valera addressed parliament on the bombing on June 5: ‘Although a complete survey has not yet been possible, the latest report which I have received is that 27 persons were killed outright or subsequently died; 45 were wounded or received other serious bodily injury and are still in hospital; 25 houses were completely destroyed and 300 so damaged as to be unfit for habitation, leaving many hundreds of our people homeless. It has been for all our citizens an occasion of profound sorrow in which the members of this House have fully shared’. A later investigation revealed that in all 2,250 buildings had suffered some degree of damage because of the bombing. Almost 2,000 people were rendered homeless. The final death toll was never established with certainty. Some of the human remains were so mutilated as to make identification impossible and there were several portions of bodies found of which it was difficult to decide whether they belonged to an already identified body or represented an extra victim. Most likely, including those killed on June 1, the total number of deaths was 45.

All 12 houses across the street — Nos. 153 (left) to 164 (right) — were destroyed. Again, many of the fatal casualties came from this row. At No. 157, Patrick McLoughlin and his two-year-old son William were killed but his wife and two-month-old baby Vera were pulled out of the ruins uninjured. These photographs of the devastation were commissioned by the Dublin Corporation as evidence for the assessment of insurance claims. Dublin City Manager Dr P. J. Hernon issued local photographer H. McCrae with a permit ‘to pass through the cordons at the North Strand and Summerhill areas for the purpose of photographing buildings demolished, or about to be demolished, for record and assessment.’ McRae took the majority of the pictures from June 4 until the end of the month. Additional photos were taken in July, September and on October 31.

WILLIAM LEE

DUBLIN CITY ARCHIVE

DAVID MITCHELHILL-GREEN

Right: Here, too, blocks of flats have replaced the old Victorian houses. The clearance work after the raid was initially led by City Architect Horace O’Rourke, later replaced by Chief Air Raid Precaution Warden R. S. Lawrie. Wherever feasible, houses were repaired but where property was damaged beyond repair, the residents were re-located to new housing estates at Cabra and Crumlin. Compensation was provided for property owners under the terms of the Neutrality (War Damage to Property) Act 1941.

Left: Again, the same row of houses — Nos. 153 to 164 — but now looking in the opposite direction, i.e. south. Very few 8

possessions could be salvaged from the ruins. Right: The same view today as photographed by William Lee in March 2012.

DAVID MITCHELHILL-GREEN

DUBLIN CITY ARCHIVE

Left: In Shamrock Place, one block east from North Strand Road, Nos. 3 and 4 were totally demolished. In Mag Roche’s house at No. 3, everything was destroyed except for a statue of the Blessed Virgin, one of the many cases of religious objects being ‘miraculously’ spared from destruction that night. By the time McCrae came to photograph the damage in

this street on September 15, the ruins of Nos. 3 and 4 had been cleared away but No. 5 next door was still standing having survived relatively unscathed. Right: Shamrock Place today, pictured by David Mitchelhill-Green. New houses were built on the empty bomb-site but No. 5 remains to be seen further down the street.

DUBLIN CITY ARCHIVE

De Valera and other members of the Government attended a mass on June 5 for 12 of the victims. A city in mourning, the Evening Mail declared that never before had it ‘felt or expressed such sorrow’. Questions flew why the city had failed to warn its citizens of the raid. An official response reasoned that it was ‘in accordance with practice because a neutral country does not give a general alert when aircraft from which it expects no attack appear overhead’. A analogous answer from the Department of Defence affirmed that the ‘air raid sirens were not sounded, as their use was not justified by the fact of foreign aircraft flying overhead or isolated bombings when the country was not at war’. Frustration was also voiced over the inaccessibility of the newly erected air raid shelters; according to one irate resident: ‘I found the gates, one after another, iron-barred and padlocked’.

Houses in Dunne Street, west of North Strand Road, suffered so much damage that they needed to be shored up. These are Nos. 2 (Bridget Byrne, greengrocer) and 4 (Mrs Hughes, store-keeper).

WAS THE BOMBING DELIBERATE? The controversial bombing of North Strand produced a number of theories after the event. Was it a retaliatory act by Berlin, as some believed, in response to de Valera sending his fire brigade north to assist Belfast during the April bombings, or in response to the sympathetic acceptance of refugees? Was Germany irritated by Ireland’s trade with Britain? Were the bombs dropped knowingly by English aircraft or by Luftwaffe airmen mistakenly believing they were over the United Kingdom? Was it a pilot’s revenge for being fired upon, or were the aircraft over Dublin on May 30/31 lost and some simply dumped their bombs over the partially-illuminated city before heading home? Many a Dubliner, according to Time (March 4, 1946) ‘suspected the Sassenachs’, though fragments of the bombs were clearly marked with German insignia. A protest was lodged with Germany, which accepted responsibility for the bombing and attributed the error to strong winds. Certainly no reports listed Dublin as an objective in the daily summaries of Luftflotte 3. Berlin agreed to pay compensation, though it was not until after the war in 1958 that £327,000 was received from the German Federal Republic.

WILLIAM LEE

Left: They stood on the east side of Dunne Street at its corner with North William Street. Both have since been demolished but the house at the end of the row survives, albeit in a dilapidated state. 10

approached Dublin in error. ‘Please forgive me for this mistake which was beyond our control’, Heinrich told a reporter. ‘There was no wrongdoing on our side. Everybody was upset, not only the members of the [German] air force, but politically as well.’ Rather than a deliberate act, it would seem that the bombing of Dublin on the night of May 30/31 arose out of error, a consequence

DAVID MITCHELHILL-GREEN

After the war, in February 1946, Britain’s Air Ministry provided a possible explanation for the North Strand bombing: RAF interference with Luftwaffe navigational beams had caused the German bombers to mistake Dublin for Belfast. In his history of the period, Their Finest Hour, Winston Churchill likewise speculated that the bombing ‘may well have been an unforeseen and unintended result of our interference with “Y”, the jamming of the German Knickebein, or “crooked leg” system of navigation that used converging radio direction beams to locate a target.’ Luftwaffe crews had earlier reported ‘total interference with the radio navigation system’ during the May 4/5 attack on Belfast. An insight into the effectiveness of the RAF’s electronic counter-measures and the difficulty of conventional navigation at night is gleaned through Luftwaffe navigator Robert Götz’s diary account of that raid: ‘Highly unenjoyable navigation. . . . There is total interference with the radio-navigation system. Since last December the precision of our target-finding has suffered extremely from the British radio-jamming. Even the way in which the much-prized directional beams operate is still a puzzle to us. Deflectable? Is that at all possible? Unremitting dead-reckoning is all that remains to us. But what if the wind reported differs just a little from the weather forecasts — as in 50 per cent of the cases? For the weather comes from the west, and we don’t get any news from that direction. One thing is now clear: it is only in conditions of clear air and bright moonlight that we can really expect to find and hit our targets. But how often do these two things coincide? ‘Today has again been a catastrophe. Our transmitter, which is getting further from me as I fly towards the Isle of Man, is suddenly giving a bearing which is 100 degrees out over England. Is Tommy now deflecting it, or am I myself reading it wrongly? It makes you sick! The directional beam is functioning just as badly. As usual, we are therefore flying lower than almost ever before when we are heading northwards — contrary to express orders. It only needs a very little moonlight for us to be able to make out the coastline on the west coast, in both directions, and compare it with the map. But today there is only mist and clouds at all heights. After hours, we circle in to where we imagine the Isle of Man to be, in the Irish Sea; as the radio operator announces a message saying: “Switch target to attack on Liverpool harbour”. Shaking our heads, we turn away; thinking that we were already seeing the Belfast Flak flashing around us. We try to recognise the coastline and drop our bombs.’ Did a similar situation confront and confound the Luftwaffe airmen over Dublin three weeks later? Nearly 60 years later a former German Luftwaffe pilot living in Canada came forward claiming to have been one of the Luftwaffe pathfinder pilots on the night of the North Strand bombing. Appealing for clemency over RTE, Irish state radio, the man, identified only as Heinrich, explained that he was asked to bomb Belfast but that his two squadrons of 30 aircraft had

IRISH INDEPENDENT

Right: Massive crowds gathered for the public funerals of the victims. Fifteen of the dead were buried on Wednesday, June 4 followed by another 12 the following day, the latter in the attendance of the Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Éamon de Valera, other members of the government, members of parliament, senior military officers and religious leaders. Here the cortege is leaving St Laurence O’Toole’s Church watched by throngs of mourning Dubliners. All interments that day took place at Glasnevin Cemetery.

of high winds and the RAF’s success in jamming the Luftwaffe’s radio navigation, which left the German bombers over Dublin confused and unable to ascertain their exact position. It was a mistake that Germany acknowledged and later compensated Ireland for, a tragic event remembered today by a memorial near where the final bomb struck. The monument commemorating the victims of the May 30/31 raid stands in the grounds of Marino College of Further Education on North Strand. The college is housed in Connelly House and the adjacent Memorial Garden is situated on the site of No. 164, one of the houses destroyed. The garden and memorial were set up in 1991 from funds raised by local people, and were dedicated on May 31 that year — the 50th anniversary of the raid. In 2011, the garden and memorial were restored through funding from Marino College, the Office of the Taoiseach, and the German Embassy, the re-dedication taking place on May 31 — the 70th anniversary of the raid — by Councillor Ray McAdam, representing the Lord Mayor of Dublin, and the German Ambassador, Busso Von Alvensleben. In his speech, von Alvensleben said: ‘The North Strand bombing in 1941 brought death and suffering into this city and to its inhabitants. My deep sympathy and respect are with the survivors and families and friends of the victims. Their ordeal is a lasting reminder of how immensely precious peace is. I thank Marino College for keeping the memory alive.’ 11

Paris, August 19, 1944: FFI resistance fighters in the Préfecture de Police watching the tricolour being raised on the Notre-Dame Cathedral on the first day of the insurrection in

the French capital — recreated for the camera in the actual Préfecture building for the epic movie Is Paris Burning? 21 years later.

IS PARIS BURNING? sent envoys to the Allied High Command with an urgent plea for help. The latter, after some hesitation, despatched the French 2ème Division Blindée and the US 4th Infantry Division to Paris and they reached the capital on August 24-25, in effect rescuing the besieged insurgents. Von Choltitz surrendered to the French troops on the 25th but the truce concluded with the FFI and the timely arrival of the Allied troops had given him the excuse he needed to sabotage and delay Hitler’s order to burn and destroy Paris to the ground. Paris was saved. (See After the Battle No. 14.) In many ways, Is Paris Burning? can be seen as the French counterpart to that other

classic war film, The Longest Day, released four years before it (see After the Battle No. 1). Like the latter, it was an epic movie recreating an actual historical event; it was based on a best-selling history book written in journalistic style; it had an all-star international cast; it was filmed on location in the actual places where it occurred; it was photographed in black and white to give it the feel of documentary authenticity; and, still quite rare for war films produced at the time, all characters — be they French, German or American — spoke in their native language with subtitles. However, there were differences with The Longest Day too. The principal one was that whereas the latter had four directors for each of the nations involved — Ken Annakin for the British and French exterior sequences, Andrew Marton for the American exteriors,

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Is Paris Burning? (French original title: Paris, brûle-t’il?), released in 1966, tells the story of the liberation of the French capital in August 1944. The deliverance of Paris was the result of a general uprising of the city’s population organised by rival branches of the French Resistance (Gaullist and Communist) on August 19. However, the FFI (Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur) were not strong enough to overwhelm the Germans and they were glad when, after one day of fighting, Swedish consul Raoul Nordling managed to arrange a truce with General der Infanterie Dietrich von Choltitz, the German commander of Gross-Paris. The FFI leadership then

By Karel Margry

Left: Henri Rol-Tanguy, head of all FFI forces in the Paris region (played by Bruno Cremer), on his way to a secret meeting with Jacques Chaban-Delmas, De Gaulle’s military delegate in Paris, to discuss the desirability of an insurrection in the city. Right: The scene was filmed in Rue de Sévigné at its junction with 12

Rue des Francs Bourgeois and Cremer is about to enter the Musée Carnavalet, the museum of the history of Paris, which is on the right. Rol-Tanguy and Chaban-Delmas had several meetings at different addresses before and during the insurrection but it is not known if the museum was one of them.

Gerd Oswald for the parachute drop scenes and Berhard Wicki for the German scenes, with Hollywood tycoon and producer Darryl F. Zanuck playing a co-ordinating role — Is Paris Burning? was made by a single French director, René Clément. The movie is based on the book of the same title by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. Collins, an American reporter of Newsweek based in Paris, and Lapierre, a French journalist on the staff of Paris-Match, were both in their early thirties but already veteran reporters and war correspondents. They had worked on the book for three years, researching the story, digging out the archives, and finding and interviewing hundreds of participants. Published in early 1965, the book became an instant success, first in France and then in the rest of the world, selling close to ten million copies in 30 languages. Immediately after the book came out in the United States, Darryl F. Zanuck realised its blockbuster potential, seeing possibilities for another success like The Longest Day, and wanted to buy the film rights but he was beaten at the post by French film producer Paul Graetz. The latter had already contacted the two authors on publication in France and procured the screen rights. Graetz was an old hand, having been in the film business since 1936. In 1957 he had produced the war movie Bitter Victory, starring Richard Burton and Curd Jürgens. To help finance his new project, Graetz secured coproducing funds in France from Transcontinental Films and Marianne Productions and in the US from Seven Arts of independent film producer Ray Stark. Graetz’s first step after buying the film rights was to hire René Clément as its director. He was a director of considerable experience and fame. Born in 1913, he had made his first film in 1936 and in late 1944 — almost as a visionary precursor of Is Paris Burning? — he had made a short movie, Paris sous la botte (Paris under the Boot), about the Nazi occupation of the city. Immediately after the war, he gained much critical and commercial success with his La Bataille du Rail (The Battle of the Rails, 1945), a war movie filmed in neo-realist style which tells the story of the courageous efforts by French

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Swastika flags return to Rue de Rivoli. The Hotel Meurice at No. 228 was the headquarters of the German commander of Gross-Paris and the film producers accurately recreated the scene as it was during the German occupation, albeit with green instead of red Nazi flags.

Rue de Rivoli in present-day Paris is an eternal traffic jam but its arcaded pavement makes for an easy comparison. The Hotel Meurice is where the flags are.

General Dietrich von Choltitz (Gert Fröbe) and Hauptmann Werner Ebernach of Panzer-Pionier-Kompanie 813 (Wolfgang Preiss) discussing the bridges and buildings to be prepared for demolition. All the scenes in von Choltitz’s office suite in the Hotel Meurice were filmed in a studio set. 13

Right: The Citroën carrying Swedish consul general Raoul Nordling (Orson Welles) and Françoise Labé (Leslie Caron) is halted at the entrance to the Pantin goods station. They have come to try and save Labé’s husband, the arrested commander of the Paris Resistance, from deportation to Germany in the last train to leave Paris. Note the American M3 half-track turned into a German SdKfz 251 by the movie’s art department. Below right: The scene was filmed at the actual freight station at Pantin from where the last deportation train left in 1944. Karel was very lucky to find the gate, which is actually a rear entrance and disused today, on Rue Denis Papin.

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railway workers to sabotage Wehrmacht troop trains bringing reinforcements to the front. From there Clément became one of France’s most successful directors, garnering numerous awards including two films that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the first in 1950 for Au-delà des grilles (The Walls of Malapaga) and the second two years later for Jeux interdits (Forbidden Games). Graetz next move was to commission a trio of French scriptwriters — Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost and Claude Brule — to adapt the 350-page book for the screen. With the book’s storyline having no less than 436 more or less important personalities and over 300 different locations, they had quite a job condensing it to manageable proportions and the draft script they produced was still

The track where the deportation scene was filmed in 1965 has since been lifted but the square-shaped house seen on the left remains. It stands on Rue Cartier Bresson which runs along the northern side of the railway yard.

Left: Labé (Caron) cries out in despair as the German guards gun down her husband on the platform — one of the movie’s

few deviations from actual events. Right: Again the houses along Rue Cartier Bresson make for an accurate match.

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Left: The mass of prisoners waiting to be loaded into the cattle wagons. Labé (Caron) can be seen running along in a frantic search of her husband. Right: Pantin freight station is officially off limits but Karel managed to sneak in to take his comparisons.

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Right: A Citroën van, camouflaged as an ambulance but loaded with young student resistance fighters, arrives at the Porte Maillot metro station to meet a contact who has promised them arms and ammunition. However, he turns out to be a traitor and leads them directly into the hands of the Gestapo and death by firing squad in the Bois de Boulogne.

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cumbersome and unwieldy for movie purposes. The draft was then given to two American script doctors, Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola. Vidal, though better known as an author, playwright and essayist, was also an experienced film author, having been employed as a contract screenwriter by Metro Goldwyn Mayer since 1956. (Among other things he had re-written the draft script for Ben Hur in 1959.) Coppola was then still a graduate student at the University of California’s Film School but he had already won the annual Samuel Goldwyn Award for the best screenplay written by a student in 1965, which secured him a job as a screenwriter with Seven Arts. The talent that would later bring him fame as screenwriter for Patton (1974) and as director of the Godfather trilogy (1972-90) and the Vietnam War classic Apocalypse Now (1979) was already well recognised. In just three weeks time, Vidal and Coppola managed to reduce the number of locations to 182 and the number of main characters to about 50, producing a final script of 130 pages. German screenwriter Beate von Molo was hired to write additional dialogue for the German scenes and French scriptwriter Marcel Moussy did the same for the French scenes. Top: Devoid of traffic and with a clear view up the Avenue de la Grande Armée all the way up to the Arc de Triomphe, the scene realistically recreated the empty streets of Paris during the occupation. Above: A very different situation today, as Karel found out in March 2012.

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The beginning of the uprising. Paris policemen (on strike and in civilian attire) converge on the Préfecture de Police on the morning of August 19. Their occupation of the massive building in the centre of the city heralded the outbreak of insurrectionist activities all over Paris.

It was filmed on the actual Place du Parvis-Notre-Dame in August 1965.

CASTING With this scenario in hand, Graetz and his team went to work casting actors and actresses for the numerous roles. Although he had already decided the production would need an international, multi-star cast, the casting directors had few difficulties securing a score of celebrities. With the liberation of Paris being a defining moment in French history, anybody of any importance in the French movie, theatre and cultural scene wanted to be involved in the production. All the major stars of the French cinema of those days were crowding up to secure a role in the upcoming movie. Most of those that signed on were cast to play key personalities of the Paris Resistance, the casting team taking special care to look for star actors with a certain physical resemblance to the historic personalities they were to play. Alain Delon, the exotically handsome jeune premier of the French cinema and holder of a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer for Luchino Visconti’s epic drama Il Gattopardo (The Leopard, 1963), was contracted to play Jacques Chaban-Delmas, the young and courageous delegate of Général De Gaulle who has just parachuted into France to coordinate the Gaullist Resistance groups (The real Chaban-Delmas at that time was chairman of the French National Assembly and a former Minister of Defence, so he was able to pull a few strings in favour of the production.) Delon had served as a Marine paratrooper in Indo-China in 1953, so he knew something about war and parachuting. 15

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A German troop-carrying lorry is captured by FFI fighters on the Petit Pont, the Seine bridge closest to the Préfecture building, their weapons falling in the insurgents’ hands.

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suades Gallois to change his request to one asking the Allied commanders to advance onto Paris rather than around it as they have planned to do, and liberate the city. Other well-known French actors played soldiers of the 2ème Division Blindée, rushed towards Paris to relieve the besieged Resistance rebels.

The role of Général Philippe Leclerc de Hautecloque, the legendary divisional commander, was given to French theatre, film and TV actor Claude Rich. Then 36 years old (five years younger than Leclerc in 1944) and adorned with Leclerc’s defining attributes — a clipped moustache, a goggles-mounted kepi, an American-issue tank officer’s field

FFI fighters in position on the Place Saint-Michel waiting to ambush a German lorry. Their weapons are pointing down Boulevard Saint-Michel.

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Jean-Paul Belmondo, at that time mainly known for his appearance in Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) films and not yet the dare-all of his later action comedy movies, plays Yvon Morandat, a young resistance leader who, among other things, is given the mission of occupying the Hôtel de Matignon (the official residence of the prime ministers of France) in the Rue de Varenne in the name of the Provisional Government of the French Republic. Much to his own surprise, he successfully completes the task almost singlehandedly, taking over the building from its collaborationist police guard, and being shown around the sumptuous rooms by a helpful valet. Bruno Cremer, then primarily known as a versatile stage actor (in later life he would became famous in France for his personification of Chief Inspector Maigret in the TV series that ran from 1991 to 2005), was well cast as Colonel Henry Rol-Tanguy, the leader of the Communist Resistance in the Paris region who pushes to start the uprising and then, after the Gaullist gendarmes have started the rebellion by taking over the Préfecture de Police, cleverly takes over leadership of the city-wide revolt. Pierre Dux — a long-time actor in classical stage plays, theatre director and teacher at the French National Academy of Dramatic Arts — was well chosen to play Alexandre Parodi, the chief of the Gaullist Comité de Liberation Nationale (CLN, Committee of National Liberation) in occupied France. With his sad eyes and drooping face, 57-yearold Dux had a striking resemblance to the real Parodi. Daniel Gélin, a theatre, movie and TV actor and director well known in France, was assigned the part of Yves Bayet, head of the Gaullist Resistance network in the Paris police force, who triggers off the uprising by seizing the Préfecture de Police for the Gaullists. French theatre comedian and stage director Sacha Pitoëff was contracted mainly for his likeness to Frédéric Joliot-Curie, the sonin-law of Marie Curie and winner of the 1935 Nobel Prize for Physics, who joins the insurrectionists at the Préfecture de Police to instruct and help them in the manufacture of Molotov cocktails. Charles Boyer, one of the grand old men of French cinema and already four times nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, plays Dr Robert Monod, who accompanies Major Roger Gallois (Colonel Rol’s aide, played by Pierre Vaneck) on the first part of the latter’s journey to contact the Allied armies with a request to drop arms to the rebels in Paris. It is Monod who per-

The Petit Pont leads from the Left Bank to the Ile de la Cité, the small island in the Seine river on which stand the Préfecture de Police and the Notre-Dame Cathedral.

The lion statue flanking the big fountain that dominates the square pinpoints the comparison.

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A German lorry raked by fire from the FFI strong point escapes across the square and over the Pont Saint-Michel.

Although difficult to see in this view, the buildings in the background (the Palais de Justice on the left) are actually on the Ile de la Cité, on the far side of the river. and the 1963 British drama The L-Shaped Room) — plays Françoise Labé, the wife of the incarcerated commander of the Paris Resistance, who desperately tries to save her husband from being deported to Germany in the last convoy of 2,453 political prisoners to leave Paris. Her efforts are in vain for her husband is killed before her eyes by German gun-fire on the platform of Pantin freight station from where the cattle-car train to Germany is about to depart. This is one of the few instances where the movie deviates from

actual events: in reality, her husband did leave Paris for Buchenwald concentration camp and she followed him — on a bicycle — all the way to Nancy on the French border and later was able to rescue him from the death camp. This is probably the reason why the scriptwriters gave Caron’s character a fictitious name. In real life the heroine’s name was Marie-Hélène Leffaucheux, her husband being Pierre Leffaucheux The latter had been arrested by the Gestapo on June 7, 1944, and was shipped off to Germany on

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jacket and a walking cane — Rich certainly looks convincing. Though not identified in the credits, Rich in fact played two parts in the movie: in addition to Leclerc (with a moustache) he also portrayed Lieutenant Pierre de la Fouchardière (without a moustache) of the 501ème Régiment de Chars de Combat who during the fighting in the city politely rushes into an old lady’s third-floor apartment with his men in order to open fire through the living-room windows and wipe out a German machine-gun nest that is holding up the advance. Rich’s role as the young lieutenant was not by chance: as a teenager in Paris in August 1944, he had been watching soldiers in the street when the real-life Lieutenant de la Fouchardière called him into a building to protect him. Claude Dauphin, who plays Colonel Albert Lebel, the French liaison officer at General Bradley’s US 12th Army Group headquarters, was another who had a personal link with the story. A film actor since the early 1930s, in 1942 after shooting the movie La Belle Aventure on the Rivièra coast, he was picked up by a British submarine near Nice and escaped to England to join De Gaulle. There he acted in a kind of liaison role with the Americans too, appearing in Salute to France, an instructional movie produced by the US Office of War Information in 1944 to present the French to American troops prior to the latter’s disembarkation in France. Yves Montand, as famous for his crooning chansons as for his many film roles, was cast as Sergeant Marcel Bizien, a tank commander in the 501ème Régiment de Chars, who in the final stages of the battle for Paris slams his Sherman tank Douaumont into the flanks of a German Panther on the Place de la Concorde, only to die seconds later by a bullet through the neck. As popular as he was, after the movie’s premiere, Montand was heavily criticised by French veterans of the 501ème Régiment for wearing an ordinary French army field cap (which, so he had judged, suited him more handsomely) instead of the black beret of the tank regiment. Jean-Pierre Cassel is a good look-alike to play Lieutenant Henri Karcher of the Régiment de Marche de Tchad, who leads the final attack on the German headquarters in the Hotel Meurice and captures General von Choltitz. The main female stars contracted for the movie were Leslie Caron, Simone Signoret and Marie Versini. Caron — at that time best known for her roles in musical films (she had begun her career dancing with Gene Kelly in the 1951 musical An American in Paris) and already twice winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress (for the 1953 musical Lilli

Left: His lorry set on fire by a Molotov cocktail, the one surviving occupant soldier (Christian Rode) chases off civilians with his pistol and a hand-grenade. In a moment he will stop a civilian car and order the driver to take him to the Hotel Meurice. This scene was based on the story of Feldwebel Bernhard

Blanche of Nachrichten-Regiment 112, whose truck was actually ambushed near here and who was the first to alert von Choltitz’s headquarters to the outbreak of fighting in the city. Right: Filmed in the Boulevard du Palais with the façade of the Palace of Justice in the background. 17

SS infantry sneaking up from the Seine quay in order to launch the first counterattack on the Préfecture de Police.

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August 15. His removal led to Colonel RolTanguy taking over control of the Paris FFI. Simone Signoret — then already one of France’s greatest movie stars, the first French winner of an Academy Award for Best Actress (for Room at the Top in 1959) and married to co-star Yves Montand — plays a bistro proprietress whose bar-room in the town of Arpajon, 30 kilometres south of Paris, is flooded by French soldiers of the 2ème Division Blindée craving to telephone their relatives in Paris that they are on the way to liberate the city. Signoret had her own personal reason for wanting to be in this movie, her father — a French Army officer of Jewish descent — having evaded from France in 1940 to join De Gaulle’s forces in England. Marie Versini — a budding young stage actress from the Comédie Française who had recently starred in a series of German-produced Karl May adventure movies and would go on to make a nice career for herself in Germany — plays Claire Morandat, a girl courier of the Resistance, who helps JeanPaul Belmondo in taking over the Prime Ministerial residence at the Hôtel Matignon. German actor Gert Fröbe was exceptionally well cast as General Dietrich von Choltitz, to whom he struck a striking resemblance and whose dilemma over whether or not to obey Hitler’s order to destroy the French capital he acted out with great credibility. Fröbe, who had recently gained international stardom as James Bond’s most-memorable opponent Auric Goldfinger in the movie Goldfinger (1963), had also appeared in a small but unforgettable role in The Longest Day. Here he had played the fat, horse-mounted Feldwebel Kaffeekanne whose horse stampedes when his daily coffee run to the coastal bunkers is rudely interrupted by the Allied naval shelling of the German defences. Fröbe was not the only German actor in the cast of Is Paris Burning? that had also appeared in The Longest Day. Another one was Wolfgang Preiss. Whereas he had played Generalmajor Max Pemsel, chief of intelligence of the 7. Armee, in the latter movie, he was now cast as Hauptmann Werner Ebernach of Panzer-Pionier-Kompanie 813 in charge of the engineers placing the demolition charges on Paris’s many Seine bridges and major landmarks in preparation for the final destruction of the city. He was later to play Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, commander of OB West, in A Bridge too Far (1974), based on another Cornelius Ryan bestseller (see After the Battle No. 17), and General Walther von Brauchitz in the American TV mini-series Winds of War (1983) and War and Remembrance (1988), based on the books by Herman Wouk.

Filmed where the steps emerge onto the Petit Pont, directly across the street from the Préfecture. German actor Harry Meyen, who plays von Choltitz’s young aide Leutnant Graf Dankvart von Arnim, was another with a personal connection to the war and liberation. Of Jewish descent, in 1942, aged 18, he had been arrested by the Gestapo and incarcerated in Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg. He survived the camps, being liberated by the Americans in May 1945. Nonetheless his film career saw him playing in Nazi uniform on numerous occasions, a notable role being that in Triple Cross (1966).

Director René Clement included several scenes in the movie which were direct recreations of actual images from August 1944. Left: This scene in the film of a female FFI fighter taking arms from a dead German soldier was a recreation of a famous cine shot from 1944 (right). The only difference was that the 18

A minor but memorable part is that of German actor Karl-Otto Alberty who plays one of two Gestapo officers who come to visit von Choltitz in the Hotel Meurice. The latter thinks they have come to arrest him for sabotaging Hitler’s orders to destroy the city and is not a little relieved and amused when they announce they have come on Himmler’s orders only to fetch the famous Bayeux Tapestry from the Louvres Museum — a mission that is clearly impossible as the museum, although just across the street from the hotel, is in the hands of the Resistance rebels. His

sequence was filmed in front of the Préfecture de Police whereas the wartime scene had occurred in front of the Hôtel de Ville. Liberation of Paris expert Gilles Primout has identified the real heroine of 1944 as Anne Marie Dalmaso, an Italianborn girl known in the FFI as Anita.

broad face, fat lips, broken nose and distinctive white-blond hair stamped Alberty as the quintessential fanatical Nazi officer, a role he had first played in The Great Escape (1963) and The Battle of the Bulge (1965) and to which he would later return with obvious delight in numerous British and American war movies, such as Battle of Britain (1969), Kelly’s Heroes (1970) and Raid on Rommel (1971), and TV-series like Winds of War and War and Remembrance. American actor Orson Welles was cast to play the role of Swedish consul general Raoul Nordling, who struggles as neutral mediator between the French Resistance and the Germans. Welles — the American multitalent and genius, famous for his radio adaptation of H. G. Well’s War of the Worlds (1938) and as director of the legendary masterpiece Citizen Kane (1940) and several later movie classics — by 1965 was 50 years old and in his second period of working in Europe. Forever at conflict with the Hollywood studio system, and having difficulties getting his own movie and theatre projects financed, he was at this time taking what work he could find, and he must have been glad to secure the (no doubt well-paid) part in Is Paris Burning?. Suffering like the real Nordling in 1944 from overweight and ill health, his portrayal is quite convincing as he repeatedly negotiates with the Germans, first in order to get the release of the French political prisoners detained in Paris jails and then persuading von Choltitz to accept a truce with the Paris rebel fighters after the first day of the uprising. The two other main American top stars were Glenn Ford, who plays Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley, commander of the US 12th Army Group, and Kirk Douglas who portrays Lieutenant General George S. Patton of the US Third Army. They had only cameo roles, Ford appearing in just two short scenes and Douglas in just a single one, their total screen time limited to just a few minutes. They are also conspicuous for their lack of physical resemblance to the historical persons they were portraying, another indication that they were solely contracted for their Hollywood star attraction. More substantial American roles were given to Robert Stack and Anthony Perkins. Stack, who plays Bradley’s chief of intelligence Brigadier General Edwin L. Sibert, had gained worldwide fans by his role as FBI agent Eliot Ness in the TV series The Untouchables, which ran from 1959-63 and was still being aired in Europe. Perkins, who had risen to international fame with his role as psychopathic murderer Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic suspense movie Psycho (1960), portrays Sergeant Warren of

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Above and above right: A column of Kübelwagens and Panther tanks, on their way to attack the Préfecture, is taken under fire by the FFI men on Place Saint-Michel. Right: Forever crowded with Parisians and tourists, Place Saint-Michel with its ornamental fountain remains the same irrespective of whether it is 1944, 1965 or today.

Having reached a position in front of the Notre-Dame, the tanks take the Préfecture under fire. This impressive shot also gives a good view of how the production designers converted the M24 Chaffee tanks into reasonably convincing Panthers.

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Right: No armour but a multitude of tourists on Notre-Dame square today. 19

Right: An FFI-manned loudspeaker car, followed by a German escort in an open Simca 8 Cabriolet, announces the truce that has been agreed between the Germans and the insurrectionists.

Right: The Gare d’Orsay (on the right) is now the world-renowned Musée d’Orsay and this stretch of the Quai d’Orsay (as it was known during the war) was renamed Quai Anatole France in 1947. In the left background is the Pont Royal and beyond that the southern wing of the Louvre. 20

The scene was filmed in Rue Casimir Delavigne and the cars are turning into Rue Monsieur-le-Prince.

A Citroën carrying Alexandre Parodi, the chief of the Gaullist Comité de Liberation Nationale, and several of his colleagues is halted by a German road-block during the truce. Arrested by the Germans, they were taken to see von Choltitz who, after an awkward conversation, agreed to release them. Note the M3 half-track turned SdKfz 251 on the right.

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LOCATIONS While casting was in progress, Graetz and his production team were busy negotiating with the French government and the city authorities for permission to film in the capital. The logistics involved in staging events of 21 years previously were staggering. The script called for shooting in some of Paris’s busiest streets and boulevards and at some of the capital’s major landmarks and mostfrequented tourist attractions — like the Champs-Élysées, Place de la Concorde, Notre-Dame square, the Eiffel Tower, Dôme des Invalides and the Hôtel de Ville (Town Hall) — and also for scenes in some of the French government’s most-sacred places – like the Chambre des Députés (Lower Parliament) in the Palais Bourbon and the Hôtel Matignon (the prime minister’s residence) in the Rue de Varenne. Not surprisingly, the French authorities were sympathetic to Clément’s plans to put one of the country’s most-glorious moments on the screen and in due course they gave all the necessary permissions and tried to be as helpful as possible. With authorisations secure, Clément and his location scouts spent many hours pouring over maps and city plans and toured hundreds of kilometres through the sprawling city to find suitable locations for the many other scenes in the film. It had been decided to try as much as possible to film everything in the actual location where it had happened in 1944. Thus, the Hotel Meurice on Rue de Rivoli was again adorned with swastika flags and German signs to serve as von Choltitz’s command post; the deportation of the political prisoners by train to Germany was filmed in the actual railway sidings at the Gare de Pantin freight station in north-eastern Paris; the taking of the Préfecture de Police by the FFI — the start sign of the general uprising — was shot at the actual building, not only at its main gate on the Place du Parvis-NotreDame across from the cathedral, but also in the building’s large courtyard, where the insurgent policemen first gather and are addressed by their leader Yves Bayet (Daniel Gélin) and later by Colonel RolTanguy (Bruno Cremer). However, filming at the true historic locations was not always possible. The scene of von Choltitz arriving at the residence of his predecessor as Commander of Gross-Paris, Generalleutnant Hans von BoineburgLengsfeld, could not be filmed at the Villa Coty at No. 26 Avenue Raphaël, as that building no longer existed, having made way for new development since the war. Swedish

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the US 4th Infantry Division, who gets killed moments after achieving his youngster’s dream of seeing Paris and spotting the Eiffel Tower. The name of his character is fictional but his role is based on a real GI who died trying to knock out a Panther tank with a bazooka near the Jardin du Luxembourg. George Chakiris — Oscar-winning star from West Side Story (1961) and one of the main characters in the 1964 war movie 633 Squadron (see After the Battle No. 18) — has a minute role as an American sergeant commanding the first American tank to reach the Notre-Dame Cathedral.

Right: On the morning of August 19, Colonel Rol-Tanguy moved his headquarters to a new location in southern Paris. On his way there, his Citroën 11 BL is seen passing through the Porte SaintMartin, passing right in front of a Feldgendarmerie traffic policeman and a Wehrmacht Kübelwagen.

However, the film-makers took a poetic license by having the car travel northwards instead of to the south.

The next scene shows Rol’s car crossing the Place Denfert-Rochereau. In a moment it will make a right turn and drive through the gate of No. 4 — a headquarters building of the Paris Waters and Sewers Administration. This was the actual entrance to the underground command post, code-named ‘Duroc’, which Rol would occupy for the remainder of the insurrection.

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PRODUCTION DESIGN Meanwhile, the art directors, set decorators and costume designers were busy preparing the hardware side of the movie. Production designer Louis Wipf was a veteran of over 30 films and had worked on The Longest Day. His art directors Willy Holt, Marc Frédérix and Pierre Guffroy were an experienced team as well. Holt and Frédérix had just done the art direction for another blockbuster war movie set in occupied France, The Train (1964) starring Burt Lancaster and Paul Scofield. Chief set dresser Roger Volper had worked on that film as well. To recreate wartime Paris and portray the scenes of the French Resistance, Wipf and his team needed sufficient French civilian cars and lorries and, equally important, bicycles of the period. Twenty years after the war, there were still enough vintage Citroëns, Renaults and Peugeots around and finding them did not present a major problem. They were suitably fitted out with gas containers on the roof or gazogène wood-gas generators on the back to replicate the type of car fuel used during the war. Also procured were a number of old municipal busses that were needed for the sequence of the deportation of the political prisoners. Finding types and models of bicycles that were common during the war proved rather more difficult but again over 50 were brought together, and duly fitted out with the typical large number plates on the back (introduced by the Germans during the occupation to ease requisition). The production was much helped when the French Ministry of Defence agreed to make available military personnel, matériel and equipment for the combat scenes. With the French Army of the 1960s, like the 2ème Division Blindée of 1944, still very much equipped with American-produced fighting vehicles and kit, the production team was able to assemble an impressive array of historically accurate vehicles for the Allied advance on Paris: at least a squadron of Sherman tanks, a half dozen M3A1 half-tracks, a sizable number of M8 armoured cars, and plenty of Jeeps and trucks — some 48 vehicles in all. The same fleet could be used for

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consul Nordling had his Consulate office at No. 78 Rue d’Anjou but for reasons unknown the scene of Nordling (Orson Welles) departing by car was not filmed there but in another street.

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Right: This stretch of the former Avenue d’Orléans (which itself was renamed Avenue du Général Leclerc in 1947) was renamed Avenue du Colonel Henri RolTanguy in August 2004. Above: A small plaque on the façade of No. 4 records that this was his command post from August 19 to 25. 21

Making their way through the sewers of Paris, Rol-Tanguy’s men report on the enemy situation. This magnificent shot

film. Wipf sent an assistant to Germany to try to find and obtain German military transport from the war but he was singularly unsuccessful and came back without a single vehicle. In the end the French found a few specimens of what they wanted — two VWKübelwagens, one VW-Schwimmwagen, a few German lorries and trucks, etc — on farms and in small garages in the French countryside, abandoned there in the German retreat in 1944 and kept into use by their new French owners since. To make up for the deficit, especially in German armour, the art directors converted two American-built M24 Chaffee light tanks into two very convincing German Panther tanks, complete with details so characteristic of the type, such as the long main gun barrel with muzzle brake, the aerial storage tubes

on the hull side, the storage boxes and exhaust pipes at rear, the Zimmerit coating and an MG34 machine gun mounted on the cupola. Although the Chaffee is nearly two metres shorter than a Panther, the end result is quite convincing and the ‘Panthers’ were used with great effect in the scenes of the German counter-attack against the rebels holding the Préfecture de Police and of the final battles at the Odéon Theatre and on the Place de la Concorde. To complement their array of German armour, the art directors converted what appear to be two American-built M3 halftracks into reasonably convincing German SdKfz 251 half-tracks. However, they may have been non-running types, for they only appear as stationary vehicles in three or four scenes. Another very clever idea was to use

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the scenes portraying the American army group and army headquarters (of Bradley at Laval and Patton in a wood south-west of Fontainebleau respectively) and in the scenes showing the advance of the US 4th Infantry Division to and into Paris. The Sherman tanks in the French scenes had the divisional emblem and names of actual tanks that fought specific actions in the battle painted on the side of their hulls — like La Marne, Douaumont, Montmireau, Mort-Homme, Romilly, Montmirail and Champaubert — but strangely enough the art directors failed to give the tanks and vehicles the tactical unit markings so typical of the AFVs of the 2ème Division Blindée of the 1944-45 campaign. The production team had more trouble getting the German vehicles needed for the

(featuring Jacques Santi as the FFI scout) was filmed on the Place de la Concorde.

The manhole remains to pinpoint the spot where the scene was filmed in 1965. 22

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PIERRE ROUGHOL

Above: Another recreation of an emblematic image from 1944 was that of the French woman manning the barricade on the Rue de la Huchette wearing a German helmet. Almost the personification of Marianne, the symbol of France, she was in fact Beatrice Briant, owner of a nearby bakery shop. Right: Her role in the movie was played by actress Nicolle Jonesco. Above right: Her barricade was at the eastern end of Rue de la Huchette, which is a narrow side street of Rue du Petit Pont, just around the corner from the Notre-Dame and the Préfecture de Police. an old French Renault R35 tank, which the art directors had obtained somewhere, as part of the German arsenal — which is historically correct as tanks of this type, captured in the 1940 Blitzkrieg, were indeed part of the German defences of Paris in August 1944. It is seen being hit and ‘brewed up’ by French Shermans in front of the Hotel Meurice in the final stage of the battle. Whereas the wardrobe department, led by Jean Zay and Pierre Nourry, did a good job in getting the uniforms, weapons and equipment of the officers and men of the various armies reasonably right, they peculiarly dropped a few clangers with US Army unit insignia in the American scenes. General

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Right: The scene of her was filmed at the actual site of the barricade, this still from the movie showing the view from the corner of Rue de la Huchette southwards down Rue du Petit Pont.

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Right: Few tourists passing this alley today will notice the plaque on the corner shop (see top right) recording that this was once the site of a barricade during the struggle for Paris in 1944. 23

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Above: Yvon Morandat (Jean Paul Belmondo) and his fiancée Claire (Marie Versini) drag their bicycles across a fireswept Avenue des Champs-Élysées while on their way to occupy the Hôtel de Matignon (the official residence of the prime ministers of France), in the name of the new French government. Right: The scene was filmed at the Place Clemenceau, looking east down the Champs-Élysées towards the obelisk on the Place de la Concorde. How rare it was to have the grand avenue completely devoid of traffic became clear to Karel when he tried to match up the shot in the noisy hubbub of the present-day city. Bradley (Glenn Ford) is not wearing the formation badge of his 12th Army Group but of the US First Army in his first scene and then, even more wrong, of some obscure US Army Command in his second (and a fantasy set of medal ribbons). General Patton (Kirk Douglas) is not wearing any formation badge at all but the GIs guarding his Third Army headquarters are all, but quite wrongly, wearing the cloverleaf emblem of the 4th Infantry Division! Likewise, the sergeant commanding the first American tank to

Right: With armed Gendarmerie officers guarding the entrance and every nearby corner, Karel could only match up the long shot from the far side of the street as all photography on the other side is strictly forbidden. 24

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Right and below: The couple arrives at the Matignon in Rue de Varenne. Shortly, they will ring at the door and, much to their own surprise, succeed in taking official possession of the building in the name of Général de Gaulle.

Right: General Sibert (Robert Stack) and General Bradley (Glenn Ford) arrive back at the airfield near Bradley’s 12th Army Group headquarters to break the news that the French 2ème Division Blindée will be allowed to advance on Paris. Filmed at the airfield of Toussus-le-Noble near the French army base at VersaillesSatory. Note that Ford is wearing the wrong shoulder badge: that of the US First Army instead of that of the 12th Army Group. reach the Notre-Dame (George Chakiris) again has the 4th Division patch on his sleeve and not the correct triangular emblem of the independent tank battalions (two of which were attached to the 4th Division for the Paris operation). Since many of the actual participants in the events portrayed in the movie were still alive when it was made, one might expect that the director and crew would seek the guidance and council of at least some of them to get things right. However, the film’s official credits list no historical advisors or military consultants, so if any were used their names are not known. No doubt some of the historical personae visited the set but there seems to have been no systematic attempt to make use of their knowledge. Perhaps, with the mass of detail provided by Collins’ and Lapierre’s book, there was no need for it. SHOOTING THE MOVIE The decision to shoot the film in black and white was made for several reasons. The main motive was that, like with The Longest Day, it would give the movie the feel of a documentary and thereby enhance its authenticity. The Longest Day had proven that, even in the era of CinemaScope and Panavision wide-screen colour movies, a film in black and white could still be a box office success (something which director Steven Spielberg would vindicate nearly 30 years later with Schindler’s List, released in 1993). Filming in black and white also enabled director Clément to insert historical archive footage in his film. These archive images include not only short clips from what little film material exists from the actual uprising in August 1944 but also shots of Paris under the German occupation (alternated very cleverly with shots done in 1965 in the title sequence),

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Centre: On its way to Paris, the 2ème Division Blindée passes through the town of Arpajon on the Route Nationale 20. Right: The characteristic covered market on the Place de Marché remains unchanged. In 1965, the movie producers mobilised almost the entire population of the town to recreate the ecstatic crowds of 1944.

French soldiers queue up to telephone their relatives in Paris that they are on the way. The café owner (Simone Signoret) gladly welcomes here liberators.

The scene was filmed in the Café du Midi which, with its interior only slightly altered, is still in business on Place Marché today. 25

gate of the notorious prison at Fresnes, one of many such guns set up to delay the Allied advance.

Left: The movie producers had their gun set up at the very same spot as the actual gun of 1944, the only difference being that the wartime one was an 88mm. Right: The prison gate on Avenue de Versailles, which still existed in 1965 (by which time the road had been renamed Avenue de la Division Leclerc),

has been sealed off today, a new gate having been installed around the corner in Avenue de la Liberté. However, the façade of the gate guardhouse and a part of the old wall have been preserved as a monument to the many resistance fighters who were detained in the prison during the war.

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As part of their outer defensive line south of Paris, the Germans have positioned an anti-tank gun in front of the main

Certainly the finest example of Clément’s use of archive footage is the scene of a speeding German lorry full of troops being hit by machine-gun fire from one of the barricades (filmed on Place Saint-Michel). This is then cut with the famous archive footage, filmed from an upstairs window during the actual uprising, of a real German lorry engulfed in

flame, with burning soldiers falling out of the vehicle. This is then cut to the scene (filmed on Boulevard du Palais and on Quai de l’Horloge, the northern bank of the Ile de la Cité) of a German soldier who survives the blaze and, his face and uniform blackened by the fire, escapes from the ambush to warn the German headquarters in the Hotel Meurice.

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combat footage to illustrate the fighting of the French 2ème Division Blindée during its advance to Paris (which includes Germanshot clips from 1940 of a Renault R35 being knocked out), and out-takes from the lavishly available stock film on the triumphal march of Général de Gaulle down the Champs-Élysées the day after the liberation.

The German gunners train their gun on Sherman La Marne which can be seen advancing towards them down Avenue de la République. Shortly their first shell will halt and destroy the enemy tank but another French Sherman will then come driving right over the German gun, wrecking it and putting it out of action. 26

Although the five-road junction has been radically altered since 1944, the café at the fork of Avenue de la République and Boulevard Pasteur, which lies across the road from the prison gate, still survives. Though there are several small differences the combat action at Fresnes prison as depicted in the movie is remarkably consistent with the actual event as it unfolded in 1944.

Another reason for the film to be shot in black and white, reputed to be as important if not more than the others, was that, although the French authorities would allow swastika flags to be displayed on public buildings for key shots, they would not permit those flags to be in their original red colour. As a result, green swastika flags were used, which photographed adequately in black and white but were of course entirely the wrong colour historically. (It is, incidentally, not completely true that the film was shot in black and white for the closing credits feature aerial shots of modern-day Paris in colour.) Filming started in Paris in the last week of July 1965 and continued throughout August. That month had been especially selected because this is the time of year when over half of the Parisians leave the capital for the summer season holidays, an annual exodus that leaves the city relatively empty. This made the closing off of streets and the restrictions on traffic much easier and less of a hindrance to the population. For the same reason, filming was only carried out in the morning, starting early at 5 a.m. and finishing at noon. To make the utmost of the time available, Clément decided to divide his team into units and shoot in several locations simultaneously. Although Paris in August is never devoid of people and tourists from all over the world flock to city every day of the year, the crew in this way managed to achieve wonderfully empty and quiet shots of normally busy and overcrowded boulevards like the ChampsÉlysées, of traffic-filled squares like the Place de la Concorde, and of tourist-flooded attractions like the Eiffel Tower. Every morning the film crew of about 150 technicians with the cast and extras listed on the day’s call-sheet assembled at the locations of the day. For mass scenes, like that of the deportation of prisoners from Pantin station or the welcome given to the liberating

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Right: Meanwhile, the German engineers, on von Choltitz’s orders, were mining the major landmarks of Paris. Here Hauptmann Ebernach (Wolfgang Preiss) arrives at the Eiffel Tower to inspect the preparations.

The entrance to the stairway in the tower’s southern pillar has changed little. troops by the civilian population, Clément mustered up to 700 extras. Added up for all days of filming, a total of some 20,000 extras were hired for the production. Paris in 1965 differed relatively little from how it looked in 1944, yet the art department had plenty to do to prepare the set locations: removing modern-type traffic lights from crossroads and television antennae from

roofs; covering roadways of streets and boulevards with soot to blend out the modern road markings, and camouflaging modern-day façades that could not be kept out of camera with tarpaulin sheets (in one particular shot of the German tank attack across Place Saint-Michel a modern car can be spotted wrapped up in tarpaulin in a side street!). The set decorators then had to dress up the

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Above and right: Among the bridges being mined was the famous Pont Alexandre III, which crosses the Seine between the Grand Palais and the Esplanade des Invalides.

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Above: German sappers putting explosive charges in the structure of the span — recreated for the movie in 1965 and matched up by Karel in 2012 (right). 27

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Explosives arrive in preparation for demolitions at the Hotel des Invalides . . .

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. . . including placing them beneath the tomb of Napoleon. Meanwhile, Hauptmann Ebernach and his assistant muse on the analogy between the emperor’s defeat at Moscow in 1812 and Hitler’s defeat before the gates of the same city 130 years later.

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various locations and buildings with German traffic and direction signs, wartime propaganda posters and Resistance placards, air raid precaution tape on windows and glass panes, etc. The sight of German signs and Nazi uniforms on the streets of Paris caused a mixed reaction from the general public, some critical, some indifferent, some emotional. On one occasion a passing postman was seen to fall off his bike, shouting ‘They’ve returned! They’ve returned!’ A very large part of the filming took place on and around the Ile de la Cité, the small island in the Seine river in the very heart of the city on which stands the Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Préfecture de Police, and on the Quai Saint-Michel which lies across from its southern bank. This is where most of the uprising’s combat scenes were filmed: the taking of the Préfecture by the FFI; the ambush of a German troop lorry by the insurgents; the German counter-attacks against the Préfecture with infantry troops and Panther tanks, etc. Scenes of the fighting at the barricades were filmed at the nearby Place Saint-Michel — the actual site of a famous barricade from August 1944 — and on a corner of the adjoining Rue de la Huchette (recreating one of the epitomising photographs of the uprising). A kilometre south on the Boulevard SaintMichel, at Place Edmond Rostand, Clément recreated the entry of the main force of Leclerc’s division into the city, their armoured column being swamped by happy civilians who come running out of cafés and houses. Two important combat actions were filmed in the adjoining Rue de Médicis, which leads off the square and along the northern edge of the Jardin du Luxembourg park. The first is the action in which Lieutenant de la Fouchardière (Claude Rich) shoots up the German machine-gun nest from the old lady’s apartment. The second is that in which Sergeant Warren (Anthony Perkins) knocks out a Panther tank in front of the Odéon Theatre at the end of the street, only to get killed by a sniper seconds later. Both actions are historically correct, and really occurred near here. In fact, the film Panther was ‘brewed up’ at the exact spot where the one from 1944 met its end. Another centre of filming was the Place de la Concorde, with the Rue de Rivoli entering it from the north-west and the ChampsÉlysées coming in on it eastern side. The Rue de Rivoli is where the many exterior scenes around the German headquarters in the Hotel Meurice were filmed. (Clément also shot several scenes at the Hotel Majestic at No. 14 Avenue Kléber, the seat of that other German main military headquarters in Paris — that of the Wehrmacht Commander in France — but these were not used in the final film, probably in order not to confuse viewers.) The Place de la Concorde was used for the marvellous shot of an FFI scout sticking his head out of a manhole of the city sewers to find the vast square being patrolled by a Panther tank; and for the exhilarating combat sequence of the final tank battle between the German armour and that of the 2ème Division Blindée. Strangely enough, for this scene in which Douaumont commanded by Sergeant Bizien (Yves Montand) knocks out a Panther by crashing headlong into it, the type of tank was changed to an M10 tank destroyer. This was probably because the producers did not have permission to smash up a Sherman. To solve the problem, the art department converted another M24 Chaffee to look like an open-topped M10. The Champs-Élysées itself was used in two short scenes, for which the whole 800-metrelong stretch from the Place Clemenceau to the Place de la Concorde was blocked off for traffic. One was that in which Jean Paul Belmondo and Marie Versini, on their way to

Right: A decisive moment in the battle for Paris. Sensing the need for urgency, Général Leclerc (right) instructs Capitaine Raymond Dronne (left) to take a small task force and drive straight through to Paris. This order-giving actually occurred in the centre of the town of Antony on the N20. Above: The movie version had Leclerc (Claude Rich) instructing Dronne (Georges Staquet) at a five-road junction in moreopen countryside — filmed near Arpajon.

the Matignon, are forced to drag their bicycles across a fire-swept boulevard. The other, filmed at the same spot, is that of a lone German soldier driving a herd of pigs across the deserted avenue at dawn — an iconic image from the time of the German occupation. On the far side of the Arc de Triomphe, at the Place de la Porte Maillot on the Avenue de la Grande Armée (the continuation of the Champs-Élysées), Clement filmed the scene of two vans full of young and naive FFI members meeting up with a contact (played by Jean-Louis Trintignant) who later turns out to be a traitor and delivers the whole group into the hands of the Gestapo. (Although Is Paris Burning? was made at a time when it was still usage in France to regard every French citizen under German occupation, if not as a member of the Resistance, then at least as a good patriot, the screen depiction gave adequate hints at various sorts of collaboration with the Nazis. Apart from this scene of the French traitor, these include the sequence in which the political prisoners from Fresnes Prison are herded into busses by French policemen for their transportation to the Pantin railway station; the scene in which a wedding ceremony in a town hall is rudely interrupted by FFI rebels who quickly relieve the collaborationist mayor from his sash of office, remove the painting of Maréchal Pétain from the wall, and then proceed to join the happy

At dusk on August 24, having penetrated the capital without meeting any Germans, Dronne’s small armoured column reaches the Hôtel de Ville (Town Hall) in the heart of the city, relieving the besieged FFI force in that building. They are the first Allied troops to enter the capital. couple in wedlock; and the scene of Belmondo and Versini taking over the Prime Minister’s residence, where the commander of the police bodyguard detachment of Vichy Prime Minister Pierre Laval quickly and

opportunistically changes sides and nervously assures Belmondo that he has always been ‘a firm republican’. For a French movie made in the mid-1960s these were courageous attempts at historical accuracy.)

Filmed on the actual square in front of the town hall (which is just off the picture to the left). 29

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Above: Next morning, the main force of the 2ème Division Blindée entered the city in force. This shot of happy civilians running out on the street to welcome the French troops was filmed on the Boulevard Saint-Michel, the actual axis of entry of part of Groupement Tactique Billotte in 1944. Below: The mass scene was filmed just where Boulevard Saint-Michel reaches the Place Edmond Rostand.

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Filming in Paris continued for weeks on end. One short scene was shot in the picturesque Place des Vosges, when ChabanDelmas (Alain Delon) meets with Françoise Labé (Leslie Caron) in a café on the corner of the famous arcaded square. Another short sequence was done aboard a Line 6 metro train at the La Motte-Picquett Grenelle station, when Colonel Rol-Tanguy (Bruno Cremer), travelling in the train, sees a disillusioned German soldier, Funker Willi Wagenknecht (played by Otto Stern), being accosted by a German officer for improper behaviour — a sure sign for the Communist leader that the Germans are cracking and that the time is ripe for a general uprising. Clément made a strange topographical error in the scene in which Rol-Tanguy is on his way to take up his new underground headquarters in the famous catacombs of Paris. His car is first seen passing underneath the arch of the Porte Saint-Martin on Rue Saint-Martin, i.e. north of the Seine and driving northwards. This is then cut to the car passing the famous Lion of Belfort statue on

Left: Fired upon by a German machine-gun nest in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Lieutenant Pierre de la Fouchardière (Claude

Rich) and a group of FFI men run down Rue de Médicis to engage it. Right: The façades remain the same. Left: Lieutenant de la Fouchardière politely introduces himself to the old lady (Germaine de France) before engaging the enemy from her third-floor apartment (which, in reality, was located in Avenue de l’Observatoire, on the other side of the Jardin du Luxembourg). Actor Claude Rich was initially contracted to play only the lieutenant but when during initial casting he was accidentally given a kepi instead of a beret to wear, director René Clement — who was still looking for an actor to play Général Leclerc — knew he had found his man. Thus Riche was contracted for a double bill, appearing both as the lieutenant and the general (compare with the photo at the top of page 29).

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Right: A little later a Panther tank comes rolling down towards Rue de Médicis from Rue de Vaugirard. As it reaches the rear of the Odéon Theatre on Place Paul Claudel, it is knocked out by a bazooka. Place Denfert-Rochereau. The latter location is historically correct as the entrance to the subterranean rooms used by Rol-Tanguy is just off this square — however, Place Denfert-Rochereau is well south of the Seine, so why was the car first filmed driving northwards? The scenes of German sappers mining the Seine bridges were done at the Pont Alexandre III, just north of the Invalides, and at the Pont de Grenelle, south of the Eiffel Tower, with other mining preparations being filmed at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, at Napoleon’s tomb in the Dôme des Invalides and in the main session hall of the Chambre des Députés in the Palais Bourbon. While Clément and his chief cameraman Marcel Grignon worked on the principal scenes, the second unit under director André Smagghe and cameraman Jean Tournier worked on other parts of the script. One of them was the odyssey of the FFI envoys Gallois (Pierre Vaneck) and Dr Monod (Charles Boyer) in their, initially fruitless, attempts to cross the German lines and contact the Allied camp. A sub-plot of the main story, this develops in one of the movie’s few

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Right: The unchanged streets of Paris — then and now. In all, the art department converted just two M24 Chaffees into Panthers, using them in different sequences at different locations.

Régiment de Chars de Combat. Four Panthers and several smaller ex-French tanks were stationed in the Jardin du Luxembourg from where they made forays against the insurrectionist strongholds between August 19 and 24 and against the French armour on the 25th.

Left: Having knocked out the Panther with their bazooka, the FFI man (Jean Valmont) and American Sergeant Warren (Anthony Hopkins) run to a café to raise a glass of wine on

their victory. Seconds later, Warren is killed by a German bullet. Right: The same café, today named Au Petite Suisse, still stands on the corner of Place Paul Claudel.

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The movie sequence shot behind the Odéon was recreated on the precise spot where an actual Panther had been knocked out in August 1944. The vehicle in question, seen here, was however not disabled with a bazooka but by three 105mm shells fired by Sherman La Moskowa of the 501ème

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Right: The final attack on von Choltitz’s headquarters in the Hotel Meurice was partly filmed in the actual Rue de Rivoli and partly on a huge film set built at the French Army base at Versailles-Satory. It is almost impossible to distinguish what was filmed where but this shot showing the length of the street appears to be the real thing.

Right: Karel took his comparison squatting on the pavement that runs alongside the Tuileries gardens.

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However, there are several incongruities in the attack sequence that provide a clue. This shot (above) purports to show French soldiers and resistance fighters charging past a burning Renault R35 tank — in German use, so more properly called a PzKpfw 35R 731(f) — towards the Meurice. However, the arcades continuing around the corner identify this side street as the Rue de Castiglione (none of the other side streets of the Rue de Rivoli have this feature). The latter street, however, is already beyond the hotel, so the actors are actually charging away from their objective! However the confusion is even greater. Close inspection of other stills shows that the street name sign reads Rue d’Alger, which is topographically correct (it lies east of the Meurice) but architectonically wrong (it has no arcades). Hence this must be the film set. Right: Rue de Castiglione today.

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instances of good suspense. After being repeatedly halted and turned back by German checkpoints and road-blocks, Gallois finally reaches American lines by sneaking past German troops entrenched in shell-battered frontline farms and hiding in haystacks, who let him pass lest they give away their own position. To film the scenes at Bradley’s advanced headquarters at Laval, where Gallois in an emotional plea before General Sibert (Robert Stack) and the assembled army group staff convinces them to advance straight to Paris, the film crew moved to a château outside Paris. This was a deviation from history, as the real ‘EagleTac’ headquarters at Laval had not been housed in a château but in tents at a grove previously used by a German Luftwaffe headquarters. Among the most impressive scenes of the whole movie are those showing the advance of the 2ème Division Blindée towards Paris. The long columns and armoured might of the Shermans, half-tracks and armoured cars thundering along narrow dusty roads in

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rolling French countryside, with Général Leclerc standing in the roadside watching the progress of his powerful force, very convincingly recreate the images so well known from the wartime photos and newsreels. The scenes of Leclerc’s columns moving through the towns and villages en route to the capital were filmed at Arpajon, a small municipality on the N20 highway 30 kilometres south of Paris, and in August 1944 on the actual axis of advance of Groupement Tactique Billotte, one of the division’s three combat commands. The town’s famous 15thcentury covered market, with its distinctive peaked roof, appears clearly recognisable in several of the shots. Hundreds of local inhabitants were mobilised to play as extras, recreating the delirious crowds welcoming their liberators. One of the cafés on the market place was used for the scene with Simone Signoret in which soldiers stop to make hasty phone calls to relatives in Paris that they are on the way, all recreations of what actually took place here. Several important sequences unrolled at the entrance gate of the state prison of Fresnes, France’s second-largest prison located in a suburb six kilometres south of the city. Both were filmed at the actual spot where they happened in 1944. One is at the beginning of the movie when Mme Labé (Caron) sees here arrested husband Bernard being driven into the jail compound in a Gestapo car. The other is during Leclerc’s drive on Paris, when tanks of Groupement Tactique Billotte attack Fresnes, which the Germans have made a strong point in their outer line of defence. In a short combat exchange, the Shermans shoot up the German anti-tank gun defending the prison gate, the co-driver of Sherman La Marne (Chasseur Paul Landrieux of the 501ème Régiment de Chars, played by George Poujouley) however dying within sight of the home that he left three years ago to join the Free French. The tank attack is recreated very accurately, the main slip-up being that the anti-tank gun shown in the movie is a 75mm PaK 40 whereas in actual fact it was an 88mm. A pivotal moment is that in which Leclerc orders scruffy and bearded Capitaine Raymond Dronne of the Régiment de Marche de Tchad (played by Georges Staquet) to take a small task force to the heart of the city. In reality this occurred at the town of Antony, on the N20 main axis of advance, close to Fresnes, but it was filmed at a five-forked junction in another town, probably at Arpajon. Dronne’s tiny detachment of three Shermans (named Romilly, Montmirail and Champaubert), 15 half-tracks, three Jeeps and one GMC would famously end up being the very first Allied troops to reach Paris, penetrating the city at the Porte d’Italie at dusk on August 24. Clément filmed the crossing of his force to the north bank of the Seine at the Pont de la Tournelle instead of at the Pont d’Austerlitz further east, where it actually occurred. This was probably because the latter bridge is on a main boulevard and could hardly be closed for traffic. Using the smaller Pont de la Tournelle had an additional advantage in that it gave a good view of the Notre-Dame, which immediately placed the shot as being in the heart of the city. The arrival of Dronne’s force at the Town Hall was filmed at the historical location, the Place de l‘Hôtel de Ville.

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Right: Lieutenant Henri Karcher (JeanPierre Cassel) leading the charge of his men towards the Meurice, which was located at No. 228. The Rolex shop seen here features the number 224, so two doors away from the hotel.

There is today a Rolex shop at No. 222, so one door further back than the one seen in the movie. Although this is insufficient as a distinguishing clue, it is pretty certain that this scene too was shot in the production’s replica of the Rue de Rivoli.

Right: General von Choltitz surrendering to Lieutenant Karcher in his office suite in the Meurice — filmed on the set at Versailles-Satory. 33

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The final battle on the Place de la Concorde. While one Sherman turns left into Rue de Rivoli, Douaumont commanded by Sergeant Marcel Bizien (Yves Montand) charges straight at a Panther (partly seen in the left foreground) that is firing down the Champs-Élysées from a position near the obelisk.

The same view today, looking towards the Rue Royale with the Hôtel de Crillon on the left and the French Naval Ministry (which housed the Kriegsmarine headquarters in the West during the occupation) on the right. In the real action of 1944, the French tanks did not emerge onto the square from Rue Royale but from Rue de Rivoli.

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When it was impossible to get any more footage on the Rue de Rivoli (because traffic interruptions here could no longer be extended), Clément and his crew moved to the large French Army base at VersaillesSatory. Here, on a site west of Lake Martinière, production designer Holt and his team had built an exact replica of a whole stretch of the Rue de Rivoli, complete with the typical arched pavement on one side and the grated railing of the Tuileries gardens on the other, and including the entrance and lobby of the Hotel Meurice. This was used to complete the scenes of the fighting advance of Lieutenant Karcher’s infantry and supporting Sherman tanks towards the Hotel Meurice and the final capture of von Choltitz. The massive film set survived all the shooting, only to be seriously damaged by stormy winds, which caused several of the façades to collapse, luckily on the very last day of filming there. With many of the interior shots being made on location, there remained relatively few interior scenes to be done in the film studio. The main ones were those of the Resistance leaders conferring and discussing their plans; of General von Choltitz in his upstairs room in the Hotel Meurice, and of the insurgents besieged at the Préfecture de Police. These were made at the Franstudio film studios at Saint-Maurice, on the southeastern edge of Paris, the production site of innumerable French motion pictures made between 1930 and 1971. The scenes of von Choltitz being driven to and arriving at Hitler’s Wolfsschanze headquarters in the Rastenburg Forest to receive the Führer’s orders for the defence of Greater Paris — the movie’s opening sequence — was filmed in the Bois de Vincennes near the Saint-Maurice studios. To depict the Führerhauptquartier the set decorators had erected three different sentry barrier posts to recreate those giving access to the FHQ’s inner security zones and built two wooden headquarters huts, one of them in half-ruined state to depict the Lage-Barracke (Situation Hut) wrecked by the bomb attack on Hitler’s life of July 20, 1944. The interior shots of the FHQ were filmed in the studio, the part of Hitler being played by Austrian actor Billy Frick — whose peculiar Austrian accent and clipped tone of voice is remarkably reminiscent of that adopted many years later by Bruno Ganz for his award-winning personification of Hitler in Der Untergang (Downfall) in 2004 (see After the Battle No. 128). Filming continued for a full six months and was completed a few days before schedule. Producer Paul Graetz did not see the end result of all his work for he died of a heart

Dressed in the black uniform of the Panzertruppen, the French crew of the Panther/Chaffee waits for the camera to roll. 34

The obelisk marks the site of the guillotine where over 1,300 people were beheaded during the Reign of Terror in 1793-94.

The penultimate scene of the movie: Shermans supporting the US 4th Infantry Division reach the Notre-Dame, beating those of the 2ème Division Blindée (in the foreground) by a few seconds.

The movie was released by Paramount. The world premiere took place at the Palais de Chaillot (Trocadéro) in Paris on October 26, 1966, with first screenings in West Germany and other European Continental countries following the next week. Opening night in the United States was in New York on November 10, first United Kingdom screening in London on December 7. Advertised as ‘A motion picture to command the attention of the world!’ and ‘With a stunning international cast’, expectations of its commercial success were high. However, its reception by critics and movie-goers was mixed. Although reviewers applauded its historical accuracy and the superb quality of the acting, many judged that the end result suffered from a lack of suspense and drama. Quite a few viewers found the storyline confusing and difficult to follow, especially the motivations within the various factions of the French Resistance. The movie industry acclaimed the movie’s technical merits, nominating it for two of that year’s Academy Awards: for Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography. However, it failed to qualify for either Best Picture or Best Foreign Language Film, the Oscars in

those categories going to Fred Zinneman’s A Man for all Seasons and Claude Lelouch’s Un Homme et une femme (A Man and a Woman) respectively. Although cinemagoers flocked see to the movie, overall ticket sales were disappointing and revenues decidedly less than expected. In the final analysis, the movie was a costly box office failure. Due to legal disputes over film rights, Is Paris Burning? has seldom if ever been screened on television, neither in France or outside; nor was it for a long time released on video. All this has caused Clément’s film to, very undeservedly, drop somewhat from public awareness. Apparently, the legal squabbles were solved in 2003 for in that year a DVD version was released in the United States and in some European countries albeit only in the English-language edition. Amazingly, the very first DVD release in France only occurred in August 2011. Despite its dramatic shortcomings, Is Paris Burning? remains an epic and reliable reconstruction of a major event of the 1944-45 campaign in the West, perhaps not as good as The Longest Day but certainly on a par with A Bridge too Far, and infinitely better than The Battle of the Bulge.

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attack on February 5, 1966, just as the shooting was winding up. The strain of making the big-budget movie might well have brought it on. With all the celluloid material in the can, it was now up to Clément and his Chief Editor Robert Lawrence to put the final film together. The music score to accompany the images was written and conducted by veteran film composer Maurice Jarre (the father of French pop star Jean Michel Jarre). He devised a catchy tune that was efficiently able to switch from a happy Parisian accordion atmosphere to a throbbing theme of suspense. (With lyrics added by Maurice Vidalin and performed by Mireille Mathieu, it was later released as a song titled Paris en colère (Paris in anger), which became a popular hit and established itself as a classic chanson emblematic of Paris.) When finally finished, the movie ran to 173 minutes. It was made in two language versions: one for the European market with each character speaking in his or her own native language, with subtitles; and one for the Anglo-American market, with every French and German personality having his lines dubbed into English (with one single exception: the opening sequence of von Choltitz meeting Hitler at the Wolfsschanze was left in its original German tongue, with English subtitles). As was common with foreign-produced war movies at the time, the German distributors of Is Paris Burning? felt obliged to apply censorship to several scenes that were considered unsavoury for a German audience. The principal victim was the scene in which the group of young Resistance fighters previously seen captured by the Gestapo is executed at night in a wild mêlée of shooting in the Bois de Boulogne. (This last-minute massacre in the woods had really happened on August 16, 1944.) Another, much shorter deletion was the shot in which one of the German soldiers at Fresnes Prison makes an off-hand remark that the political prisoners being led away are ‘going to Buchenwald’. Several longer cuts were made in the sequence of the prisoners being loaded into the deportation train at Pantin station, notably those involving the SS officer in charge of the transport and the German shepherd dogs used to keep the prisoners under control. In all, the German version had six deletions and ended up four minutes and 11 seconds shorter than the original.

This race to the cathedral actually occurred, although the American vehicles involved were not Shermans but M8 armoured cars and M5 light tanks of the 38th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron.

The magnificent cathedral and the Petit Pont seen from the corner of Quai Saint-Michel. 35

On June 21, 1940, Lyndon B. Johnson — then a 31-year-old Congressman from Texas — was commissioned as a Lieutenant Commander in the US Naval Reserve. After Pearl Harbor, the young politician turned soldier spent the first five months of the war in cushy jobs, inspecting West Coast shipyard training programmes and serving as naval liaison to New Zealand. Then, in May 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt selected him to participate in a fact-finding mission to the South West Pacific Area. During the resulting three-week tour of Australia, Johnson volunteered to go on a combat mission aboard a B-26 bomber to the Japanese base of Lae in New Guinea. Though the mission was short and aborted, and without any contact with the enemy, it prompted General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the South West Pacific Area, to award Johnson the Silver Star — a decoration that in later life became highly controversial and remains so to this day. Right: This picture of Johnson in Naval uniform was taken at a photo session in Hollywood in March 1942.

By David Mitchelhill-Green

LBJ LIBRARY

The line that stirred the most applause during the opening address of Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1941 election campaign was a warning of looming war. Stressing America’s need for preparedness, the Texan Congressman boasted, ‘If the day ever comes when my vote must be cast to send your boy to the trenches — that day Lyndon Johnson will leave his Senate seat to go with him’. Striking a chord in his home state of Texas, Johnson’s patriotic promise became a familiar pledge: ‘I shall never vote for war and then hide behind a Senate seat where bullets cannot reach me’.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON’S SILVER STAR CONGRESSMAN JOHNSON GOES TO WAR Lyndon Baines Johnson was born in Stonewall in the impoverished Texas Hill Country on August 27, 1908. Graduating from Southwest Texas State Teachers College in 1930, Johnson taught for two years as a public school teacher before accepting a position as secretary to Representative Richard M. Kleberg. After a year at Georgetown Law School, Johnson became State Director of the National Youth Administration of Texas. Resigning in 1937 for a career in politics, the ambitious 28-year-old was elected in succession to the 75th and 76th Congress. Johnson’s political ascendancy, however, received an unexpected setback in July 1941 when his campaign for the US Senate was defeated. Would he now face ‘the trenches’ himself as promised while America moved speedily away from the Neutrality Act of 1939 towards a declaration of war? After US warships received orders to ‘shoot on sight’ German U-Boats or other raiders attacking merchant shipping, Johnson declared on October 7 that the ‘United States is already in that war’. In response, the publisher of the Hill Country’s Fredericksburg Standard questioned Johnson’s recent electoral pledge: ‘We are confident that by his declaration of “being in the front lines, in the mud”, he meant just that the war being now at hand, according to Mr Johnson’s own declaration, his conduct will demonstrate to his critics and defenders what his campaign promise is worth. It is up to Congressman Lyndon Johnson whether he will live up to his promise.’ 36

Johnson had earlier received a commission as Lieutenant Commander in the US Naval Reserve (USNR) on June 21, 1940. Two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Johnson and Warren G. Magnuson (a colleague in the House Naval Affairs Committee) visited Admiral Chester W. Nimitz’s office to request active service. Tellingly, a month later Magnuson was serving aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise in the Pacific, while Johnson was busy in Washington furthering his political career. Visiting the White House, Johnson was unsuccessful in convincing President Franklin D. Roosevelt to form a new body, to be known as the Civilian Youth Administration (by merging the National Youth Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps), which he intended to lead. Rather than request a combat assignment, Johnson next approached his friend and political supporter, James V. Forrestal, Undersecretary of the Navy. This overture led to an assignment — to which Forrestal asked, ‘Lyndon, how do you want these orders to read?’ — entailing an inspection tour of West Coast shipyard training programmes and a shortlived post as naval liaison to New Zealand. The latter post was, as Johnson condemned, ‘a paper-shifting job, placating the Navy and placating the New Zealanders. I had given up my seat in Congress for nothing’. Citing a ‘personal problem’, Johnson received permission from the Navy’s New Zealand Command to return to Washington where he was again unsuccessful in lobbying Roosevelt for a more senior position. On

January 29, 1942 he returned to the West Coast for another inspection tour of shipyard training programmes. In the midst of Japan’s early Pacific victories, Johnson, together with John B. Connally (his administrative assistant, also in the Naval Reserve) inspected the vital shipbuilding facilities, their trips punctuated by ‘a lot of fun’ including Hollywood parties and private film screenings. As always, Johnson continued to consolidate his political future while seeking promotion to Admiral, his current subordination to superior officers particularly irritating. A posting to Pearl Harbor was briefly mooted while Johnson’s advisors berated his apparent procrastination to front-line service: ‘Get your ass out of this country at once to where there is danger, and then get back as soon as you can to real work’, one of them wrote. In the meantime, his Texas constituents’ curiosity grew regarding his whereabouts and military duties while other representatives were serving in combat zones: Melvin J. Maas of Minnesota, another member of the Naval Affairs Committee, was on active service with the Marines in the Pacific (where he would receive the Silver Star); Eugene E. Worley, also from Texas, was a Lieutenant Commander in the South Pacific; James E. Van Zandt of Pennsylvania was a Lieutenant Commander aboard a destroyer in the North Atlantic and Frank C. Osmers of New Jersey, who had also made a campaign promise to serve in combat, had enlisted as a private in the Army and would eventually see combat in the Philippines and Okinawa.

Unsure as to whether he should run for a Senate seat or seek re-election in the House, Johnson returned to Washington on April 13. A fortnight later, Roosevelt steadfastly refused to assist Johnson in the Senate race. At Forrestal’s suggestion, however, the President agreed that Johnson would travel as naval representative to the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) to report on the war effort. Johnson received orders to travel to Australia and on May 7 — five months after the Pearl Harbor strike — he was aboard Vice-Admiral Robert L. Ghormley’s personal transport, a giant Consolidated PB2Y-2 Coronado flying boat, winging its way across the Pacific. Arriving at New Caledonia, one of the many stops en route to Australia, he was joined in by two army observers, Colonel Samuel E. Anderson and Lieutenant-Colonel Francis R. Stevens, representing Army air and ground forces respectively. Stranded on the Free French possession under threat of invasion at the end of the Battle of the Coral Sea, the two men ‘managed to beg a ride with Admiral Ghormley’. Together the trio would journey to Melbourne to meet with General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the SWPA. Travelling with two knowledgeable officers had immediate benefits for Johnson. As Anderson noted, ‘he [Johnson] was extremely sharp in everything I ever saw him do — but at the same time our viewpoints and experience certainly couldn’t hurt’. Leaving New Caledonia, the Coronado landed at Sydney Harbour on May 22 after a brief stopover in New Zealand. The party then flew south to Melbourne aboard a small Lockheed 12 commercial airliner on Sunday, May 24. After landing, as Johnson recorded in his diary, on a ‘muddy cow pasture field with green grass and a dozen B-17s and B-24s’, the men checked in to the Menzies Hotel in preparation for their meeting with MacArthur the following morning. Ushered into MacArthur’s office by his Chief-of-Staff,

The task of the fact-finding mission was to inspect industrial and military training sites and forward airbases in Australia and report on the living conditions and morale of US personnel in the theatre. Johnson would be going as an observer for the Navy. The small delegation was further to consist of Colonel Samuel E. Anderson, observing for the Army Ground Forces (left), and Lieutenant Colonel Francis R. Stevens, representing the Army Air Forces (right). They joined up with Johnson at Noumea on May 21 while en route to Australia.

DAVID MITCHELHILL-GREEN

DAVID MITCHELHILL-GREEN

LBJ LIBRARY

Right: On May 24, the small delegation arrived in Melbourne, Australia. Johnson had brought along a private Kodak 16mm movie camera and throughout his Pacific voyage filmed, or had others film, his activities. These home movies, some in blackand-white, some in colour, form a unique record of his journey and we have taken stills off them to illustrate this story. Their first appointment in Melbourne was with General MacArthur and Johnson filmed the SWPA headquarters which was located at No. 401 Collins Street, seen on the right. Below right: The same view today, pictured by David Mitchelhill-Green.

A plaque on the façade of the Trustees Executive & Agency Co Ltd. building records its historic role during the war. (On July 21, 1942, MacArthur moved his SWPA headquarters north to Brisbane.) 37

DAVID MITCHELHILL-GREEN

LBJ LIBRARY

Major General Richard K. Sutherland, the men received ‘a monologue’ on the disheartening course of the war in the SWPA. MacArthur’s staff, in turn, provided a schedule of industrial and military training sites to be visited in south-eastern Australia before a flight north to inspect forward airbases from where missions were being flown against Japanese forces in northern New Guinea. Seeking to profit from the political mileage of a Congressman in close contact with the President, MacArthur delegated Brigadier General William F. Marquat to escort the delegation. Below: On June 1, while still in the city, Johnson gave this autographed portrait photo to Lieutenant Colonel Stevens. “With appreciation and to one from whom one learned — both by precept and example.’ By then the fact-finding delegation had expanded from three to four, MacArthur having augmented it by adding Brigadier General William F. Marquat from his staff.

Right: On June 6, after short visits to Sydney and Brisbane, and stopovers at Rockhampton and Mackay, Johnson and his companions arrived at Townsville in northern Queensland, landing at Garbutt Field. Here he is being met by Brigadier General Ralph G. Royce, the Senior Air Officer, Allied Air Forces (left). Another still from LBJ’s home footage. 38

Navy house was demolished after the war and the site is today an open courtyard in front of an office building. Young Harvey Mitchelhill stands in for Johnson where the entrance once stood.

THE SWOOSE Eager to visit American servicemen and installations closer to a combat zone in Queensland, the three observers were offered the personal transport aircraft of Lieutenant General George H. Brett, the newly appointed Deputy Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Area and Commander of Allied Air Forces SWPA. This was a requisitioned Boeing B-17D, serial number 40-3097 known as The Swoose, which at the time was grounded due to mechanical difficulties. Formerly known as Ole Betsy, it had the distinction of having flown the first US mission of the war — a reconnaissance flight from the island of Mindanao following news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Escaping from the Philippines to the Royal Australian Air Force’s (RAAF) Batchelor Field, some 40 miles south of Darwin in northern Australian, the Flying Fortress participated in several return missions including the Christmas Day raid with B-17C 40-2072 (see After the Battle No. 152) against the enemy-held airfield at Davao on Luzon. Later, 40-3097 was one of nine surviving B17s of the 19th Bombardment Group transferred to Singosari on the island of Java in the Netherlands East Indies. It was from

Java that Ole Betsy’s final combat mission was flown over Borneo on January 11, 1942. Damage from three attacking Japanese Zero fighters and the need for an engine overhaul now grounded the bomber until repairs were carried out for a flight to Australia for major depot repairs. The patched-up bomber left Singosari for the RAAF base at Laverton (outside Melbourne) on January 27. Described by its pilot as a ‘battered wreck’, the aircraft’s tail was partially replaced from a section of 40-3091, another damaged B-17 of the 19th Bombardment Group and escapee from the Philippines. Having to scavenge airframes to keep the bomber airworthy prompted pilot Weldon H. Smith to christen it The Swoose after a popular contemporary song — Alexander the Swoose — about a gander, ‘He’s half swan and he’s half goose . . . he’s just a Swoose’. Smith also designed a distinctive logo painted on the fuselage featuring the fictional bird carrying a 2,000lb bomb with the words: ‘It Flys?’ By mid-March 1942, The Swoose was back at Laverton for repairs. As a superseded early-model B-17, had it not been for Captain Frank A. Kurtz, who selected the aircraft as the personal transport for General Brett, it may well have been scrapped.

LBJ LIBRARY

During the delegation’s nine-day stay in Melbourne, Johnson frequented Navy House on the corner of Collins and Williams Streets. During one such visit, he had himself filmed as he left the building.

LAE

PORT MORESBY

DARWIN

CLONCURRY

TOWNSVILLE WINTON

MACKAY

CARISBROOKE

ROCKHAMPTON

LONGREACH BRISBANE

SYDNEY

MELBOURNE

The stations of Johnson’s inspection tour across Australia and into Papua New Guinea. Colonel Anderson, however, ‘considered this matter so importantly’ that he concluded that ‘the American Negro troops seemed to be accepted completely and without reservation by the Australian population’. Johnson also met with Major-General George Vasey, Deputy Chief of Australia’s General Staff, and Lieutenant-General Thomas Blamey, Commander-in-Chief Australian Military Forces, who both voiced their concern over probable Japanese attacks against Darwin and Perth. Johnson noted in his diary: ‘impressed by lack of appreciation of reality’.

From Melbourne, Johnson travelled to Sydney aboard a commercial airliner where he was given a tour of the harbour on June 3, including the site of the earlier Japanese midget submarine attack (see After the Battle Nos. 53 and 136). This was followed by a two-day stopover in Brisbane before an early morning flight on June 6, via Rockhampton and Mackay (scene of the worst air crash of the SWPA in 1943, see After the Battle No. 152), to Townsville’s Garbutt Field, home to the B-26 Martin Marauder medium bombers of the 19th Bomb Squadron, 22nd Bombardment Group.

LBJ LIBRARY

DAVID MITCHELHILL-GREEN

THE MISSION The grounding of The Swoose and the observers’ enforced stay in Melbourne led to a ‘more extensive than planned’ tour of the manufacturing facilities and military training camps. The trio were also confronted by the gravity of Japanese attacks against northern Australia, rumours that Australia was to be abandoned because it could be not defended and persistent protests by the Australian government over the presence of American coloured units; all recommendations for the withdrawal of coloured troops from Australia ultimately rejected by Washington.

The delegation spent June 7 visiting various airfields occupied by the US 22nd Bombardment Group, but there was also time to relax. Here Johnson (centre) and his companions are clowning around on an old muzzle-loading 64-pdr cannon displayed in Townsville’s Anzac Park.

The trophy guns, including the 64-pdr and two German First World War 105mm guns, were removed after the war. The park itself has also been extensively remodelled with a memorial to the 1942 Battle of the Coral Sea erected in 1992, a Heroes Walk Memorial added in 1995 and a Garden of Remembrance constructed in 2005. 39

Right: On June 8, 11 B-26 Marauders of the 22nd Bombardment Group took off from their bases in the Townsville area for Seven Mile Strip near Port Moresby in New Guinea in preparation for a bombing raid on the Japanese base at Lae planned for the next day. This picture was taken shortly before their departure. The aircraft closest to the camera is 40-1495 Diana’s Demon, a Marauder that flew at least 20 combat missions before crashing on take-off at Port Moresby on January 10, 1943, killing seven of the 15 aboard. With Anderson behind the controls of a Lockheed C-40, the men spent June 7 visiting nearby military airfields including Antil Plains (home to the 22nd Group’s 33rd Squadron), Charters Towers and Torrens Creek. As Anderson recalled: ‘We saw dispersed aircraft in what was virtual desert country. People were living under very poor conditions, living in tents, and even those were often pretty frayed and in bad shape. They were critically short of maintenance equipment, particularly sheet metal equipment for repairs. Even getting their planes repaired was a major task.’ Mechanics attended to battle-damaged bombers while their exhausted crews, dressed in an assortment of uniforms, looked on. Johnson, now in a combat zone, spent time with the air-

men, listening to stories of their missions, the challenges they faced and the losses they suffered at the hands of skilled enemy pilots. General Marquat informed the three observers that the 22nd Group’s next mission was planned for two days time as a part of a co-ordinated strike against the Japanese airfield at Lae in Papua New Guinea. Arrangements were made for both Anderson and

Stevens to fly as observers, though Marquat was unable to justify how a naval representative could fly on the raid. Johnson, however, thought otherwise. Here was the opportunity he needed to silence his critics — he too would participate on the combat mission. As Johnson reportedly told Marquat, he was here ‘to see personally for the President just what conditions were like, and I cannot find out what they are like if I don’t go on this mission’. In preparation for the raid, which was code-named ‘Tow Nine’, the 11 B-26s of the 22nd Bombardment Group left their Queensland bases on June 8 for Seven Mile

. . . the ship’s waist gunners watching out for enemy fighters . . .

. . . and General Royce at the controls of the B-17.

LBJ LIBRARY

En-route, Johnson filmed the navigator plotting the course . . .

LBJ LIBRARY

LBJ LIBRARY

LBJ LIBRARY

Early on June 9, planning to partake in the bombing raid as observers, Johnson, Anderson and Stevens, accompanied by Generals Marquat and Royce and several war correspondents, followed the bombers to Seven Mile Strip from where the attack would be launched. With their own aircraft, B-17D 40-3097 The Swoose, grounded by bad weather at Cooktown, they flew to New Guinea in a B-17E made available by Royce’s command.

Having landed at Seven Mile Strip shortly after 6 a.m., one of the party used Johnson’s camera to film his colleagues disembarking from the aircraft — LBJ on far left. Departure of the bombers to Lae had been delayed by one hour waiting for the VIPs that were to accompany them on the raid. They finally took off at 8.50 a.m. 40

Brigadier General Martin F. Scanlon, the Commander of Allied Air Forces in New Guinea, had received prior warning that an ‘important Congressman’ would be arriving at Seven Mile Strip, and was on hand to greet Johnson. Generals Royce (left) and Marquat (right) look on. The latter would go on the combat mission as an observer too.

Strip, a basic airfield outside Port Moresby in New Guinea. Although The Swoose was back in the air, Kurtz was forced to land at Cooktown because of bad weather and was unable to ferry the observers to New Guinea. Johnson, Anderson and Stevens instead left Garbutt Airfield at 3.15 a.m. on June 9 aboard a B-17E also carrying Marquat, Brigadier General Ralph G. Royce (Senior Air Officer, Allied Air Forces) and several war correspondents. Conditions inside the bomber during the leg to New Guinea were bleak. Johnson: ‘Almost froze for 3 hours. Stood up, beat my legs, stomped my feet’. With a suggestion of the superstition that often accompanies men into battle, Collier’s Weekly correspondent W. B. Courtney continued: ‘The floor’s the only place to sit. Dim starlight through the roof windows, plus the natural accommodation of your eyes to darkness, reveal your companions in various uneasy attitudes, cramped, stiff — and thoughtful. Some of them are going to fly in a dawn raid over Salamaua. The Colonel, for instance. You notice that he is sitting on your small handbag and you growl at him not to break anything. He laughs sleepily and does not shift. One hour later he is dead — shot down into the shark-infested sea. That night in the hut at Port Moresby when you unpack your bag, you find your shaving mirror is broken.’ Touching down an hour later than planned at Seven Mile Strip, Johnson was greeted by Brigadier General Martin F. Scanlon, the Commander of Allied Air Forces in New Guinea, who remembered the Congressman as ‘affable, nice’. On the ground, the 22nd Group’s 11 Marauders were bombed-up, fuelled and awaiting departure. Initially assigned to B-26 40-1508, dubbed The Virginian, Johnson introduced himself to the pilot, 1st Lieutenant Willis G. Bench, before entering the plane and taking his position behind the cockpit. Fate now intervened. During a further delay before take-off, Johnson left the aircraft, either to urinate or retrieve his camera from the briefing room (depending upon conflicting accounts). Returning to find a grinning Francis Stevens in his place aboard Bench’s aircraft, Johnson opted instead to fly in 1st Lieutenant Walter H. Greer’s Marauder 40-1488 Hecklin’ Hare — a last-minute change of plan which had enormous ramifications. Also participating on the mission were Anderson, who flew with 1st Lieutenant Walter A. Krell in 401473 Kansas Comet # 2; and Marquat, who joined 2nd Lieutenant Robert W. Hatch in 40-1496 Dixie. ‘PLAN DID NOT WORK’ For the Marauders to approach Lae with minimal opposition, it was planned that three B-17s of the 19th Bombardment Group (staging through Horn Island) and six (former Dutch) North American B-25 Mitchells of the 3rd Group would bomb the target first to draw away the enemy fighters, the distance to Lae being beyond the range of the escorting P-39 and P-400 Airacobra fighters. The carefully co-ordinated mission, however, was thrown into disarray by the altered departure times of several flights, a change of routes and the late arrival of the delegation from Townsville. Overcast conditions over Lae at 9.45 a.m. forced the B-17s to circle back out to sea and return ten minutes later at 30,000 feet, crucially unnoticed by the Japanese pilots below. Five minutes later the five B-25s arrived at 16,000 feet to begin their attack. Meanwhile the lead Marauder, Kansas Comet # 2 piloted by Krell, departed Seven Mile Strip at 8.51 a.m. On the ground 25 Japanese Mitsubishi A6M ‘Zeros’ of the Tainan Kokutai based at Lae rose to defend their skies. Chasing the departing B-25s, the enemy pilots chanced upon the inbound B-26s at approximately 11,000 feet, south of Salamaua. Wrote John-

Johnson himself was originally to fly in B-26 40-1508 The Virginian of the 2nd Bomb Squadron, piloted by Lieutenant Willis G. Bench (left), and he had already boarded that aircraft. However, returning from a last-minute departure from the Marauder, he found Lieutenant Colonel Stevens having taken his place, so he switched to B-26 40-1488 Hecklin’ Hare, skippered by Lieutenant Walter H. Greer (right). Although Johnson could not have known it, the last-minute change was to save his life. son: ‘Plan did not work’. The Zeros now switched their attack to the new intruders. In Krell’s words: ‘It was at this circumstance of greatest vulnerability, still in a climb and just clearing the cloud tops when the B-25s and the swarm of Zeros eclipsed the scene. Zeros were everywhere. Now 190 mph is not fast for a B-26; however, it was a reasonable speed for a heavily-loaded climbing aircraft in formation to maintain manoeuvrable control, especially for the wingman at altitude. In spite of the Zeros’ attacks, at our relatively slow speed and climbing altitude, I could neither dive because of the cloud proximity nor make an abrupt turn which may have stalled a wingman, exposed a side to enemy fire and further spoiled our gunners’ effectiveness. So at this point, we did push our engines for all we could get but this didn’t change our situation.’ Whether Hecklin’ Hare came under attack

at this vulnerable point is debatable. Greer, it is generally agreed, had aborted the mission earlier after his aircraft developed engine trouble. Johnson’s prosaic diary entry simply reads: ‘Greer’s generator went out: crew begged him to go on. For the next 30 minutes we flew on one generator.’ The malfunction would have curtailed the speed of the B-26, the loss of the generator affecting the operation of the single turret and the Curtiss electric propellers. Returning to the airfield in this situation would have been imperative. Records indicate that 40-1488 landed back at Seven Mile Strip at 10.08 a.m. Official maintenance records reveal that it sustained no damage during the mission aside from the faulty generator; squadron flight logs reveal that it developed mechanical problems some 75 miles before the target, forcing Greer to return to Seven Mile Strip without incident.

An official cameraman present at Seven Mile Strip to document Operation ‘Tow Nine’ (possibly Australian official combat cameraman Damien Parer) filmed Pilot Officer Lorne Passmore, RAAF, the smiling co-pilot of The Virginian, prior to take-off. This clip later appeared in Moresby under the Blitz, one of a series of short newsreels produced by the US Fifth Air Force and the Australian News and Information Bureau for release to Australian audiences. Directed by Ken G. Hall, with Damien Parer as his chief cameraman, it was first shown in the cinemas in July 1942. (This shot is often incorrectly identified as showing B-26 40-1499, another Marauder that first carried the name Wabash Cannonball and later Virginian and crash-landed following an emergency take-off during a Japanese air raid on Seven Mile Strip on August 17, 1942.) 41

THE LOSS OF THE VIRGINIAN Meanwhile, during an 80-mile running air battle, Lieutenant Bench’s bomber, The Virginian, was raked by canon and machine-gun fire. Crashing into the sea at high speed some 30 miles south of Salamaua, all on board were killed including Johnson’s fellowobserver, Lieutenant Colonel Stevens. Itto Heiso (Petty Officer First Class) Saburo Sakai (Japan’s highest-scoring ace to survive the war) is believed to have participated in the kill. Five other Marauders were also damaged with Japanese pilots later claiming to have shot down four B-26s. A single Zero, flown by Itto Heiso Kikuchi Sakio, a 15-kill ace, was shot down by the Marauder gunners. The heavy opposition forced Krell to switch to the secondary target, the Japanese base at Salamaua. A total of 354 100lb bombs dropped on the airfield and waterfront around 10.02 a.m. One bomb destroyed a 50-foot enemy schooner laden with ammunition and supplies. The majority of the bombs were dropped between 5,000 and 11,000 feet, though the Headquarters Flight bringing up the rear descended to 2,000 feet before releasing its deadly cargo. The swarm of Zeros pursued the nine escaping B-26s until Cape Ward Hunt where they ran into the eight escorting Airacobras of the 39th Fighter Squadron, 35th Fighter Group. Seeing their opponents staggered at varying altitudes of between 4,000 and 10,000 feet, the Zeros, at no more than 100 feet above water, rose to meet the inexperienced American fighter pilots above. This freed the B-26s to concentrate on climbing and crossing the rugged Owen Stanley Range for the

About halfway to Lae, Hecklin’ Hare, with Johnson aboard, developed engine trouble and had to abort the mission, returning to Seven Mile Strip. The other ten B-26s continued to the target but were intercepted by a flight of Japanese Zero fighters, which severely crippled the force, shooting down one and seriously damaging five others. The B-26 shot down was The Virginian — the aircraft Johnson would have been in. A movie cameraman aboard one of the other bombers captured the moment it hit the sea, killing all eight occupants, including Lieutenant Colonel Stevens. homeward leg while the dogfight continued around them. One Zero and one Airacobra were shot down in the mêlée. Back at Seven Mile Strip, Johnson watched intently as Lieutenant Colonel Dwight D. Devine II successfully belly-landed Marauder 40-1363 Rum Runner before an anxious audience of pilots, war correspondents and the highranking observers.

Johnson’s curt description of the day’s mission — an episode he would frequently refer to in coming years — contains no mention of actual combat or personal danger: ‘I lost my friend Steve, one fighter down. Devine brings B-26 down on belly wonderful. To bed at 8.30 after bath and shave and scotch. Couldn’t get my mind off Steve and other fine boys.’

The other nine Marauders made it back to Seven Mile Strip but one of them, B-26 40-1363 Rum Runner of the 33rd Bomb Squadron, had its hydraulic system shot out, forcing it to make a belly landing. The 22nd Group’s commander, Lieutenant

Colonel Dwight D. Devine II, took over the controls from the pilot, 1st Lieutenant Pierre Powell, and made a perfect wheelsup landing with both engines dead and props feathered. These stills are again from Moresby under the Blitz.

The Virginian after its landing. Next day, with its engine bay tied up, it was flown to its base at Antil Plains near Woodstock.

Lieutenant Colonel Devine (left) recounting his wheels-up feat to General Scanlon. Johnson in right background.

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Right: The day after the raid, June 10, Johnson and Anderson left New Guinea and returned to northern Australia. Their own B-17, The Swoose, had now caught up with them and just before boarding Johnson had his picture taken beside it. Note the ‘Swoose’ emblem adorning the aircraft’s fuselage adjacent to the side hatch.

lost, due to arrive [at] Cloncurry but can’t find it’. During this early period of the war, Australian ground stations and aircraft maintained routine radio silence; not even routine weather reports were available. Seeking a

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Flying by dead reckoning and using celestial sightings to check his position, Schreiber noted from the sun how the latest readings differed significantly from his earlier ones. Johnson: ‘At 11.00 we discover that we are

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‘WE DISCOVER THAT WE’RE LOST’ Johnson left New Guinea aboard The Swoose early the next morning, June 10, for Batchelor Field in northern Australia. A tour of nearby Darwin and environs later in the day revealed the damage wrought by recent enemy bombing (see After the Battle No. 67) and the basic conditions of the defending airmen — ‘tents, dirt, flies, mosquitoes’. The following day, June 11, Johnson and fellow passengers enjoyed a ‘beautiful takeoff. Lovely sunrise’ as Frank Kurtz lifted The Swoose into air for the lengthy cross-country journey to Melbourne. Airborne over Australia’s desolate interior, Johnson turned to his diary. ‘Now over desert. It’s 10.10, the time our bombs were to drop on Lae. We are going through middle of Australia en route to Charleville [the next refuelling stop].’ Just under an hour later the jovial mood inside the B-17 disappeared when navigator Lieutenant Harry Schreiber announced that he was unsure of the aircraft’s exact position.

into his cine-camera and these shots show him (left) turning his face as he walks towards The Swoose and then lighting up a cigarette while standing beside the staff car (right).

Left: They spent the rest of the day surveying the damage wrought by the Japanese bombing attack of February 19, both on the airfield and in Darwin city (see After the Battle No. 67). They also inspected the primitive living conditions experienced by the American ground and air crews at Batchelor. Here Johnson looks over the wreckage of an American Curtiss P-40

Warhawk fighter, one of the ten P-40s of the US 33rd Pursuit Squadron destroyed in the February attack. Right: Johnson also filmed pilots of the US 7th Fighter Squadron, 49th Fighter Group, scrambling to their P-40s and taking off. This was most likely staged specially for his camera as no enemy raid was flown against Darwin on this day.

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They landed at Batchelor Field, the airbase near Darwin used by both the RAAF and USAAF, flying on to RAAF Darwin later in the day. By now Johnson had loaded another colour film

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The following day, June 11, the party boarded The Swoose for the lengthy cross-country flight back to Melbourne. Here Johnson (second from left) poses with Major Frank Kurtz, the pilot (far right), and others of the crew. Kurtz, 30 years old, originated from Glendale, California, and was a former Olympic diving star, having participated in both the 1932 and 1936 Summer Olympics. A pilot since the age of 16, he had survived the air attack at Clark Field in the Philippines which took place two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (see After the Battle No. 38). Later in the war, he would command the 463rd Bombardment Group in Italy. radio beacon fix, Aubrey Fox, radio operator, made contact with the airfield at Cloncurry. Schreiber expected the bearing supplied to be a steering course towards the station; however, it was not until 30 minutes later that he realised that The Swoose was heading 180 degrees away from the airfield.

Kurtz departed for his first stopover — Charleville in Queensland — at less than full fuel capacity, a standard practice to lessen the drain at refuelling stops. A few hours into the flight, the crew discovered that they were lost and, mis-interpreting a bearing from the nearest airfield, Cloncurry, they confounded the situation by taking a south-westerly course, away from Cloncurry and deeper into the desolate Australian interior. For the next few hours they doggedly flew a box pattern hoping to find the airfield or a navigational landmark but all to no avail. With crew and passengers growing increasingly worried, Johnson filmed the endless expanse of uninhabited wasteland.

Interviewed in the White House in 1964, Schreiber elaborated on the erroneous navigational bearings received from Cloncurry: ‘We took our bearings from there, and they gave us reciprocal bearings instead of true bearings, so we went out on the wrong leg.’ Navigational accuracy on the day was further

compromised by the ‘equipment that these VIPs had brought in, [which] had turned the headings on the navigational instruments and the compasses; and it also magnetised all of the instruments we had so we didn’t know actually where we were heading’. Yet another compounding factor was the prior

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At 4.30 p.m., with fuel getting dangerously low, Kurtz decided to make an emergency landing on the desert floor before darkness made that impossible. In the 1943 book Queens Die Proudly, he recalled the landing: ‘None of that country looked any too good, but we finally spotted a couple of white houses where we thought there might be some help in case we cracked up badly and yet some were still alive. So I dropped down to what was the most likely place near them and dragged it a couple of times — flew over low, circled to come back and buzz again, looking for gullies I mightn’t have seen from upstairs. The sun was very low, and we wanted to get it over with (whatever it was going to be) while it was still light.’

Left: Kurtz put down the aircraft at Carisbrooke, a remote sheep station in outback Queensland. Safely on the ground, the men alight from the plane — Johnson, centre wearing black tie. 44

Note the shark-fin tail found on the early model B-17D. Right: As the text card in LBJ’s edited home movies later said: ‘In the middle of the desert — we wonder where we are.’

DAVID MITCHELHILL-GREEN

The site where The Swoose landed today serves as a small airfield for Carisbrooke.

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removal of the bomber’s armour plating, and a failure to compensate the compasses accordingly, as well as possible alterations to course when various VIPs were invited to the cockpit to experience flying the large Boeing. With The Swoose approximately 200 miles south-west of Cloncurry with three hours of fuel remaining, Kurtz descended from 15,000 feet to 5,000 feet and began flying a box pattern, hoping to locate Cloncurry or a similar navigational landmark. Remaining daylight was now fast disappearing. Down to 75 minutes of fuel, Kurtz decided to bring the aircraft down onto the desert floor rather than risk a forced landing in darkness. Johnson’s diary reveals the strain inside the aircraft. ‘Four hours of roaming — from 2.30 to 4.30 very tense. Three generals in pilot’s cabin, Andy and I looking at each other. We circle pasture and take bearing we climb and circle. Now we are looking at parachutes — now place to land.’ According to W. B .Courtney (also aboard the aircraft): ‘We’re in another B-17, cruising aimlessly over the unbelievably empty nevernever land of interior Australia. We’re lost. Nightfall is approaching and you all know — 13 passengers and seven crew — that you’ve got to make a forced landing in the inhospitable wilderness in the next few minutes.’ Wrote Lee Van Atta, another war correspondent: ‘There were only rocks and the famed Australian bush below us and reaching ahead for miles. Then far off on the distant horizon we saw a small farmhouse. The cleared space by the farmhouse looked almost infinitesimal but Kurtz headed for it. As the altimeter dropped below 1,000 feet, Kurtz ordered everyone to go to the tail of the bomber to give the ship better balance. From the tail we watched Kurtz and [co-pilot Lieutenant Marvin] MacAdams fight the battle to decide our fate and that of a $250,000 piece of Uncle Sam’s fighting equipment. Seconds before we landed, Kurtz turned around, gave us a wink and shot his right thumb up cheerfully’. Johnson: ‘We made it. All out doors. Flies by the million. Five hours wait.’ Fortuitously, Kurtz managed a perfect three-point forced landing on level ground at

Roland A. Boone, gunner; Tec/Sergeant Charles T. Reeves, gunner; Sergeant Harold Varner, crew chief, and seven passengers: Johnson (the towering figure third from right); Colonel Anderson; Generals Royce and Marquat; Air Commodore Francis Bladin, the Air Officer Commanding North-Western Area RAAF (who had joined the party at Darwin); and war correspondents W. B. Courtney and Lee Van Atta.

DAVID MITCHELHILL-GREEN

The relieved occupants posing in front of The Swoose. Although one account says the aircraft carried 20 men (seven crew and 13 passengers) this number seems too high. There are only 11 men in this line-up and we only know 14 of the names: Major Frank Kurtz, pilot; 1st Lieutenant Marvin L. MacAdams, co-pilot; 1st Lieutenant Harry J. Schreiber, navigator; Corporal Aubrey Fox, wireless operator; Master Sergeant

Left and above: A memorial, unveiled in 1992, today records that the future President of the United States landed here in June 1942. ‘The course of history may well have changed if it were not for the skill of the pilot . . .’ 45

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LBJ LIBRARY

Soon, a few farmhands from the sheep station turned up with a lorry and explained to the Americans where they were. Johnson quickly made an impression with the station hands, as recalled by The Swoose’s crew chief, Sergeant Harold ‘Red’ Varner: ‘We get out. Pretty soon Australian ranchers begin crawling out of holes in the ground — I don’t know where else they came from — and right away Lieutenant Commander Johnson gets busy. He begins to get acquainted. They tell him where we are and some of them go off to get a truck to take us

JOHNSON’S SILVER STAR Johnson and Anderson met with a sombre MacArthur shortly before noon on June 18: ‘Saw MacArthur. Very bad. Head down. Low voice, “Glad to see you two fellows here where three were last”.’ According to Anderson, MacArthur could not understand why Johnson, as a naval observer, had risked his life flying on the bombing mission in New Guinea. Johnson replied that ‘many of the airmen knew that he was a Congressman from Texas — that many were his constituents — and that he wanted to show them he would face the same danger they had to face’. MacArthur did, however, praise the men’s bravery and, as Johnson recorded, he rewarded their valour: ‘It was a mistake of the head to go on combat mission but it did justice to your heart. It was just what I would have done. I’m giving you [both] the Silver Star [the US Army’s third-highest combat award]. Gave Stevens DSC [Distinguished Service Cross, a medal second only to the

Congressional Medal of Honor] because he was your leader and gave his life — such is war’. Following an uncomfortable pause, MacArthur explained that ‘we don’t have any Silver Stars out here. And the citations haven’t been written yet’. There was, however, a supply of ribbons that he suggested Johnson to collect and start wearing. General Marquat — also an observer on the raid — ‘commended’ the Congressman’s bravery in a backslapping covering letter that accompanied the citation, at Johnson’s request: ‘I can’t tell how very much I enjoyed being with you on our recent jaunt around Australia and points north. I really enjoyed your keen wit and very fine appreciation of the various military and naval problems we encountered. Of course, your outstanding bravery in volunteering for a so-called “suicide mission” in order to get a first-hand view of what our Army fliers go through has been the subject of much favourable comment since your departure. It is indeed a great government we have when members of

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DAVID MITCHELHILL-GREEN

Carisbrooke, a remote sheep station in outback Queensland. The startled station staff, having feared a Japanese raid as the fourengined aircraft roared low overhead, now raced to meet their unexpected guests. Five hours later a ‘rescue party’ arrived from Winton, the nearest town approximately 50 miles away to the north-west. Following a rough ride along unmade roads, Johnson and party were taken to the North Gregory Hotel while fuel was collected for The Swoose. Airborne the next morning, June 12, Kurtz picked up his passengers from the airstrip at Winton before flying to Longreach, where Johnson took the opportunity to inspect the airfield and barracks of the 19th Bombardment Group, former operators of The Swoose. Impressed, he noted how the ‘boys like Longreach, morale better than before they left the States. Give us the planes and we will be home [for] Christmas’. That afternoon Johnson arrived back in Melbourne — ‘civilisation’; ‘early to bathe and bed — no cables — no letters.’

into town where we can telephone, and more keep coming, and Johnson is shaking hands all round, and he comes back and tells us these are real folks — the best damn folks in the world, except maybe the folks in his own Texas. Pretty soon he knows all their first names and they’re telling him why there ought to be a high tariff on wool, and there’s no question he swung that county for Johnson before we left. He was in his element. I know he sure swung the Swoose crew. He can carry that precinct any day’.

That same evening, a motorised party arrived from the town of Winton, 50 miles away, to fetch the crew and passengers, delivering them to the North Gregory Hotel where they spent the night. The following morning, June 12, the party was filmed outside the hotel. They had to wait for fuel to be brought up to The Swoose and Kurtz flying it to Winton airfield to pick them up for the final leg back to Melbourne. 46

The original North Gregory Hotel burned down in 1900 and the second hotel — the one in which Johnson stayed — was destroyed by fire in 1946. Its present-day replacement was built in 1955. The hotel’s main claim to fame is that Australia’s most-popular folk song Waltzing Matilda was first performed there on April 6, 1895, by Sir Herbert Ramsay during a banquet for the Premier of Queensland.

DAVID MITCHELHILL-GREEN

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Landing for a stop-over at Longreach, central west Queensland, Johnson’s party took the opportunity to inspect the airfield and review aircrew of the US 19th Bombardment Group based there.

the Hecklin’ Hare’s malfunctioning engine not to mechanical failure, but to being ‘knocked out’ by enemy fighters. Recalling the alleged attack, he remarked how several of the crew were wounded, their nickname for him — ‘Raider’. Johnson’s report on the war effort in the SWPA was published shortly after his return. Aside from commenting at length on the ‘Texans I met’, he found the Australians ‘very much like us in their government, their ideas and their sense of patriotism. All had love of country in their souls but only murder in their hearts for the enemy’. Impressed by the ‘unshakeable faith’ that the US troops in the SWPA had for Roosevelt’s leadership, Johnson was nevertheless harshly critical of the ‘high officials’ who had ‘let the President down. We must get rid of the indecisive, stupid, selfish and incompetents among our Generals, Admirals and others in high military positions. The young fighting men have a tough enough job without having to suppress laughter at their military leaders’. He was also highly disparaging of the US fighter aircraft equipping the front-line squadrons: ‘Nothing is more disgusting to the men flying some of our planes, little better than crates, than to read in a magazine a statement of some military leaders about “our fastest planes on earth”. All our fellows ask for is as good a leadership and generalship — as good equipment, and in equal amounts now.’ Honourably released from active service the following year on July 16, Johnson

returned to his politics, and served in the 77th through to the 80th Congresses. Finally elected to the US Senate on November 2, 1948 he was re-elected again in 1954 and on November 8, 1960 became Vice President of the United States. WAR HERO? In retrospect, it is difficult to view MacArthur’s decision to award Johnson the Silver Star as anything other than a political stunt. In contrast to Greer and his crew, only Johnson — an observer — was decorated for the June 9 mission, while the men who perished aboard The Virginian, aside from Stevens, were posthumously awarded only the Purple Heart. As was later said: ‘He got it for a flight, not for a fight’. Johnson’s alleged ‘heroics’ were the subject of the 1964 book The Mission, a detailed and timely account of the June 9 bombing raid by American aviation historians Martin Caidin and Edward Hymoff based on the recollections of two former crewmembers of 40-1488 Hecklin’ Hare, the bomber Lyndon had flown in: Harry G. Baren (engineer/tail gunner) and Claude A. McCredie (bombardier/nose gunner). Both men claimed that Hecklin’ Hare was repeatedly hit by the enemy fighters and that Johnson kept his cool under fire: ‘The gunners, hammering away at the Zeros, flinching by instinct when cannon shells went off near them, were amazed with the cool reaction of Lyndon Johnson under fire. This was his first expo-

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the congress take THOSE chances in order to better serve their fellow men in the legislative bodies. You surely earned your decoration and I am so happy about your having received the award.’ From Melbourne, Johnson began his homeward trip to the States. Leaving Sydney on June 21 suffering suspected influenza, he was ordered by Navy doctors onto a submarine tender while in New Zealand. Delirious by the time he arrived in Fiji, he was admitted to hospital for four days before travelling to Pearl Harbor where he remained in hospital with pneumonia until July 7. Back in Washington on July 10, Johnson for a time harboured reservations whether he was a worthy recipient of the very medal he would shortly show off — confiding in one Washington reporter that he did not deserve it. In at least one speech he gave in Texas, Johnson rejected the decoration in contrast to the men ‘who risked their lives in daily combat’. He even went so far as to draft a formal letter (on congressional letterhead) to the Adjutant General of the War Department declining the medal. Dated July 15, 1942, the day prior to all congressmen being recalled from service, the letter, in part, reads: ‘I should not and could not accept a citation of recognition for the little part I played (. . . ) for a short time in learning and facing with them the problems they encounter all the time. The coolness for which the General commends me was only the reflection of my utter confidence in the men with whom I was flying. Watching the fighting crew of my ship save their crippled plane despite interception by hostile fighters outnumbering us, burned into my mind knowledge of concrete conditions which you can make sure I shall use to the best of my ability in the service of my country. I cannot in good conscience accept the decoration.’ Yet the letter was never sent. Then, in an abrupt change of mind, Johnson, who became a vocal advocate for the allocation of additional resources to the SWPA, decided to not only retain his prized medal but to accept it in public — on several occasions — having bought one from an Army-Navy store. While it is not unusual for war stories to distort over time, Johnson’s ‘combat service’ was soon embellished to the point where the Silver Star, as he duly pointed out, was an insufficient recognition of his heroics! By December 1942, his single and aborted mission, as recounted to a reporter at that time, had ‘grown’ to months of combat, covering ‘May, June and part of July’. By 1944 he was writing first-hand of having ‘lived with the men on fighting fronts. I flew with them on missions over enemy territory’. Moreover, in disingenuously describing the events of June 9, Johnson attributed

Longreach is one of the birthplaces of Australia’s national airline Qantas and the wartime hangar seen in Johnson’s footage remains to this day.

Back from his trip, Johnson points out Carisbrooke on a map of Australia. 47

SILVER STAR LIEUTENANT COMMANDER LYNDON B. JOHNSON, USNR Naval Representative to the South West Pacific Area

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For gallantry in action in the vicinity of Port Moresby and Salamaua, New Guinea, on June 9, 1942. While on a mission of obtaining information in the South West Pacific Area, Lieutenant Commander Johnson, in order to obtain personal knowledge of combat conditions, volunteered as an observer on a hazardous aerial combat mission over hostile positions in New Guinea. As our planes neared the target area, they were intercepted by eight hostile fighters. When, at this time the plane in which Lieutenant Commander Johnson was an observer developed mechanical trouble and was forced to turn back alone, presenting a favourable target to the enemy fighters, he evidenced coolness in spite of the hazard involved. His gallant action enabled him to obtain and return with valuable information.’ Meeting with General MacArthur after his return, Johnson and Anderson were both awarded an immediate Silver Star, while Stevens was granted a posthumous Distinguished Service Cross. Though hardly in keeping with his few hours on the front line and the aborted character of his single combat mission, Johnson later made great play of his award, neatly inflating his war career to further his political ambitions. As President of the United States he would wear his Silver Star lapel pin on many occasions, as in this state portrait taken in the Oval Office.

The Swoose managed to survive the war and — primarily due to Colonel Kurtz’s efforts — narrowly escaped being scrapped in 1946, eventually ending up in the collection of the National Air Museum. Displayed outdoors for many years, first at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, from 1948 to 1961, then at the Air and Space Museum’s Silver Hill facility in Suitland, Maryland, until the mid-1970s, the aircraft suffered badly from the weather and vandalism. After three decades of indoor storage, on July 15, 2008 it was transferred to the National Museum of the US Air Force at Dayton, Ohio, for permanent display. The only surviving D model B-17, and the only existing B-17 to have seen action in the 1941-42 Philippines campaign, it today awaits restoration alongside that other historic B-17, the Memphis Belle. 48

could have evaded the attacking Zeros — Greer’s only chance of survival being to ‘hide in clouds’. Marshall was also unaware of Johnson’s decoration until the 1964 book was published, the awarding of the Silver Star being a delicate issue with many 22nd Group veterans. Marshall, quoted elsewhere, believed that ‘if he got it, then so should everyone else on the mission’. Later in July 2001, CNN aired an interview with Boothe’s son, Billy B. Boothe, Jr., who had confirmed in a newspaper article that his father’s plane had not come under attack on the day Johnson had flown in it. POSTSCRIPT In the wake of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson became America’s 36th president. Taking the oath of office aboard Air Force One, Johnson proudly wore the ribbon of the Silver Star — possibly the most contentious Silver Star of the Second World War — on the left lapel of his suit jacket. As President, he would often narrate his wartime home movies to assembled journalists, recalling the raid over New Guinea and how he had ‘lost some good friends’. On invitation of Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt, Johnson returned to Queensland in 1966 to help diffuse the growing unrest surrounding Australia’s participation in the Vietnam War. What was initially planned as

a one-hour stopover in Queensland on Sunday, October 23 became an overnight stay together with a sightseeing visit of the city. In a speech given at Garbutt, Johnson reminisced about his brief time spent in the region during the war and the loss of his colleague Francis Stevens: ‘It is right that my second visit to Australia should conclude in a place that holds such vivid memories for me — from my first visit here, in Townsville, in 1942. Things are much calmer and much more peaceful here in Townsville today at the Buchanan Hotel than they were when I was here 24 years ago. A few weeks ago your distinguished Prime Minister visited me in Washington. I had, at that luncheon in his honour, a young man who had not seen his father. He is now a teacher at West Point. The night that I spent in Australia on June 8, 1942, I slept in a double bed with a Colonel Francis Stevens. We left here about midnight for the Three Mile [sic] Field in Port Moresby, New Guinea. Colonel Stevens never came back and never saw his boy — but the Prime Minister came to America and did greet him. And if Colonel Stevens could have followed us through Australia the last three days, could have seen the happiness on the faces of the people, could have seen them enjoying their freedom and preserving and protecting it, Colonel Stevens would have felt that he did not die in vain.’

NATE TIMM

sure to the enemy; it was the kind of situation in which many a man might be expected to yield a great fright, for it is clear that the Heckling Hare [sic] was virtually being shot to ribbons in the sky. The men stated later that they felt their odds of survival were, at the time, “no better than stinking”.’ Only later did former navigator 2nd Lieutenant Billy B. Boothe, the most senior member of the Hecklin’ Hare’s crew to survive the war, refute these fanciful claims. As an Air Force major stationed in Germany in 1964, Boothe was purportedly warned by his superiors and Air Force intelligence not to comment on The Mission ‘unless he could go along with what was being said’. Nearly two decades later, he was quoted in a 1986 newspaper article where he was quick to cast doubt on Johnson’s combat record, claiming that ‘anybody with any sense could have looked it up and proved it to themselves that we couldn’t have flown over the target’. As for ‘Raider’ Johnson, Boothe’s diary entry for June 9 presents him in a far different light: ‘Our ship turned up with magneto trouble in the generator and had to return after being out for 45 minutes. To go on the mission with us was a Congressman from Texas — Johnson. I think he was glad to turn about and come in.’ Bob Marshall, the Hare’s former gunner, also insisted that the B-26 never came under fire on June 9. ‘No way’, he told CNN, claiming never to have seen a Zero during the raid. From an enemy perspective, Saburo Sakai (who was ultimately responsible for destroying or damaging more than 60 Allied aircraft) was adamant in a 1990 interview that there was no way a crippled Marauder

BA BILD 101I-165-419-19A

On April 27, 1941, exactly three weeks after Germany had invaded Greece, troops of the 2. Panzer-Division reached and occupied Athens. They immediately proceeded to the Acropolis, the great outcrop of rock that towers over the inner city,

and raised the swastika flag there as a token of their conquest of Greece and its capital. The short ceremony was covered by several official Wehrmacht photographers, this shot being taken by PK Bauer from Propaganda-Kompanie 690.

A NIGHT AT THE ACROPOLIS Symbolic acts of heroism or defiance can inspire, raise levels of consciousness and restore human dignity. When such acts resonate among entire populations they can influence and even transform the course of history. One such event occurred on the night of May 30/31, 1941 in Nazi-occupied Greece when two young patriots — Apostolos Santas and Manolis Glezos — took down and destroyed the German Imperial War Flag that the occupying Wehrmacht forces had raised on the Acropolis at Athens immediately after they had entered the city. It was an act of defiance to tyranny and oppression that roused the morale of all Greeks and inspired them to continue their fight against the Nazi regime.

By George Pararas-Carayannis flagge (Party flag), which consisted of a red field with a white disk in the centre featuring a black swastika at a 45-degree angle. In Mein Kampf Hitler described the meaning behind the design, where ‘the red repre-

sented Socialism, the white Nationalism and the swastika victory for the Aryan race’. In 1933, with Hitler’s coming to power, this banner also became Germany’s Nationalflagge (National flag).

THE REICH WAR FLAG Upon his rise to power, Hitler was particularly interested in having a symbol that would uniquely identify his Nazi Party and what it stood for. He chose the swastika, a compelling ancient symbol commonly used by many cultures around the world, including China, Japan, India and southern Europe, as far back as 1000 BC. Thus, at the Salzburg Party Congress on August 7, 1920, the swastika became the official emblem of the Nazi Party. It was also used on the ParteiRight: The flag was raised at the mast that stands on the platform at the eastern tip of the Acropolis. The Parthenon, the central and most famous of the ancient temples on the rock, remains to pinpoint the comparison. 49

DAILY MAIL

Ever since May 1941, a story has existed that a young Evzone soldier on guard duty at the flagpole that day, Konstantinos Koukidis, rather than surrender the Greek flag to the Germans, instead wrapped himself in it and jumped off the Acropolis to

REICH WAR FLAG ON THE ACROPOLIS In July 1940, Hitler and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini entered into an agreement for Italy to align with Albania and Bulgaria and invade Greece. The occupation of Greece, code-named Operation ‘Marita’, had become vital to Hitler due to the need to secure the right flank of the planned German invasion of Russia. Also, Greece and its island of Crete could serve as strategic outposts to support the Italian drive against Libya, Egypt and the Suez Canal. Mussolini predicted an easy victory. On October 28, 1940, three hours after declaration of war by Fascist Italy, Italian, Albanian and Bulgarian troops entered northern Greece. Although totally unprepared for war, Greece refused Mussolini’s ultimatum and thus entered the Second World War against superior military armies. Battling against all odds in the mountains of Epirus, the poorly equipped Greek army resisted and finally expelled Mussolini’s army, which retreated to Albania. Dismayed by this unexpected outcome, Hitler was forced to divert divisions to Greece which had been earmarked for the Russian front. On April 6, 1941, German troops invaded northern Greece, pouring down from Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, and in a series of battles defeated both the Greeks and the Anglo-ANZAC forces sent to support them. During the previous year, France, with its very strong army and help from the British, had collapsed within five weeks, Norway had fallen in 61 days, Poland in 30, Belgium in 18, 50

Holland in four and Denmark had surrendered without a fight. Greece, at the time, was the only country in Europe to confront the armies of four nations simultaneously. Fighting with outdated weapons and sheer courage, the under-supplied and poorly equipped Greek troops held out against the superior Axis forces for 219 days. On April 27, having outflanked the last position before the Greek capital, the first German troops — the motorcycle battalion of the 2. Panzer-Division — forged into Athens. They drove straight to the Acropolis, the rocky outcrop on which the Pathenon stood, planning to raise the Nazi flag. According to the most popular account, a German officer ordered a young Evzone sol-

dier on guard duty, Konstantinos Koukidis, to surrender, give up the blue-and-white Greek flag and raise the swastika banner in its place. Instead, so the story goes, Koukidis hauled down the Greek flag, refused to hand it to the Germans, wrapped himself in it, and jumped off the Acropolis to his death. Whether the story was true or not, many Greeks believed it and viewed the soldier as a martyr. The tale was also widely reported in the Allied press. (In April 2000, the Greek Army Historical Department announced that there was no documentary evidence of either Koukidis or his deed, nor had any relatives ever come forward to substantiate the event indicating that the story was just a local legend.)

BADSEED

Since 1867, the German armed forces had used a Kriegsflagge (War Flag). In subsequent years, through the Kaiser’s empire, the First World War and the era of the Weimar Republic, it underwent several design transformations. By 1933, it was in its fifth version, which consisted of a large Maltese Cross centred on a flag of three horizontal bands coloured black, white and red. Then, on November 7, 1935, to mark the introduction of military conscription in Germany, a new version of the flag (its sixth) was introduced. Designed by Hitler personally and known as the Reichskriegsflagge (Reich War Flag), it brandished the swastika in a white circle on a red field crossed by two black and white bands, with a small Maltese Cross in the top left corner. This banner served the Heer (Army) and the Luftwaffe (Air Force) as their War Flag, and the Kriegsmarine (Navy) as its War Ensign. During the Second World War, under this flag, the Nazis persecuted and murdered millions of people. As a result, the swastika flag became a hated symbol throughout occupied Europe. For the Greeks, the act of destroying such a symbol not only sent strong messages about their beliefs but also represented an indirect attack on Hitler himself.

his death. The story was first reported in the Press in the Daily Mail of June 9, 1941, having been submitted by its Cairo correspondent who stated that ‘the story has just reached me through Greek channels’.

Although there is no evidence whatsoever to substantiate the exploit, and today it is regarded as legend, a monument standing on the flanks of the rock, unveiled as late as 2000, still recalls Koukidis’ deed: ‘. . . refusing to surrender the flag, he fell from the sacred cliff wrapped in it, thus pioneering the resistance fight’.

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It appears that before they raised the large Reichskriegsflagge (Reich War Flag), the Germans first hoisted a flag of a different design, the Nationalflagge, albeit with an oversized swastika, for this is seen in several other photos taken on the same day. In all likelihood the first troops to arrive at the Acropolis only

had this flag with them which was then replaced when a war flag had been located. The Nationalflagge also appears in photos of the Acropolis taken at a later date, so maybe the German occupation troops alternated between the two flags. Note the three bracing cables anchoring the flagpole to the rock.

Whatever the exact circumstances, German troops ceremonially raised a large, three-by-five-metre Reichskriegsflagge on the site where the Greek flag had flown. That same day, a message went off to Berlin: ‘My Führer, ‘On April 27, 1941, at 8.10 a.m. we arrived in Athens . . . and at 8.45 a.m. we raised the German flag on the Acropolis. ‘Heil my Führer.’ The raising of the flag on this particular spot must have had an added symbolism for Hitler since he regarded the Acropolis as the epitome of human culture. It must have given him the feeling that he was already the ruler of the world. The following morning all Athenians despaired to see the huge Nazi flag with its hated swastika flying over the Acropolis, the cradle of democracy, liberty and western civilisation. So two young, idealistic and strong-spirited students resolved to do something about it.

that it would require extreme courage and a willingness to die for what they believed in. If anything, it seemed an impossible mission. The Acropolis was heavily guarded, surrounded by steep cliffs and there was only one authorised way to the flag site, through the Propylaia — the official monumental gateway to the rock. Santas and Glezos realised that they had to find a way to climb to the top of the Acropolis. They went to the library of the Benaki Museum on the corner of Koumbari Street and Vasilissis Sofias Avenue and checked the Pyrsos Encyclopaedia. From this they learned that on the northern side of the hill, close to the Erechtheion temple, there was the so-called Cave of Aglauros and located underneath it was a dry well, the Xeropigado. This was where, according to ancient mythology, the sacred guardian snake of the Acropolis resided and where once a month the priestesses of Athena Polias would throw down honey-cakes for his

sustenance. The big ‘crack’ in the limestone that connected the cave with the dry well in fact constituted a shaft of about 35 metres that started from the foot of the hill at street level and reached the top of the Acropolis. It appeared to Santos and Glezos that this was the best way to reach the flag-pole and tear down the Nazi flag. As they were making their plans, events unfolding in other parts of Greece heightened the commitment of the two young men. Although the Greek mainland had fallen, the island of Crete was still in Allied hands. Guarded by Greek, British and New Zealand troops, it was the last bastion of free Greece. However, on May 20, German airborne troops invaded the island and the battle of Crete began (see After the Battle No. 47). In spite of very heavy initial casualties, on the second day the Germans managed to capture Maleme airfield, which enabled them to fly in reinforcements and overwhelm the island’s defenders. News of the pending loss

PLANNING THE ACTION Apostolos Santas, commonly known as Lakis Santas, was born on February 22, 1922 in the city of Patras in the northern Peloponnese. His family roots were from the Ionian island of Lefkada. In 1934, when young Lakis was till a teenager, his family moved to Athens. In 1940, having completed his secondary education there, he entered the law school at the University of Athens. His close friend, Manolis Glezos, was born on September 9, 1922 in the village of Apiranthos on the Aegean island of Naxos. His family had moved to Athens in 1935. Glezos became politically active at an early age. In 1939, while still a high school student, he had participated in the creation of an anti-fascist youth group against the Italian occupation of the Dodecanese and the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas. In 1940 he was admitted to the Higher School of Economic and Commercial Studies. At the onset of war in October of that year he asked to join the Greek army in the Albanian front against Italy but he was rejected because he was still under age. Instead, he worked as a volunteer for the Hellenic Ministry of Economics. As their conviction to remove the swastika flag from the Acropolis took hold, the two friends prudently made their plans. They were fully aware of the dangers involved and

Four weeks into the German occupation, two young students, Manolis Glezos (left) and Lakis Santas (right), decided to do something about the swastika banner, planning to climb the Acropolis at night and take down the flag and destroy it as a symbolic act of defiance. This picture of them was taken in 1945. 51

of Crete brought even greater despair to the Greeks. Learning about it, Santas and Glezos felt compelled to speed up their action. One afternoon in late May, having concluded their research at the library, they began to look around the base of the Acropolis. Scouting out an area where French archaeologists had carried out some excavations in previous years, they spotted an old wooden door and concluded that this must give access to the alleged dry well and the fissure described in the encyclopaedia. That evening they sat at a nearby café waiting for night to fall. As soon as it got dark they went through the barbed wire that closed off the area and reached the wooden door. Breaking its old rusty lock, once inside they saw the large deep cleft in the rock. Since they had no flashlight and the place was full of bats, they decided to leave and return the following evening. They were fortunate to get home in time before the curfew which lasted from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. The following night, they returned with a flashlight, and saw that on the right-hand side of the shaft there was a flat area with rocks and soil and, further down, a big hole, which they concluded must be the Xeropigado — the dry well. They also saw wooden planks leading upward, apparently some kind of scaffolding left by the archaeologists. They tested the old planks and found that they could support their weight. Three days later, on a Sunday, they went up to the Acropolis pretending to be normal visitors. When no one was looking they approached the Erechtheion temple to check the flight of steps leading down to where the scaffolding began which confirmed that they could use the shaft to get to the top. Approaching the area where the German flag was flying, they saw that there was an old wooden guardhouse where the guard could shelter during bad weather. Finally, they noted that the German sentries guarding the area were all at the Propylaia — the official gateway to the Acropolis.

GLEZOS AND SANTAS POINT OF ENTRY (CAVE OF HERSE)

FLAGPOLE

GATE AREA PARTHENON CAVE OF AGLAUROS

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Right: To reach the top of the Acropolis, Glezos and Santas used the natural shaft that rises from street level up to the socalled Cave of Aglauros which is located on the northern side of the rock, inside its rampart walls, near the Ereichtheion temple. Once there, they split up to silently scout out the area, Glezos going around one side of the Parthenon and Santas around the other. Having established that all the German sentries were at the Propylaia gateway, unconcernedly brawling among themselves and well away from the flag area, the two Greeks rejoined at the flagpole, which was at the Belvedere at the other end of the rock. (What was still known as the Cave of Aglauros back in 1941, has since been re-identified by scholars as in fact being the Cave of Herse, another daughter of Cecrops, the legendary king of Athens. Aglauros was in fact worshipped in a big cave found on the east slope of the rock. We have indicated both.)

The swastika flag flying from the main flagpole at the Belvedere as seen from the steps of the Parthenon. It took Glezos and Santas several hours to get the flag down, their main problem being to get it past the point where the bracing wires were fixed. Note the Greek flag flying from a shorter mast further to the left. The German occupation authorities allowed this to be flown but due to the fact that it was at a lower height and positioned further away from the Acropolis walls, it could not be seen from all over the city like the German one.

The flag on the left in the wartime photo was that of the Kingdom of Greece, whereas the present-day one (right) is that of the Greek Republic which replaced all other national flags in 1978. 52

GAIL PARKER

NIGHT ON THE ACROPOLIS Crete fell on May 29. The bad news only steeled the resolve of Santas and Glezos and they decided to carry out their plan immediately. On the evening of May 30, armed with only a torch and a pocketknife, they returned to the base of the Acropolis. A quarter moon was up, its light basking the great rock in a faint glow. Entering the opening, they

The Germans never found out who was responsible for the removal of the flag although both Glezos and Santas were later arrested for other acts of resistance. Released in late 1942, Santas joined the ranks of the ELAS partisans and spent the rest of the war in guerrilla fights with the Germans. Here he poses (left) with three fellow andartes in the mountains near Amfissa in central Greece in December 1943. CONTINUED FIGHT AGAINST THE NAZIS For Santas en Glezos the war did not end in May 1941. Both continued to engage in underground resistance activities. In February 1942, having decided to fight the Nazis by going to Haifa in Palestine and joining the Free Greek armed forces there, they managed to smuggle themselves into a Swedish ship, the Randmaso. However, as it happened, the British bombed the port of Piraeus that night and the ship could not leave, forcing them to stay hidden for three days without food or water in the ship’s hold. A Greek stevedore betrayed them and they were arrested and imprisoned but luckily the Germans failed to make the connection with the theft of the Acropolis flag. The Nazis searched their houses but found nothing, Santas’s father having burned the piece of the flag that his son had brought home, and Glezos’s mother having done the same with

the other piece together with some diary notes he had made. After he was set free under an amnesty in late 1942, Santas joined the fledgling EAM (National Liberation Front), and a year later the communist guerrilla force ELAS, with which he participated in several battles with the Axis troops throughout Central Greece, being wounded in the chest during one such fight. After his arrest by the Germans on March 24, 1942, Glezos was subjected to imprisonment and torture (which left him gravely affected by tuberculosis). He was arrested again on April 21, 1943, this time by the Italian occupation forces and spent three months in jail. On February 7, 1944, he was arrested again, this time by Greek Nazi collaborators, and spent another seven and a half months in detention, until he finally escaped in September that year.

GAIL PARKER

climbed up the scaffolding. Once at the top, they decided to separate and first check out the area. Santas went along one side of the Parthenon and Glezos along the other. There were no German guards in the immediate area, but they could hear their jovial voices, laughing and most probably celebrating their triumph in Crete. Reaching the flagpole they found to their dismay that it was 15 metres high, with the swastika banner firmly tethered to the top. They cut the rope but the flag caught up where three bracing cables secured the pole to the rock. They tried climbing up the flagpole to reach the flag but the pole was slippery and they could get no grip. Finally, they managed to reach the wire juncture, separate the anchor cables and free the flag which suddenly fell down on top of them. It had taken them three hours to achieve their goal. Rejoicing at their success, the two Greeks quickly cut two small pieces from the flag, stuffing the trophies inside their shirts, then pondered what to do with the remainder. As it was too large to carry, they decided to put it down the Xeropigado, joking that it would be guarded by the mythical snake. They threw some rocks and soil in after it to cover it up. Before they left, they decided to deliberately leave their fingerprints on the flagpole, lest innocent people be punished for what they had done. Then, exhausted but elated, the two men quickly made their descent. Once clear of the shaft and back at street level they were stopped by a Greek police officer but he fortunately let them proceed to their homes. The next morning the Athenians looked up at the Acropolis and saw that the hated Nazi flag was gone. A feeling of euphoria permeated the city as the news of the flag’s desecration spread like wildfire from Athens throughout Greece, countering the bad news of the loss of Crete. When the Germans realised the flag had gone, they were infuriated. The Gestapo immediately announced that the perpetrators would be executed if caught and launched a manhunt. However, they never identified the culprits although they were sentenced to death in absentia. The exploit of Santas and Glezos was one of the very first resistance acts in Greece. Though symbolic, it gave inspiration to subsequent resistance movements. Their act would have remained unknown to the wider Greek populace had not the tightly-censored Athenian press given the event extensive front-page coverage under strongly-worded editorials ‘condemning’ the perpetrators. Though it was not known at the time who was responsible, they became immediate folk heroes, the first emblematic personalities of Greek resistance against the Nazis.

The end of the war saw the flagpole at the Belvedere snapped at the base. Hence the ceremonial first raising of the Greek flag after Athens’ liberation by the returned Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou on October 18, 1944, was done at a wooden mast provisionally erected just beside the Belvedere (see After the Battle No. 155). 53

POST-WAR Throughout the German occupation, the truth of how the flag had been removed from the Acropolis in 1941 remained a mystery. The details only became known after the war when the police officer who had stopped the boys at the foot of the Acropolis spoke about his encounter. This brought Santas and Glezos a brief period of celebrity. The end of the Second World War, however, did not mean the end of their plight. Because of their political beliefs, both Santas and Glezos were to spend much of the next 30 years — through the Greek Civil War (1946-49), the Cold War and the Regime of the Colonels (1967-74) — under persecution, being arrested, tried and given death sentences and living under great hardships in government concentration camps. After the liberation of Greece in October 1944 and the flare-up of civil war fighting in Athens in December 1944 (see After the Battle No. 154), Santas initially managed to complete his law studies. Then, in July 1947, in the midst of the civil war, he was arrested, accused of being a communist, tried and sent to ‘internal exile’ on the island of Ikaria where he stayed for a year. In 1948 he was arrested again, sentenced to death and shipped off to the naval prison on Psyttaleia, a tiny island close to Athens, from where in 1949 he was transferred to Makronisos prison island, being finally released after two years following a public protest and international criticism. In 1956, Santas, now married and with two daughters, travelled to Italy, and was eventually granted political asylum in Canada. He lived there for six years but in 1963, judging that the political situation in Greece had improved, decided to return. However, four years later, when the military junta led by George Papadopoulos seized power, he was arrested and again imprisoned. Glezos’s post-war fate was at least as grim. On March 3, 1948, at the height of the civil war, he was put to trial for his political convictions and sentenced to death by the rightwing government. However, because of the international public outcry, his penalty was reduced to a life sentence in 1950. Even though he was still in prison, in 1951 Glezos was elected Member of Parliament for the EDA (United Democratic Left). He immediately went on a hunger strike demanding the release of fellow EDA MPs who were imprisoned or exiled in the Greek islands. His action succeeded in getting seven MPs freed, while he himself was released from prison on July 6, 1954. On December 5, 1958 he was again arrested and convicted for ‘espionage’, a common pretext for persecution of leftist supporters during the Cold War. During his imprisonment, he was re-elected MP with EDA in 1961. His release on December 15, 1962 was a result of the public outcry across Greece and abroad in his support, including his award of the Lenin Peace Prize. At the right-wing coup d’état by the Greek Colonels of April 21, 1967, Glezos was 54

GAIL PARKER

Right: Although the fact that they were the ones responsible for the removal of the German flag in 1941 had already become known in 1945, it would be another 30 years before Santas and Glezos could acknowledge their celebrity status that came with this legendary act of resistance. The intervening years — through the Greek Civil War, the Cold War and the Regime of the Colonels — were fraught with persecution and long years of imprisonment and hardship for both men. It was only after the return of democracy to Greece in 1974 that the two men could freely enjoy the fame and recognition they deserved. This picture of them posing at the foot of the Acropolis was taken in 1985.

In 1982 a bronze plaque was unveiled at the Belvedere honouring their exploit: ‘On the night of May 30, 1941, the patriots Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas tore down the flag of the Nazi occupiers from the sacred rock of the Acropolis.’

Now generally acknowledged as pioneer heroes of the Resistance, the two men have become household names, known throughout Greece, and no commemoration or celebration connected with the war could be held without their presence. This picture was taken at the Monument of the Unknown Soldier on Platia Syntagmata (Constitution Square) in the centre of Athens when they attended the World War II Victory Day commemorations on May 9, 2004.

Lakis Santas passed away on April 30, 2011. His funeral on May 5 was a national event broadcast on nationwide television. among those immediately arrested, together with the rest of the political leaders, and suffered yet another four years’ imprisonment and exile until his release in 1971. His political persecution — through the Second World War, the Greek Civil War and the Colonels’ Regime — added up to 11 years and four months of imprisonment and four and a half years of exile. With Greece restored as a democracy, life for Santas and Glezos became more peaceful but they both remained politically active. A prolific journalist, writer and politician, Glezos served as a Member of Parliament until 1986, and in 1984 was elected a member of the European Parliament under a PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) ticket. He was President of EDA from 1985 until 1989 and long headed the National Council for the Reclamation of German Debt. Both Glezos and Santas received ample recognition for their heroism during the Second World War, receiving numerous awards from various institutions in Greece and other Allied countries. On November 11, 2008, the Greek Parliament passed a special act to honour their heroic exploit in 1941. Both became members of the Lela CarayannisBouboulina organisation, the heir of the wartime resistance group of the same name (see After the Battle No. 146), Santas serving in its governing council. Lakis Santas died on April 30, 2011, aged 89. At his funeral on May 5, Glezos, still going strong in spite of what he went through and his advanced age, gave a beautiful eulogy at the church of the First Cemetery of Athens where Santas was buried. The funeral was attended by Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou and ex-Prime Ministers, members of current and past administrations, leaders of the armed forces as well as representatives of the Lela CarayannisBouboulina organisation. Flags flew at halfmast on the Acropolis and at all public and administrative buildings throughout Athens. As a token of the times, right outside the church there were thousands of angry demonstrators, protesting against Papandreou’s economic policy. Manolis Glezos is still a fighting protester today. At 89, in the midst of Greece’s worst crisis in modern times, he is as militant as ever. As a proponent of direct democracy and a popular icon, there is a great demand for him to be on the front-line at demonstrations against the austerity measures meted out to Greek society to rein in the country’s runaway debt. In March 2010 pictures of the wiry, white-haired activist being tear-gassed by a riot policeman outside the Greek parliament made the national headlines. He puts his present activism in clear words: ‘Not since the German occupation have we been in such a difficult and dangerous situation’.

The Greek flag on the Acropolis flying at half-mast in Santas’s honour on the day of his funeral.

His life-long friend and companion, Manolis Glezos, remains a staunch political activist to this day. Despite his advanced age, he is still in the forefront of many a mass demonstration against the government’s strict economic policies. This picture of him being seized by riot police during a mass protest in front of the parliament building on Constitution Square was taken on March 5, 2010. Tear-gassed by the police, 87-year-old Glezos was evacuated in an ambulance with severe respiratory problems, an incident that caused a national uproar. 55

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