Touching the Heart of D-Day

Dad would hold up his sugar packet to a friendly Frenchman and ask, ‘Soocray n’est pas?’ The Frenchman, at first bewildered, would then nod and beam, ‘Ah oui, sucre’. Then Dad would point to his butter and say ‘booray’, again meeting incomprehension, then a relieved ‘Ah oui, le buerre’. Dad’s French improved a great deal from these encounters.

He told stories about France at dinnertime and would say, “Eat your vegetables. During the war, the French people didn’t have enough to eat.” Dad grew up on a farm and hated to see good food go to waste, and said that there was lots of that at the Sea Bees’ camp. So when it was his turn to oversee the mess tents, he’d load up pans of steaming meat, potatoes, vegetables, bread and pie, and head down the narrow lanes to a nearby farmhouse. He’d knock, point to the food, gesture and say ‘pour vous’.

The excited recipients would respond in a torrent of French, which Dad couldn’t understand. But he understood their gratitude. The next night, Dad repeated the same ritual, at a different farmhouse.

These stories were as much a part of my childhood as the yellow Formica table in our small yellow kitchen which we would crowd around to eat dinner. I never minded hearing the same stories over and over.

The one I loved the most was when Dad talked about the seven-year-old orphan, Gilbert Des Clos, who lived with a caretaker just above the Sea Bees’ camp. Dad had noticed the shy, skinny little boy hanging around the gate to the camp and thought that he looked like he could use a good meal. So using his best French, Dad invited Gilbert to go through the food line with him at lunch one day.

My sister was picking up my mail and saw the large envelope from France and the name Gilbert Des Clos. Knowing how important it was, she faxed the letter back to France, to a number I had given her on our itinerary. Two days before my daughter and I were to fly back to California, we had a tearful reunion with Gilbert and his family. All of those years I spent studying French paid off – Gilbert and his family spoke no English. When we parted, I vowed that we would never lose touch again.

For two years, we stayed connected through regular letters and phone calls. Then I returned to France with other family members for a grand fête in the town hall of Gilbert’s village. The Mayor attended and the local paper ran an article, with photos, about our joyous day. The next year, Gilbert and his family spent two weeks in California, where some 40 members of our family celebrated the miracle of our reunion with dinners and picnics, including an intergenerational, cross-cultural soccer game.

I felt wonder and awe that somehow my Dad’s stories from my childhood had caught up with my real life. And Gilbert did become my French brother, just 50 years later than originally planned. As the years passed, I visited Gilbert and his wife Huguette often and kept in touch with frequent calls and letters.

For the 60th anniversary of D-Day in 2004, I travelled to France with Stephen Ambrose Historical Tours, as a guide and translator for a group of United States Army Rangers and their families. I had the touching job of translating between the grateful French and the ‘vieux soldats’, the elderly soldiers who had journeyed back to Normandy. I also spent time with Gilbert and his family.

I had planned an extended visit with Gilbert for early 2008 and we all looked forward to it. Sadly, in November 2007, Gilbert was diagnosed with liver cancer. I so hoped that I could get there in time but he died just hours before I was due to arrive. By travelling non-stop, I was able to attend his funeral.

Friends and family filled the church in Gilbert’s village on that cold February morning. I sat in the front pew with his family, and as part of the service, placed a frame with a photo of my Dad and one of Gilbert from 1944 onto the casket. They were both gone now. That chapter of the story had ended. But as I watched the candle light flickering across the pictures of the young American lieutenant and the little French boy, I was struck by how my Dad’s kindness – reaching out his hand to a hungry youngster – still reverberated 64 years later.

My Dad had wanted Gilbert to become a part of our American family. If he had come to America, the story and our tie to France would have ended. Instead, I sat as part of Gilbert’s French family, in an ongoing story of love and connection.

Diane Covington-Carter’s award-winning writing and photography has appeared in Reader’s Digest and More magazines, among other publications, and on National Public Radio. Her memoir, Reunion, Finding Gilbert, will be available mid-2014.