French children under the Allied bombs, 1940–45 by Lindsey Dodd

Author:Lindsey Dodd [Dodd, Lindsey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, World War II
ISBN: 9781784997854
Google: -3W5DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2016-06-01T03:15:40+00:00

Rescue and clearance in the aftermath

Victims of bombing received assistance from various organisations in its aftermath. The state’s evolving financial response was examined in Chapter 5, and I will later consider the work of the national charity, the Secours National, and that of the Comité Ouvrier de Secours Immédiat (COSI, Workers’ Emergency Relief Committee). Here, however, my interest lies with rescue and clearance. What were the immediate tasks facing local authorities in the aftermath of bombing, and how did the community help itself? And what role did young people – adolescents – play in all of this?

The damage air raids caused to urban structures was immense. The tasks facing the Défense Passive were multiple: engineers and local fire services required manpower and machinery for lifting, digging and demolishing, and vehicles to transport debris, possessions, the injured and the dead. Survivors were rescued as a priority, then streets were cleared to provide vehicular access and to permit the reconnection of utilities. Unstable buildings were made safe, either shored up or pulled down. The contents of homes were retrieved, and people and their belongings evacuated. All salvageable materials were kept. Collecting the belongings of sinistrés (bombed-out people) was last on the list, but these were to be treated with great care: everything was meticulously recorded and stored under guard.16 Following the March 1942 Renault raid, workers loaded one hundred lorries with furniture, gathered eighty tons of bedding, and seven million francs-worth of money and jewellery.17 It was a vast job. Clearance took place across Boulogne-Billancourt on eighty-four sites, and employed 2,500 workers. It finished on 1 April 1943. Three days later, the second air raid created another eighty-nine bombsites.18 Clearance was hazardous work, as buildings crumbled and unexploded bombs went off.19 Social workers and student volunteers were involved, visiting families to make assessments for the attribution of a carte provisoire de sinistré (provisional bombed-out card) that entitled the bearer to obtain emergency rations and cash.20

Medals and certificates of honour were awarded to rescue workers ‘distinguished by their bravery, their devotion and their sense of duty’.21 Mayors received letters calling for the recognition of members of the public for courageous acts. Wartime France is sometimes characterised as a place where neighbourliness was trampled underfoot in the competition for scarce resources. Yet here we see a limit to this characterisation. While there were examples of anti-social behaviour, bombsite thefts, and fraudulent relief claims, a type of ‘Blitz spirit’ developed. Communities appear to have been bound tightly together in the aftermath of bombing. Indeed, immediate help came from neighbours, not organisations. Speed was imperative to save lives and secure buildings, and firemen were often delayed in rubble-blocked streets. After the Lille-Délivrance raid in April 1944, Pierre Haigneré noted that first on the scene were ‘the neighbours. The emergency services arrived a lot later.’ Even when official services arrived, they struggled to cope: ‘the poor old firemen,’ said Christian de la Bachellerie in Boulogne-Billancourt, ‘there weren’t hundreds of them!’ Neighbours helped pull survivors from the wreckage ‘practically by hand’, as lifting devices were lacking.

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