Unwanted Hero: The Flying Career of Squadron Leader Donald Barnard DFC, 1937-1955 by Colin A. Pateman & Clutton-Brock Clutton-Brock

Author:Colin A. Pateman & Clutton-Brock Clutton-Brock [Pateman , Colin A.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Fonthill Media
Published: 2012-10-09T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5

THE FILLERIN FAMILY – THE PAT/PAO LINE – THE CREW

The Fillerin family

During the Second World War many Allied aircrew – Donald Barnard, Ray Glensor, and Ralph Forster among them – were given help when they most needed it by hundreds of brave families living in occupied Europe under the yoke of their evil oppressor. One such family lived in the village of Renty, in the Pas-de-Calais department of northern France – Norbert and Marguerite Fillerin, and their three children, Geneviève, Monique, and Gabriel.

Norbert was born on 17 June 1897 at Enghien-les-Bains in the northern suburbs of Paris, the son of Louis and Jeanne (née Martel). Old enough to fight in the First World War, he saw action at the beginning of 1916 with the French 8th Infantry Regiment, before transferring to the 208th Infantry Regiment. He was taken prisoner in April 1917 at Chemin des Dames, during the Second Battle of the Aisne, and thereafter tried unsuccessfully to escape on two occasions.

At some point he learnt to speak Hochdeutsch (literally ‘High German’), which suggested to anyone hearing it spoken that the speaker was an educated person, and therefore of some standing and to be respected. This linguistic ability was to stand Norbert in good stead in the grim years ahead when his country was occupied by the German Army.

On 15 February 1925, Norbert married Marguerite Cadet (born at Renty on 26 June 1897), and Geneviève, Monique, and Gabriel were born on 15 February 1926, 19 April 1927, and 8 August 1928 respectively.

When war came anew in 1939, Norbert’s services were not required by his country, being considered, at the age of 42, to be too old. But, fiercely patriotic and an ardent Anglophile, his time would come when the Germans invaded France in May and June 1940. The family house in Renty had already played a small part in the First World War when it was used as a British Army officers’ mess, but his first act of defiance, after Renty had been quickly occupied in force by soldiers of the Wehrmacht’s 1st (Mountain) Division, was to help a number of French soldiers to escape.

Norbert Fillerin with his daughters, Monique and Geneviève, and his son, Gabriel, 1942.

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