D-Day_ The Battle for Normandy - Antony Beevor [266]
Leclerc, fearing that German reinforcements might reach the capital from the north, was desperate to have troops in the centre of Paris by nightfall. To encourage the Resistance to hold out, he sent orders to the senior pilot of his spotter planes to deliver a message packed in a weighted musette bag. It said simply, ‘Tenez bon, nous arrivons’ - ‘Hold on, we’re coming.’
Capitaine Dronne’s company had managed to bypass Fresnes and reached the Croix-de-Berny. They caught their first sight of the Eiffel Tower. The company then received orders to return to the Orléans road. They were intercepted by General Leclerc, his tank goggles round his kepi, tapping the ground impatiently with his malacca cane.
‘Dronne!’ Leclerc called to him. ‘What are you doing there?’
‘I’m returning to the axis [of advance] as ordered, mon général.’
Leclerc told him that that was idiotic. He took him by the sleeve and pointed to the capital. ‘Slip straight into Paris, to the very heart of Paris.’
The unshaven Dronne, standing to attention, with his battered kepi and sweat-stained American uniform stretched over his belly, saluted. Leclerc, who had been questioning civilians, told him to take what other forces he could muster and avoid the main routes. He was to get to the centre of Paris and tell them to hold on and not lose courage. The rest of the division would be in the city the next day.
At 19.30 hours, Dronne’s ‘La Nueve’, mustering fifteen vehicles including half-tracks bearing the names of Spanish Civil War battles, such as ‘Madrid’, ‘Guadalajara’ and ‘Brunete’, set off. This company of Spanish Republicans was reinforced at the last moment with a platoon of engineers and three Shermans from the 501ème Chars de Combat, a regiment of Gaullist loyalists. Their tanks bore the names of Napoleonic battles from 1814, ‘Montmirail’, ‘Romilly’ and ‘Champaubert’. Their commander was Lieutenant Michard, a priest from the White Fathers.81
The half-track ‘Guadalajara’ led the way, guided by a local on an ancient motorcycle. He knew all the back streets and where the German roadblocks were, so Dronne’s little column threaded its way safely through the remaining suburbs to the Porte d’Italie, the southernmost point of Paris. The men cheered as they passed the city boundary. The column was frequently held up by ecstatic civilians, unable to believe that these were French troops arriving to save the capital. Another guide, an Armenian, presented himself on a moped. Dronne told him to take them to the Hôtel de Ville, but when he returned to his Jeep, he found that a heavily built woman from Alsace had planted herself on the front to act as the Republican symbol of ‘Marianne’.
Dodging down back streets away from the Avenue d’Italie, they headed north to the Pont d’Austerlitz. As soon as the column reached the far bank of the Seine, they turned left along the quais. At 21.20 hours, the tanks and half-tracks rumbled into the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville.
At the other end of Paris, Colonel de Langlade’s tanks finally reached their objective, the Pont de Sèvres. On the order of Commandant Massu, later famous for his pitiless role in the battle for Algiers, a Sherman of the Chasseurs d’Afrique began to cross the bridge, accompanied by four members of the FFI on foot. To their relief, they encountered no mines, but they were under intermittent fire from a German artillery battery sited on the racecourse at Longchamp.
At the Hôtel de Ville, Capitaine Dronne ordered his force to take up all-round defence. He entered the building and strode up the grand staircase to report. Leaders of the Resistance, led by Georges Bidault, embraced him. Bidault tried to make a speech, but the emotion of the moment was too much for him.
Outside, civilians crowded round the tanks and half-tracks. At first they were nervous, but when they saw the divisional symbol of a map of France with the Cross of Lorraine, they went wild, embracing and kissing the grizzled soldiers. Several people ran to nearby churches. Bells began to peal out and soon afterwards the