Paris Bomb Shelter

Posted on by Thor

The Paris Liberation Museum features an original 1940s underground bomb shelter used as a Resistance command post. Located twenty meters under the museum, the command post used during the Liberation by Colonel Henri Rol, head of the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) which was the unified military wing of the French Resistance that played a crucial role in the August 1944 liberation of Paris. It has 10-foot thick concrete walls, pedal-powered ventilation, and gas-tight doors. The memory of World War I gas attacks made keeping the bunker airtight a priority.

Built in 1938 as an air raid shelter. It was constructed to protect against potential aerial attacks.. The bunker, which features a 250-line telephone exchange, served as the operational command post for the final battle to liberate Paris, rather than as a civilian shelter. The bunker never really saw any action as a shelter, Paris was largely spared from air attacks during WWII, and there was little danger of poison gas.

The bunker was used as the headquarters for French Resistance leaders including Colonel Rol-Tanguy during the August 1944 uprising. It features a restored “disinfection room” gas masks, and a bicycle used to generate electricity. In this bunker, plans were set in place for the city’s liberation. In one room there are still telephone switchboards and a typewriter as if staff had just left yesterday.

Starting on August 15, 1944, thousands of FFI members and Parisian police initiated a general strike and armed insurrection. They seized police stations and barricaded streets before Allied forces arrived. The FFI hoped to liberate the city themselves, but their limited, mostly light, weapons cache forced them to rely on the arrival of General Leclerc‘s 2nd Armored Division and U.S. 4th Infantry Division, which entered the city on August 24-25, 1944.

The Allies were still pushing the Germans toward the Rhine River and did not want to get embroiled in a battle for the liberation of Paris. The Allies thought that it was too early to take Paris. They knew Adolf Hitler‘s Nero Decree required the German military to destroy the city if the Allies attacked.  Charles de Gaulle persuaded them to attack.  De Gaulle,  learned the French Resistance had risen up against the German occupiers and he was unwilling to allow his countrymen to be slaughtered like the Polish Resistance during the Warsaw Uprising. He petitioned for an immediate frontal assault. He threatened to detach the French 2nd Armored Division and to order it to single-handedly attack the German forces in Paris, bypassing the chain of command in so doing, if Eisenhower delayed approval.

Paris was considered to have too great a value, culturally and historically, to risk its destruction. The Allies were also keen to avoid a drawn-out battle of attrition like during the Battle of Stalingrad when Germany was stopped in it’s tracks by the Russians. Ultimately the Allies liberated the city.

The FFI’s actions, including securing key Paris buildings, prevented the German garrison from destroying the city. The actions of the FFI allowed the city to be liberated on August 25, 1944, with relatively light resistance.

Clamerey France American Military Camp 2

Posted on by Thor

Once at the Clamerey, France American Military Camp, I could not stop sketching. This large open tent encampment felt like it was for a higher rank officer. There was a poster of Charles De Gaulle, and the French flag was on the flag pole. De Gaulle was he French leader in exile during World War II. One man passing through the camp was the spitting image of the French leader in his crisp clean uniform.

For this sketch I had to sit in the direct sun light. I am something of a vampire so I am always concerned about being burnt to a crisp. I put an eraser on the edge of a tree shadow to my left and after a few minutes noticed that the shadow would be moving towards me as I sketched. I decided to bite the bullet and hopefully the shade would reach me before I became a cinder.

A photographer was joking with me in English. He said, “you can pick any color, as long as it is green!” He was right. I almost emptied out my green pan of color on my pallet. My choices were, warm green, cool green dark green and light green.

Another gentleman was admiring what I was doing, and he introduced me to his grandmother. She whispered to me, “magnifique.” Merci, I replied. This was the first French word I picked up. I said it to every person who stopped to make comments that I could not understand.  Te son later explained that his grandmother had been just a little girl when the Americans came to liberate the city she was in. She vividly remembers a G.I. giving her a candy bar.

The encampment was on a magnificent old French estate. The building was built of stone and the tiles on the roof looked like they had been there for hundreds of years. There were hints of the oncoming fall. The golden sun light illumined the far trees a rich orange color. Some trees were as dark as a coal mine, and other were bright like a lantern.

By the time this sketch was done, I was getting hungry. I started to wonder if there were any restaurants in the small provincial town. I hadn’t noticed any as I drove in from my hotel down south near Dijon. France. I had tried to book an air B&B in a tent but that booking was interrupted when my bank told me my debit card had been hacked. I drove across France not sure if I wold find a place to stay when I got there. The tent air B&B was full when I got there. I sat in the parking lot of a hotel for several hours trying to get funds to cover hotel expenses. The hotel where I made those calls was completely booked. I was advised to stop down the road and thankfully that hotel had a room where I could camp for the night.