The Wilmington morning star., 1946-09-23
French Reconstruction
Bv ANNE O'HARE MCCORMICK

beach are empty and desolate stretches ol
sand. Nothing recalls the greatest lanolns
operation in history except the ghostly break
water of sunken ships, the remains OF Ger
man gun emplacements on the broken pluns'
and the lonely little markers put up by le
French In gratitude and by the Americans IN
conmemo1a alton of the units that TOOK part
in the mighty venture.
At Arromanches the debris of the British
landing still litters the narrow place, which
the inhabitants of the shattered seaside village
have renamed Port Winston. But the VIDE
strands where the Americans debarked are
swept clean Of everything but echoes, ana
memories. The pitted ROADS leading back
from the beaches are named for the American
privates who first broke through the AT
lantic WALL and the countryside beyond is
so thickly dotted with American cemeteries
that Id Manche" seems almost a part OF
the United States. The country people feel
this; every Sunday they carry flowers, often
blooming around the ruins Of their homes, to
lay beneath the white crosses that mark the
graves o. the Americans who died to liber-
ate French soil.
Nowhere else as on these now quiet and
deserted bea chheads is it possible to re-
capture the lost mood of D-Day. On these
precarious sands between a pounding sea
and the pounding guns embedded in the
ellis Was WIltteu oil ePlC udt ~ SllCSA
audacity is unmatched in the ANIMALS Of
war. You feel there how audacious it was.
1t is as if the air and water in that haunted
and heroic place were still stirred by the
tide of courage that swept the landing
barges in and drove each soldier forward
to his solitary encounter with an enemy Of
unknown strength.
All the current crises-in the Peace Con-
ference, in the Truman cabinet. and in the
French Government-take on different pro-
~protions in the light of the real crisis OF
June 6, 1914. They take on different proper
tons when one goes inland from the coast to
meet a population where the first realities are
still war and invasion.
The delegates in the Luxembourg have
moved far away from D-Day and all it
meant, but in Normandy 1t is yesterday.
Everybody here lives in or near a town that
was bombed or shelled in the assault. Every
body was part Of it. Many of the ruined
cities set anonymously in the green and
fertile countryside are as flattened as any
town in Germany The people are not obsess-
ed by food as in Germany. for Normandy
is rich in food, but they are intent on such
elemental thing as shelter, water supply and
starting life over again. A logical race, they
are only occasionally embittered against
those who smashed their houses. but they
are generally bitter against politicians-"les
messieurs' who make war, they say, and
don't know how to make peace.
They complain about the slow pace Of re-
construction. To a reporter who saw the
devastated area two years ago and comes
back today to see how France is meeting her
most urgent problem, the progress on the long
road back to normal is striking.
II it is impossible to convey the picture
o. utter destruction to those who have not
az, ~ - &c aouaJu jDopocSih1o IN inn oiDe
what it means to dig out Of a ruined city.
For one thing bombed-out populations al
ways return. They want to buid again where
they lived before so that the hardest thing to
find for temporary building is space. An i'm
mense amount of Gle aiming up and razlng OF
damaged structures has been done in Nor
mandy with the result that the center OF
Caen looks more like a desert today than
lat first, and St, Lo once a picture town on
its turreted hills, has lost even the somber
beauty o. a ruin.
The general effect is Of frontier life in a
wilderness of ruins. The population is fatal
istically cheerful, buoyed up by hope and
animation that make the German ruins seem
like cities Of the dead by comparison. No
one looking on this struggle with destruction
can say that the French lack energy or in
%itiative. They cannot get material OF any
kind without Government permit because of
the rigid system OF pTlOTlueS, anu uleL
loudest plant is that this prevents them
from going ahead on their own.
Wire is a typical example. 1t was an old
town of 5000 inhabitants, and 1850 houses,
not counting public and mercantile buildings,
when the fortresses came over on the night
q D-Day, and in eight hours bombing de-
stroyed or badly damaged all but $50 dwell
ings. Today's population is about 5000, $50
buildings have been repaired and 176 temper
airy barracks erected. Most Of the people
bombed lost everything they had. The mayor,
a pharmacist, lost his wife, his son and all
of his possessions. He is now living in a
barrack like the rest of the fortunate.
Yet life resumes. A new market is housed
in wooden shacks. The photographer and a
dealer in musical Instruments are back in
business. Yesterday the baker was making
great tered cakes for a communion break
fast. Wire is being helped to recover by
a community center day nursery and a
boys workshop also housed in the barracks
operated by Comite American De Secours
Civile, an affiliate OF the American Relief
for France. The Americans who also work
in Coutance are doing a small but construc-
tive job not only Of first aid but of assur-
ing the French they aren't forgotten in the
United States. In human terms this means
more than Government loans.-New York
Times.