Americans in Paris: Life & Death Under Nazi Occupation (71 page)

BOOK: Americans in Paris: Life & Death Under Nazi Occupation
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Chapter Thirty-four: A Hospital at War
p. 310 On 4 April 1943
‘133 Flying Fortresses Raid Paris Plant After R.A.F. Hammers at Essen; U.S. Units Gain Six Miles in Tunisia’,
New York Times
, 5 April 1943, p. 1.
p. 311 ‘German propaganda was’
Ninetta Jucker,
Curfew in Paris: A Record of the German Occupation
, London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, p. 75.
p. 311 ‘reached its crucial point’
General Aldebert de Chambrun, Managing Governor, Letter to the Board of Directors of the American Hospital of Paris, 9 December 1944, p. 4, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: Report, 1940–1944.
p. 311 ‘He was suffering’
Jucker,
Curfew in Paris
, pp. 168–9.
p. 312 ‘The problem was solved’
Clara Longworth de Chambrun,
Shadows Lengthen: The Story of My Life
, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949, p. 174.
p. 312 Otto Gresser recalled
Otto Gresser, ‘Histoire de l’Hôpital Américain –5ème Partie’,
American Hospital of Paris Newsletter
, vol. III, no. 11, March 1975, p. 4.
p. 312 ‘So … we did some’
Otto Gresser interview in Kathleen Keating, ‘The American Hospital in Paris during the German Occupation’, 19 May 1981, 14-page typescript, p. 7, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: German Occupation by Kathleen Keating and Various Other Histories, 1940–1944, p. 10. See also Otto Gresser, ‘History of the American Hospital of Paris’, 28 September 1978, 14-page typescript, p. 5, Archives of the American Hospital of Paris, File: History by Otto Gresser: ‘Fearing a possible shortage of water in case of bombardment, after digging in the middle of the garden, an underground Seine was discovered ready to be used in case of emergency.’ The well was not needed.
p. 312 René Rocher, the French
Rocher, who had also had a successful career as an actor, was one of a series of temporary directors during the war. They were all filling in for the Odéon’s longstanding Jewish director, Paul Abram, who was dismissed when the Germans occupied Paris in 1940. He resumed the directorship in 1945.
p. 312 ‘
The Life and Death

Longworth de Chambrun,
Shadows Lengthen
, p. 176.
p. 312 ‘The play is short’
Ibid
., p. 177. The book actually states, ‘The play is short, demanded no cuts, and could
not
be produced even during the brief playing-time which was allowed, for curtains had to be down and lights extinguished by ten-fifty.’ I have removed ‘not’, which appears to be a typographical error.
p. 313 ‘How can we begin’
Ibid.,
p. 177.
p. 313
King John
opened
Yves Pourcher,
Pierre Laval vu par sa fille d’après ses carnets intimes
, Paris, Le Cherche-Midi, 2002, p. 286.
p. 313 A week later, someone
Gérard Walter,
Paris Under the Occupation
, translated from French by Tony White, New York: Orion Press, 1960, p. 191.
Chapter Thirty-five: The Adolescent Spy
p. 314 German U-boats trawled
My father, Commander Charles Glass, Jr, took part in the convoys and recalled German torpedoes sinking ships around his. One U-boat torpedo missed his ship by a few feet.
p. 314 A picturesque town
‘British Photograph Bombing of the Nazi U-Boat Hideout at St. Nazaire’,
Life
, 11 May 1942, pp. 30–31.
p. 314 During one raid
‘U.S. Raid Blasts St. Nazaire; 6 Bombers Lost in Battle’,
New York Times
, 17 February 1943, p. 1.
p. 314 ‘the toughest target’
‘Saint Nazaire Raided; Clouds Curb Blow’,
New York Times
, 3 May 1943, p. 5.
p. 315 In Paris, R went
Hal Vaughan,
Doctor to the Resistance: The Heroic Story of an American Surgeon and His Family in Occupied France
, Washington: Brassey’s, 2004, pp. 71–6, based on lengthy interviews with Phillip Jackson.
Chapter Thirty-six: Clara under Suspicion
p. 318 ‘new and peculiar … in case we’
Clara Longworth de Chambrun,
Shadows Lengthen: The Story of My Life
, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949, p. 186.
p. 318 When Clara and Hilda walked
‘News of the American Library’,
Library Journal
, December 1944, p. 1068. See also ‘Milton Lord Reports from Paris’,
Library Journal
, July 1945, pp. 622–4.
p. 319 ‘If they have been circulated’
Longworth de Chambrun,
Shadows Lengthen
, p. 187.
p. 319 ‘Madame, I am very’
Ibid
. (Italics in original.)
p. 319 To avoid further German
‘News of the American Library’,
Library Journal
, December 1944, p. 1068.
p. 320 After three years
Longworth de Chambrun,
Shadows Lengthen
, pp. 189–90.
p. 320 But, in New York, expatriate
‘French Add a “Little Bit of Paris” to Old New York for Bastille Day’,
New York Times
, 15 July 1943, p. 13.
p. 321 ‘Portrait of an American’
Quoted in Vaughan,
Doctor to the Resistance
, p. 91.
p. 321 Sumner was operating
Ibid
., pp. 79–80. Phillip Jackson recounted the story to Vaughan in Paris in 2002.
p. 323 ‘a nice place … Everything, bed and linens’
After-action report, quoted in
Ibid
., p. 93.
p. 323 ‘I suppose my mother’
Ibid
., p. 94.
p. 324 In late October
Frank Griffiths,
Winged Hours
, London: William Kimber, 1981, p. 123.
p. 324 Spanish police arrested Joe
Ibid.
, p. 178.
p. 324 Back in England
Of the seven other B-17 crew who survived, two were captured and the other five received help from the Resistance to escape to Spain.
Chapter Thirty-seven: Calumnies
p. 325 Her son and his wife
Château Haut-Brion had belonged to American banker Clarence Dillon since 1935. Weller was Dillon’s cousin. Aldebert de Chambrun had alerted Dillon to the sale of Haut-Brion, and Pierre Laval was Weller’s sponsor for French citizenship. Dillon was a mentor to René de Chambrun during his time in New York.
p. 325 René rarely missed
From the diary of Josée de Chambrun, in Yves Pourcher,
Pierre Laval vu par sa fille d’après ses carnets intimes
, Paris: Le Cherche-Midi, 2002, pp. 302–4.
p. 326 ‘brought to America’
Paul Wohl, ‘Laval’s Personal Fortune Reported Safe in US’,
New York Herald Tribune
, 5 December 1943, p. 1.
p. 326 No proof was offered
When Laval was tried for treason in 1945, financial impropriety was not among the many charges against him. His biographers do not mention them.
p. 326 René admitted that
René de Chambrun,
Mission and Betrayal, 1940–1945: Working with Franklin Roosevelt to Help Save Britain and France
, Palo Alto, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1992, p. 66.
p. 326 ‘At present he is attached … The Paris building’
Paul Wohl, ‘Laval’s Personal Fortune Reported Safe in US’,
New York Herald Tribune
, 5 December 1943, p. 1.
p. 327 The most likely source
The British, who circulated anti-de Chambrun rumours throughout the war, may have found in Paul Wohl a vulnerable conduit for disinformation. Wohl was born in Berlin in 1901, and he had moved to the United States in 1938 as a correspondent for the Czech press. In 1941, the
Christian Science Monitor
hired him, although he also wrote for other papers, including the
New York Herald Tribune
. The US did not intern him as an enemy alien, although it could have. He was unmarried and kept forty-seven turtles at his apartment in Greenwich Village. See his obituary, ‘Paul Wohl, Journalist, Dead; Wrote About Political Affairs’,
New York Times
, 4 April 1985.
p. 327 ‘instructing that they be’
D. M. Ladd, FBI Washington, ‘Memorandum for Mr. E. A. Tamm’, 12 January 1943, Document 100- 49901-29, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland.
p. 327 ‘My own Charles darling’
The translations of the three letters with a covering letter from the Adjutant General’s office to the Justice Department are reproduced in C. M. Hardwick,
Time Study in Treason: Charles E. Bedaux, Patriot or Collaborator
, Chelmsford, Essex: Peter Horsnell, 1990, pp. 61–3.
p. 329 ‘an invaluable, meticulous’
Janet Flanner, ‘Annals of Collaboration: Equivalism III’,
The New Yorker
, 13 October 1945
,
p. 35.
p. 329 ‘code telegrams; business’
Ibid.
, p. 36.
p. 330 ‘Coming home from’
Clara Longworth de Chambrun,
Shadows Lengthen: The Story of My Life
, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949, pp. 175–6.
PART SIX: 1944
Chapter Thirty-eight: The Trial of Citizen Bedaux
p. 335 ‘extremely straightforward person’
FBI Form Number 1, Title: Changed, Frederic Ledebur, Mrs. Isabella Cameron Waite, File No. 65- 6045 KJH, 25 February 1943, New York.
p. 335 But Bedaux, despite
Gaston Bedaux,
La Vie ardente de Charles Bedaux
, Paris: privately published, 3 June 1959, p. 89.
p. 336 ‘I will be here’
Jim Christy,
The Price of Power: A Biography of Charles Eugene Bedaux
, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1984, p. 282.
p. 336 ‘What assurance do’
Ibid.
, p. 280.
p. 337 ‘he showed an ebullience’
Janet Flanner, ‘Annals of Collaboration: Equivalism III’,
The New Yorker
, 13 October 1945, p. 39.
p. 337 ‘that [Frederic] Ledebur’
J. Edgar Hoover, FBI cable to SAC, San Francisco, 18 January 1944, from FBI files supplied under Freedom of Information Act, unnumbered file. FOIPA No. 1088544-001.
p. 337 ‘OUR WASHINGTON ATTORNEY’
FBI File Number 65-3349, ‘Title: Frederick George Ledebur, Espionage G[erman]’, 12 typewritten pages, from FBI files supplied under Freedom of Information Act, FOIPA No. 1088544-001.
p. 338 ‘in the event BEDAUX’
Ibid.
p. 338 ‘I received your … It was always’
Gaston Bedaux,
La Vie ardente de Charles Bedaux
, p. 110. (The letter is reproduced in its entirety in French, but wartime restrictions meant that Gaston’s card and Charles’s letter would have taken circuitous routes through neutral countries to reach their destinations.)
p. 338 ‘Well, one of these days’
Christy,
The Price of Power
, p. 283.
p. 339 ‘Dear friend, I cannot’
Ibid.
, p. 295.
p. 340 ‘is seriously ill’
‘Charles Bedaux Seriously Ill in Miami Hospital’, Associated Press, Miami, 17 February 1944, in
Chicago Daily Tribune
, 18 February 1944, p. 7.
Chapter Thirty-nine: The Underground Railway
p. 341 ‘Just have news’
Copy of Incoming Cablegram, Max Shoop to Nelson Dean Jay, 9 February 1944, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: Correspondence, 1940–1945.
p. 341 Miss M. Thevoz, former chief
The official list of
Personnel reste à l’Hôpital le 14 Juin 1940
refers to Mlle M. Thevoz,
Directrice des Infirmières
, directress of nurses. Archives of the American Hospital of Paris, File: Personnel, 1940.
p. 341 ‘understand Shoop’s reference’
Letter from N. D. Jay to Leslie Allen, 23 Wall Street, New York, NY, 14 February 1944, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: Correspondence, 1940–1945.
p. 341 ‘Please say that none’
Second letter from N. D. Jay to Leslie Allen, 23 Wall Street, New York, NY, 14 February, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: Correspondence, 1940–1945. It is not clear why Jay wrote two letters to Leslie Allen, giving the same information in different words, on the same day.
p. 341 The board attributed
Neal H. Petersen (ed.),
From Hitler’s Doorstep: The Wartime Intelligence Reports of Allen Dulles, 1942–1945
, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996, p. 544. Shoop’s former partner in the Paris office of Sullivan and Cromwell, Philippe Monod, was OSS Agent 405 with the code name Martel. Monod, a Frenchman, represented the combined Resistance body,
Forces Françaises Combattantes de la Metropole
(FFCM), with Allen Dulles in Switzerland (
ibid
., p. 53). Shoop, who liaised between the OSS and the Resistance, had known Dr Jackson in Paris. He and Monod should have had details of Dr Jackson’s escape network.
p. 342 ‘about starvation and the family’s’
‘Tracing Noted Surgeon’,
Boston Herald
, 5 September 1944, in Massachusetts General Hospital Archives, File: Sumner Jackson.
p. 342 ‘He was drawn’
Diary of Clemence Bock, p. 9, quoted in Hal Vaughan,
Doctor to the Resistance: The Heroic Story of an American Surgeon and His Family in Occupied France
, Washington: Brassey’s, 2004, p. 108.
p. 342 ‘He from time to time’
Otto Gresser interview, Kathleen Keating, ‘The American Hospital in Paris During the German Occupation’, 14-page typescript, p. 6, American Hospital of Paris Archives, File: German Occupation by Kathleen Keating and Various Other Histories, 1940–1944.
p. 343 ‘Nothing, of course, could’
Alice-Leone Moats,
No Passport for Paris
, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1945, p. 172.
p. 343 ‘were directly connected … Usually the men’
Ibid
., p. 193.
p. 344 ‘Not daring to knock … “Gee”, one of the boys’
Ibid
., pp. 195–6.
p. 344 Jane and Rosemary told Alice-Leone … ‘It was safe’
Ibid
., p. 199.
p. 345 Rosemary prepared Carlow
Ibid
., p. 200.

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