Blanche
BOULET
Ouistreham
Blanche Boulet, 25, a nurse at the time of the landings.
My name was Blanche Vaudevire and I was born on 7 February 1919 in Ouistreham.
After my certificate, I learnt sewing for two years and then went to Paris where I looked after children.
With the noise of war, I came back to Ouistreham where I did odd jobs. On the whole, the Germans were very, very decent. We had no complaints about them.
And indeed, in Ouistreham, there were a lot of second homes and a lot of Parisians' homes. So the Germans didn't impose themselves on our houses. They took what they liked as they went along. The summer houses.
Blanche, a volunteer in the French army in 1945
After the Germans arrived, I cleaned houses.
Avenue de la Mer - this bakery still exists - the son asks me - I had looked after a friend who had just given birth, etc -
The baker's son comes and tells me: ‘I thought of you. So I came back as a cashier.
Then came the landings. On the 5th, at 11 o'clock in the evening, we heard planes flying over. We looked for them but they were flying along the canal. And it was British troops, planes towing gliders.
I didn't sleep at night. There's talk of the landings: ‘Maybe that's where it is?
At one point, there was a lull. The port was on fire and planes were flying past, past, past... Oh dear, that noise! And the noise was getting louder from the other side, of course.
I didn't see anything, but I heard everything. Heard everything... that noise, it was something hellish.
And then I went to l'Accalmie. This was the house where we had our first-aid post.
I can assure you that I was a real automaton: I treated, I cleaned... We had no water or electricity. In the evenings, when we had injured people, we treated them under the storm lamps.
At 8am, the mayor arrives. He says: ‘The landings are under way, the sea is black with boats.
And a moment later, we had this young man, an Englishman, and a moment later, two others. ‘Eh we're French, we landed with Kieffer!
Question: ‘Are you surprised to see French people disembarking, to see French people in British uniforms here in Ouistreham?
Yes, yes! 177 men was a small number compared with the thousands who landed.
In the afternoon, we had a major casualty whose wife had been killed in the morning in the port. He had gas gangrene.
Blanche was awarded the Vermeil medal of the Red Cross after 18 years of commitment
I was so tense that I burst into tears. My friends said, ‘Come on, Blanchette, don't cry’. The doctor said, ‘Leave her alone, she really needs it’.
Question: ‘Can you tell us a bit about the commando Paul Rollin, whom you are treating? Tell us about his story and his family who returned the following year?‘
Some of the locals went to the casino where there had been a fight the day before.
He didn't die. So they took him to the first-aid post and he left with our severely wounded two days later.
You can't say that I looked after him. I saw this boy. He was in a comatose state.
Question: ‘For 40 years, you chose never to go back to Normandy?‘
I went during the holidays, but never for 6 June. Never for 6 June.
There are still people who support that man... Hitler. But my God, when you think of all the atrocities that took place under his reign... I know that one day I went to Germany. And there was a young girl of 15. She said to me: ‘Madam, I'm ashamed of what our grandfathers did’.
When you think about it, this atrocity that happened...