Eliane Dartois Zanardi DiGregorio
WWII FRENCH WAR BRIDE
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This article ran first in May 2016 issue. By Sandra McKinney t was in the tiny country village of Bétheniville in the Region of ChampagneArdenne, France that construction of an air field began in 1935. After three inactive years, only disturbed by a few aircraft landing, the airfield suddenly came to full life in September 1939 when war was declared against Germany. It was a farming community where the French Army along with the Royal Air Force had utilized the farmer’s fields to construct the air field. It was here that 14-year old Eliane Dartois lived with her parents, four other sisters and Eliane as a school girl in Béthaneville with others before the war. She tiny little brother. is the second from the right. We sat at Eliane’s kitchen NOW. We were able to pack only a small suitcase for table here in Gallup as she recalled details of the beginning of WWII. Her beautiful each of us and to grab our coats and get loaded onto an old bus.” It was not too far along the road when that French accent is still very evident after these many bus broke down and everyone climbed off and started years in the United States. Eliane quietly explained, walking down the road carrying their suitcase and coat, “Bétheniville was very close to the boarder of Germany. all the while German planes were flying low overhead. The RAF fighter planes would take off from the air field The group realized that they were not safe traveling heading out for attacks, and just a short time later, we during the day, so they would hide in ditches and under would hear the BOOM, BOOM of the bombs being trees during daylight and continue walking through the dropped on Germany. Most of the fighter planes night. “There was a time when we were hiding in a ditch would complete their mission, but it was a sad close to a lake and German bombs were dropping all sight when a big flare would light up the sky around us. We could hear the booms and feel the earth to indicate that a plane had not made it back shake from the bombs, but we were thankfully never hit,” home.” Elaine said with a shudder. “I was old enough to understand what was “Finally we reached the train that would take us to happening,” Eliane said, “but I was too young to South France and the ocean, and we traveled for several recognize the extent of the danger and the full days. The thing I remember most intensely there at the implications of the war.” But all that came to ocean was all the mosquitos; they were feasting on all startling reality when they were told by the of us new to the area, and the people who lived there by French Army that they must vacate their the ocean could not understand why we were so tasty,” home because the Germans were coming. Eliane vividly recalled, “It was a Sunday Eliane explained as she brushed imaginary mosquitos from her arms. “Thankfully, we did not have to stay and my family and I were eating too long; probably about 6 months. We picked peaches chicken and drinking wine during our time there to earn money for boarding and when there was a pounding food. Then we again traveled by train to return back on the door. We were told by to Bétheniville. But life became very different when our French soldiers to leave the Dartois family returned back home. Eliane’s little
26 March 2021
