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Landing of Provence: 75 years later, memories of Cavalaire

75 years ago, 450,000 men and women of the American and French armies began to land on the beaches of Provence to liberate France from Nazism. Among them, 225,000 skirmishers from Senegal, Algeria, Gabon and Moroccan tabors. Cross story of a historical day with a witness and the descendant of a fighter.

It's a pretty beach in the south of France where you can plant your parasol early in the morning, and where the ice cream sellers are kings. Between the colored towels and the buoys, it is difficult to imagine the historical scenes of the landing of August 15th, 1944 .

But in a house on the heights, a man remembers. Raymond Defendente is a native of Cavalaire. He was a teenager in 1944, and patiently waited for this landing: the nonagenarian explains today that he had even prepared for it: " My father was a communist, my parents were frankly against Marshal Pétain, and quietly, we listened London radio. So we knew all the truths that were happening and especially the lies propagated by the propaganda media of Vichy. And Radio London also had this peculiarity that it gave advice, especially on what to do the day when eventually the allies would land on our shores. And the important advice was to say, especially do not leave your house, because there will surely be looting. Then, if you have a garden, build a shelter. And now, with my fourteen years, I take this extremely seriously. My father did not care about me, but I took my shovel and my pick and at the end of the garden, in the hard rock, I built a deep shelter. "

A night of waiting

It is in this casemate of fortune that the night of August 14 to 15, the Defendente family takes refuge during these long hours when the shells rain on Cavalaire. " We were invaded by dust fumes, we thought for a while that we would stay there ," says the old boy today.

But after eight hours, the family comes out of the ground to find their familiar village with a strong smell of gunpowder, and largely destroyed by shells. With his father, Raymond Defendente then climbs the hill overlooking the village of Cavalaire to hope to see the military operations, and the panorama he sees is an unreal image: " The bay of Cavalaire, was completely covered with boats, any so, and on the beach there were thousands of machines that we did not know, Jeeps, GMCs, who go back and forth unceasing, not to mention the tanks. We discovered that, and we remained stunned. "

►Also read: Disembarkation of Provence: August 15, 1944, an unexpected success

But quickly, the reflexes of a daily made food deprivations come back: " My dad was a poacher, and during this period, on the hill, he installed traps rabbits. The day before this landing, he had installed six. And after watching, this extraordinary spectacle, he said to me : "Come, we're here, we'll take the opportunity to see the traps" . And amazingly, there were six traps and six rabbits in it ! Usually, one or two of them were captured, but that day, with the panic of the shells, the rabbits had to run on all sides, and they are caught in six traps ! "

The landing of Mohammed Benkhedda

That day, Raymond Defendente may have met Mohammed Benkhedda, a 23-year-old Algerian aboard one of the Liberty Ship boats that is about to disembark, in full Ramadan, that he decides with other soldiers of repel.

This arrival on the French coasts that he does not know is a moment that he often told his son Rali, who remakes the story today: " He said that inside this big boat with ropes to get off, they were still stressing. They did not know where they were going, nor exactly what was waiting for them. "

►Also read: Disembarkation of Provence: testimonies of African veterans

At the end of his life, the veteran wrote this story in an eloquent title, One among many , where he recalls the importance of the African forces present that day: " The French army was composed of men and women from all social categories, regardless of race or religion. The soldiers were from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Senegal. There were also black feet and French people from France. These brave soldiers have suffered huge losses in battles. May God receive their souls and give their homage by not forgetting them. "

Married with a German

After landing at Cavalaire, the regiment of the soldier Benkhedda went back to the North, to Germany, where he met his future wife, but also difficulties explains their son today: " After the war, it was very difficult, there was still this side, you're going to marry a Boche . He was one of the first five soldiers of the French army to marry a German. It was necessary to make a whole process with authorizations of all the ranks until the General. "

He became a trilingual, Arabic-French-German father and Mohammed Benkhedda died in 2018. At his burial, these many military medals were grouped together on a red velvet cushion, and on his grave at the Cavalaire cemetery , next to the Catholic cross of his wife, was added the crescent of Islam.