We Were Young and at War: The first-hand story of young lives lived and lost in World War Two

Could it be that the first year of the war was the best year of my life? It was the case for too many French people, but we are paying for it now. Despite all my arguments with Mummy, I was happy and I didn’t realize it. I just wanted to be twenty, or a few years older anyway.

A fourteen-year-old’s soul is very complicated. I am depressed because I got a four in English, I didn’t do well in the German test and my class made fun of the portrait I did today. No one really understands me, except maybe Yvette. People treat me like a big baby! But I have a woman’s soul. I know I am pretty, I have big eyes and a beautiful mouth. I love looking at the curve of my eyebrows, I find it soothing. And I know that there are days when I am particularly attractive; on those days I can sense a magnetic attraction. I hate feeling ugly or badly dressed. Are these the thoughts of a ‘big baby’? A baby who knows when someone has looked at her and knows the words, ‘You are pretty, mademoiselle,’ are meant for her.

It’s ten-thirty and I have to turn the light out, goodbye.

Though Britain was still fighting alone, Lend-Lease signalled the end of US neutrality. As if to reflect the shift in relations between their two countries, Brian had decided that ‘yours’ was too formal a way of closing his letters to Trudie and in his last letter he had asked her to come up with an alternative ending.

21 March 1941

Dear Trudie,

If I remember rightly we have been writing to each other for 2 years now. That’s fine I hope we keep it up. We weren’t quite 16 years old when we started and now you will be 18 by the time this letter reaches you. So I wish you all the best.

You will notice I have enclosed two ‘photographs’!!! They are neither good nor flattering…They will do to be going on with. I hope!!

What does the dog do in a raid? Well she goes under the table and pants something awful. We’re more concerned about the dog than the bombs.

We are really grateful for what President Roosevelt has done for us and what the factories of America are going to produce for us. But the folks I know aren’t in agreement with all this ‘fussing’ of America that our government is doing. After all it’s our flesh and blood that is bearing the brunt and keeping American youth out of it.

Brian’s letter, 21 March 1941.

I’ve often wondered what they will call this war. I should use one of these; both are my suggestions: ‘Second German War’ or ‘The War of Liberation’. What do you think?

We’ve got a big weekend off next week with the Home Guard. The RAF will dive-bomb and machine-gun us and it has been said our own ‘parachutists’ may take part. It is to test the training of the Home Guard in the past nine months and will be as near to invasion as possible.

Well I want a bath before it goes dark, it wouldn’t do to be caught in the blitz while in the bath, would it now?

Here’s to the best for you and your people.

…?????

Brian

P.S. I could suggest lots of endings but would they suit you, eh??

6 April 1941

Dear Trudie,

‘Aya Toots?’ as they say in the States. How’s things?

Being Sunday morning I listened to the 9 a.m. news in bed (lout!) to hear that Hitler had declared war on Yugoslavia. What a world we live in!

The 20th Feb letter has been lost with a snap of you in it (tears!!). I’ll bet the fishes are admiring you at the bottom of the Atlantic. So remember you owe me one now. So send one pronto d’ye hear?

My patience won’t allow me to wait until the end of the war to have a little part of our debate now. You can make a reply to what I’m going to say and then when we’ve explained each other’s point of view we will say no more. Agreed? Remember we’re great friends and what we say about each other’s country has nothing to do with our own friendship. Okay. I’ll fire away.

Your statesmen have admitted time and time again that we are fighting America’s battle. Why then, should we who are going a little hungry, standing the strain of air-bombardment, watching our cities destroyed and our own flesh and blood killed in cold blood while America sits tightly, says the bloom of her youth will not die on Europe’s battlefields but we will send you the tackle and your youth can die for us. Remember, America’s population is three times as large as ours. Admitted it has a great moral effect, that we can get equipment elsewhere. Remember all this is my personal opinion. I hope you don’t think I’m rude but one of the things we are fighting for is freedom of speech. I hope you’re not vexed with me, you are not, are you?

By the way, I might say I admire your country greatly, life is much pleasanter there but give me good Old England any day.

Well, I’ll close now with my suggestion. Keep well.

Lots of love

Brian

That spring, while the Luftwaffe continued to bomb Britain’s cities, the Axis powers pushed ahead with their campaign in the Balkans. In Paris, Micheline followed the news closely and kept to her New Year’s resolution of fighting the ‘Bosche’ whenever she could.

23 March 1941

I have discovered a new way of listening to the English radio, without having to go anywhere: I put it up the chimney. There’s been a notice about people holding on to nickel coins and not handing them over to Hitler. So we’re going to keep them all and if the Germans demand we hand them in, I’ll throw them in the Seine.

26 March 1941

The walls of Paris are covered with ‘V’s’, I wonder why. The English radio asked people to write a ‘V’ for victory, and you find them everywhere: on shop windows, blackboards, tables, everywhere. There’s a new sign too: a ‘V’ made from two pins in a buttonhole. Yvette and I counted seventy-five in five minutes.

28 March 1941

On our way back from school today it was raining and Yvette and I stopped several times to shelter from the rain, each time we wrote a ‘V’. On Rue D’Astorg, I wrote a ‘V’ on a German car. I heard the sound of boots behind me and I made off in a hurry. The Bosche approached, looked at the sign on the car and just gave Yvette a big beaming smile. God! We’ve done hundreds of ‘V’s’. I never thought it would be that easy in daylight.

31 March 1941

Yvette and I went to look for German propaganda leaflets at a shop on Rue de la Ville-l’Êveque, they’d been told to distribute them. The woman gave us all she had left, saying: ‘Take the lot. Thanks for getting them out of my sight.’ We threw them in the sewer opposite the Bosches. (When I told Mummy this story she said they might well search the sewer, etc.). I did another ‘V’ on a German car. If they knew about it I would have been arrested long ago.

8 April 1941

Since the beginning of the month we have bought four loaves of bread, 2 kilos each—and I managed to get three of them without giving up a coupon because I ran away without handing it over.

I went to the swimming pool on my own for the first time. I played ball with the Germans, they were very nice, I must admit. They are more fun than the French, because you can’t play with a Frenchman for five minutes before he starts flirting with you and I hate that. With the Bosches you can just have fun without having to think about anything else.

9 April 1941

The Germans have taken Thessalonika and the Greek army has capitulated. God help them, and us. God help the whole world! Don’t leave us under the barbarian’s yoke. Take pity on France. Still, the English are advancing in Africa.

10 April 1941

Nicole and I went to the pool. A Bosche took my arm and amused himself by walking onto the diving board, still clinging on to me. I pushed him into the water to get rid of him. After that, I caught another one, who was sitting in the water waiting to catch a ball, I grabbed him by the head and made him do a back flip. But that’s not the main thing. I don’t know what I should think, or if Mummy would say I did anything wrong. Should I regret it? I don’t know. Anyway, we were playing ball when a Bosche took our ball from us. He didn’t want to give it back and I didn’t dare demand it back in German. But Nicole insisted that he return it. He put his hand on his face and told her she was a fool. Then he asked me to have a coffee with him; I refused, of course.

He looked sad, but didn’t say anything. Then I told him he would never reach England, that England was invincible and that everyone who had ever attacked her had been defeated. I gave Napoleon as an example and said the same thing would happen to Hitler.

But the worst thing was: he waited for us to get dressed, then he took my comb and used it to comb his hair! Then he walked out into the street with us (I was ashamed to see the way people looked at us). He was going our way, on the metro (the Bosches don’t have to pay), and he got into the same carriage. He asked if I would go for a walk with him. I said no. Then he asked when we were next going to the pool. Nicole said she was going on Saturday, so I’ll go then too. If Daddy knew, he would be furious! Would he be wrong to be? I suppose people will treat me the way I treat women who go out with Bosches, and in their eyes I am…Oh! I don’t want to think of it. What excuses me, in my eyes at least, is that I was direct with him and told him exactly what I thought! (He is tall, blond, twenty-five years old, and he thinks Paris is the most beautiful city in the world.)

12 April 1941

My Birthday!

I am fifteen years old! Age matters a lot in life. I am no longer a little girl now and I had my first date with a Bosche!