Testimony of D-Day veteran Maurice Chauvet
Corporal, 1er Bataillon Fusilier Marin, N°4 Commando
Maurice Chauvet at his home in Paris in 2001.
Photo : Marc Laurenceau
Maurice Chauvet was one of the 177 French soldiers of the Kieffer Commando, who landed on Sword Beach on June 6, 1944. He was part of the intelligence section and was responsible for liaising between the general staff and the troops (to learn more about the 1er Bataillon Fusilier Marin, click here). Wounded, he was evacuated to England five days later. In London, Combined Operations Headquarters commissioned him to produce a report on his personal experience and memories of D-Day.
With an extraordinary attention to detail and a constant commitment to historical accuracy, he produced an article commenting on images taken by military filmmakers on June 6 at the sites where Maurice Chauvet fought.
After the war, Maurice Chauvet was one of the military advisors on the film The Longest Day. Realizing that the directors were taking too many liberties with the history of the D-Day landings, he decided to leave the film crew during filming. For Maurice, history must not be rewritten inaccurately, and upholding the truth of the facts was his last battle.
Maurice Chauvet is the creator of the French Commando insignia, which is now worn on the berets of the Fusiliers Marins Commandos of the French Navy – click here to see the insignia.
Maurice Chauvet traveled to Normandy every year to commemorate the memory of his friends, a memory he wanted to remain true and unchanged in the future. For him, the duty of remembrance represented the duty of true history. He died on May 21, 2010, at the Hôtel des Invalides.
The following article, written by Maurice Chauvet, was published on July 14, 1944, in the first issue of the magazine Ensemble, intended for distribution to French people newly liberated by the Allied forces.
“We experienced a moment that will certainly go down in history, but we only realized it afterward. We were the French commandos of Captain Kieffer, himself part of Lord Lovat’s brigade. We landed at Ouistreham, thus forming the far left of the entire landing force.
At our camp, a month before the opening of the Second Front, we had studied aerial photographs and detailed relief maps of the place where we were to land. We knew nothing about its location other than that it was on the French coast. We quickly learned the terrain by heart, and this very incomplete map, which we have since learned was a map of Ouistreham, was only intended to remind us of the position of particularly important points.
I added the names to the map, as well as numbers to locate the following photos and help you understand the action. The German defenses are not indicated, we know them so well. They consisted of blockhouses and pillboxes along Aristide Briand Boulevard, with a strong point at the casino. Between the casino and the outer harbor, an anti-tank trench and flamethrowers on this point. The mission of the two French troops was to clear the pillboxes from B, Aristide Briand Boulevard on the map, to the Casino strong point, a dozen structures spread over about five hundred meters.
LCIs en route to Sword Beach. Photo : IWM
Here are the three LCIS (infantry boats), two of which were occupied by French troops. Having left England at 9 p.m., we spent a very hard night crammed into the three holds, with all our equipment. The weather was gray. As far as the eye could see, the sea was covered with boats. In the distance in the mist, the French coast. The dull thuds of the RAF bombardment, on the left cherry-red flames and smoke, probably from flamethrowers. Shells from the German defense sank a few barges. It was about 20 minutes past H. The commando colonel waved to us as he passed along the side; he took his place in a very small assault barge, faster than ours, with the white flag with a red cross of the British Navy at the front.
Landing of the French commandos. Photo : IWM
I don’t know how the last few minutes passed. The barges touched down, and the two gangways were pushed over. Four sailors were wounded on deck. Machine gun bullets were whizzing by from all sides, coming from the left. The boys standing on the second barge were French. The barge had lost its two gangways, cut by a 75mm shell, and I moved onto the one next to it, number 528. It was 7:50 a.m. I can still see the three pillars in bundles, embedded in the sand, with a mine attached to them, which grazed the barge: remnants of the German defenses, quite damaged by the bombardment.
The commando in the foreground is an English comrade. He’s carrying a ladder. He was probably wounded a few seconds later when he set foot on the ground. I heard he was dead.
The landing plank of the barge in the background is falling; Only a dozen men used it, including the two officers of the first French troop. They were all wounded as they set foot on the ground, by a single mortar bomb that fell among them. If the gangway had not fallen, I would have been with them.
Royal Engineers land on Sword Beach. Photo : IWM
Royal Engineers, with their white-rimmed helmets, were with us, and I saw a tank fifty meters to the right, as we disembarked, which is probably the one stopped on the right in the photo. After 25 or 30 meters in waist-deep water, we had to cross the sand and puddles as quickly as possible to reach dry sand. This entire area was swept by machine-gun fire coming from the left. Some of the men you see lying down threw themselves to the ground reflexively because a bullet grazed them; others are already wounded or dead. As for me, as soon as I hit the ground, I started moving as fast as possible, with water up to my waist, but I don’t remember feeling wet. There were already many wounded, and everyone was heading to their rallying points. It was at that moment that I saw Captain Kieffer, commanding the French detachment, wounded in the thigh; one of our medics was giving him an emergency bandage, and we left together. As I passed, I saw the guys from our commando lying there. Where the sand was beginning to be covered with vegetation, there was a barbed wire network. A 2-meter gap had been made. We had to line up to get through. I stayed there for a few seconds waiting my turn. A comrade passed me at that moment, and told me two or three names of those who had just been wounded.
Commandos advance in Ouistreham under German fire. Photo : IWM
Standing in a minefield, facing the machine guns, this is how the filmmaker took this photo. It took tremendous courage. The bottom line on the left overlooks the sea, and to the right, you can make out the positions of the small barracks. In the background, between the two gables of the house, you can make out the castle, where the heavy machine guns that generated fire were installed during the landing. At the precise moment this photo was taken, bullets were crossing in all directions. The section of ground the commandos are crossing, emerging from the breach, is mined. Just above the pack of the commando on the right, you can see a black spot, formed by four or five men from a troop regrouping. Each troop of our commando had a rendezvous building and was not to leave until after this initial regrouping. Some troops left their packs there before heading towards the road leading to Ouistreham, in single file across the dunes.
The castle has been taken. Passing through the barbed wire defending the road, I meet Lieutenant Mazéas, from the first troop, who is returning to the beach; a bullet has torn his entire forearm. The castle is still firing from the roof, and I cross the park, making the best use of cover. At the entrance to the park, the first dead German, next to his individual hole.
