France honoured Thursday the officer who led a small yet symbolic French force that stormed the Normandy beaches alongside Allied forces 75 years ago, a feat long overlooked in the country's standard narrative of its liberation from Nazi Germany.
The blue-grey granite sculpture of Captain Philippe Kieffer was inaugurated at Ouistreham, the target of his 177 men at Sword Beach on the morning of June 6, 1944.
They were embedded with British troops who gave the Free French fighters the privilege of being the first to disembark on home soil after four years of Nazi occupation.
"Hi, Dad," Dominique Kieffer, the captain's daughter, said in a trembling voice in front of dozens of French Navy commandos and British soldiers and veterans in Normandy for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
Also present was Leon Gautier, one of just three surviving members of the so-called Kieffer Commandos, who got a hearty round of applause at the ceremony.
Gautier had met earlier in the day with President Emmanuel Macron, who was to oversee a graduation ceremony later Thursday for the latest Kieffer recruits.
"There were only a handful of them, certainly, but it was a handful of brave men," Macron told a crowd of some 3,000 veterans and others in Colleville Montgomery.
"They were almost nothing more than a symbol, but how powerful a symbol for France's honour."
- 'Perpetuate the memory' -
Philippe Kieffer was a banker with no military experience but excellent English -- he had studied in the US -- when he headed for London at the start of the war to volunteer his services.
He eventually convinced Charles de Gaulle and British leaders to let him create an elite force of French soldiers to carry out covert raids across the Channel.
Their bravery earned them a key role in the D-Day landings, attacking German positions to clear a path for troops on the beach to meet up with British paratroopers who had landed further inland.
The gains came at the cost of 10 men dead the first day alone, and only 24 escaped being killed or wounded at the end of the Normandy campaign.
But the daring assault was long relegated to a footnote in mainstream accounts of the Allied campaign in Normandy, largely because de Gaulle was furious they took part in an operation he was excluded from.
De Gaulle refused even to meet with Kieffer's forces after he landed at Normandy a few days later, and despite continued raids until the end of the war, the unit was unceremoniously disbanded in 1946.
In 2008 France re-activated the Kieffer commando, whose members are the only French soldiers allowed to wear their green berets folded to the right, in the British fashion.
"Now we talk more about them, and everyone in Normandy knows them, but it's true they had to wait a long time to be honoured, they waited a long time for the Legion d'Honneur," France's highest decoration, Dominique Kieffer said.
Certain survivors of the D-Day campaign didn't get a Legion d'Honneur until 60 years later.
"They would come here and do their own remembering, they didn't need the honours. And my father was a very humble man," Dominique Kieffer said.
"But now that things have been made right, it's time to forget all that and start fresh, so young people can perpetuate their memory -- that's the important thing."
France honoured Thursday the officer who led a small yet symbolic French force that stormed the Normandy beaches alongside Allied forces 75 years ago, a feat long overlooked in the country’s standard narrative of its liberation from Nazi Germany.
The blue-grey granite sculpture of Captain Philippe Kieffer was inaugurated at Ouistreham, the target of his 177 men at Sword Beach on the morning of June 6, 1944.
They were embedded with British troops who gave the Free French fighters the privilege of being the first to disembark on home soil after four years of Nazi occupation.
“Hi, Dad,” Dominique Kieffer, the captain’s daughter, said in a trembling voice in front of dozens of French Navy commandos and British soldiers and veterans in Normandy for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
Also present was Leon Gautier, one of just three surviving members of the so-called Kieffer Commandos, who got a hearty round of applause at the ceremony.
Gautier had met earlier in the day with President Emmanuel Macron, who was to oversee a graduation ceremony later Thursday for the latest Kieffer recruits.
“There were only a handful of them, certainly, but it was a handful of brave men,” Macron told a crowd of some 3,000 veterans and others in Colleville Montgomery.
“They were almost nothing more than a symbol, but how powerful a symbol for France’s honour.”
– ‘Perpetuate the memory’ –
Philippe Kieffer was a banker with no military experience but excellent English — he had studied in the US — when he headed for London at the start of the war to volunteer his services.
He eventually convinced Charles de Gaulle and British leaders to let him create an elite force of French soldiers to carry out covert raids across the Channel.
Their bravery earned them a key role in the D-Day landings, attacking German positions to clear a path for troops on the beach to meet up with British paratroopers who had landed further inland.
The gains came at the cost of 10 men dead the first day alone, and only 24 escaped being killed or wounded at the end of the Normandy campaign.
But the daring assault was long relegated to a footnote in mainstream accounts of the Allied campaign in Normandy, largely because de Gaulle was furious they took part in an operation he was excluded from.
De Gaulle refused even to meet with Kieffer’s forces after he landed at Normandy a few days later, and despite continued raids until the end of the war, the unit was unceremoniously disbanded in 1946.
In 2008 France re-activated the Kieffer commando, whose members are the only French soldiers allowed to wear their green berets folded to the right, in the British fashion.
“Now we talk more about them, and everyone in Normandy knows them, but it’s true they had to wait a long time to be honoured, they waited a long time for the Legion d’Honneur,” France’s highest decoration, Dominique Kieffer said.
Certain survivors of the D-Day campaign didn’t get a Legion d’Honneur until 60 years later.
“They would come here and do their own remembering, they didn’t need the honours. And my father was a very humble man,” Dominique Kieffer said.
“But now that things have been made right, it’s time to forget all that and start fresh, so young people can perpetuate their memory — that’s the important thing.”
