River Orne
Renée Jeanne Olinger was a teenager in the Summer of 1944 spending a short holiday in Thury harcourt when the Allies landed.
Renée came in contact with the NVA Chester and Wirral Branch at the 50th Anniversary in 1994 and wanted to share her account with them and offer her sincere thanks to the boys who came to drive the Germans out of France at last.
Monday June 6th 1944 was the first day of our one week holiday from college (after some successful
examinations!!).
Along with my older sister and a girl friend of ours, I arrived at the a country village 30km away from Caen called Thury-Harcourt where we would spend this well deserved break.
We were staying with family friends and had so many fun projects to occupy us during those few days; swimming and camping on the river Orne, helping a farmer with the cherry harvesting (our reward being to eat as many cherries as we could manage!), walking through the forest and possibly finding mushrooms and flowers!
The first day was wonderful. Tired and happy, we went to bed hoping for a good night’s rest and another beautiful day tomorrow.
Suddenly we are woken by the noise of a strong bombardment far away, we thought perhaps in Caen. The noise became louder and louder and seemed it would never stop.
Over Caen the sky was red, and we could hear different kinds of shooting becoming louder as it got nearer to us. Slowly we started to realise that it was not like the normal bombardments we were used to. We began to wonder whether it last it could be the Allies landing?
Despite our worries, a feeling of happiness and hope filled our hearts and minds, at last to finish this long and terrible war, peace seemed within reach.
Alas, we could not imagine what high price we would all pay for this liberty. How many victims and what suffering it would require.
In the early morning, the German troops became very active. For hours convoys of military lorries, soldiers, ammunition, ambulances, canons of all kinds and infernal noisy tanks were moving in the direction of Caen...
