Carefree Truth

Issue #201, November 15, 2012

 

 

 

Carefree resident Marcelle Chase was the keynote speaker at Carefree's Sunday event, "A Salute to Veterans". She shared her childhood memories of the German occupation of her hometown, Mons, Belgium, during WWII. Mrs. Chase was introduced by Ted Dimon , who provided a bit of history about Mons, which is close to the French border and also played a role during WWI.

 

 

 

The story began when Mrs. Chase was 5 years old. An announcement came over the radio that made her parents hold onto each other and cry. It was May 10th, 1940. Germany had invaded Belgium. Her father, who had faced the Germans before when he served in the Belgian Army during WWI, had lost a lung to mustard gas and had been shot in the face, losing his teeth.

 

 

 

He was the Director and Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper that served the region. When Mons was captured, the Germans demanded that the paper print only the news they provided. He called an emergency meeting of the Board of Directors and informed them that he was unwilling to obey, and would resign if forced to follow that order. He favored shutting down the newspaper indefinitely. His Board unanimously agreed.

 

 

 

In 1942, her father was arrested and sent to various concentration camps. Bridges were secured with gold in those days, and the Nazis removed the gold from his mouth without benefit of anesthesia. But it truly grieved him when they removed his gold wedding band.

 

 

 

At one point, their mother hid a young Jewish woman they knew. One evening two months later, a leader of the resistance similar to the Underground Railroad came to the house. Someone had "tattled" on them and their Jewish friend had to leave immediately. When the Nazis searched the house the following day, they found no evidence. But her mother had risked deportation to a concentration camp.

 

 

 

Two German soldiers arrived with a requisition ordering the family to lodge a German official. Her mother said there was no space to accommodate an extra person, a lie, and also explained that it would be difficult to have a man living there while her husband was gone. The soldiers placed the document on the door. Her mother removed it, and some of the paint on the door came off with it. The next day, the same soldiers returned with another sticker, telling her to leave it there "or else".

 

 

 

During the nights, the family huddled in terror in the basement of their home, listening to the bombs headed for England scream overhead. A family they knew had drowned when their house collapsed, trapping them in the basement, and this was a constant fear. The V-1 bombs made a distinctive noise in flight. The dread came when the sound stopped, which signaled they were ready to fall, short of their mark, in Mons.

One night, the house shook so badly they were sure it had collapsed. They made their way upstairs to find a huge crater in the street in front of their house. The bomb was carefully removed the following day.

 

 

 

The windows had to be covered with sheets at night to keep any light from escaping, or the German soldiers would shoot at them. Unbeknownst to her children, their mother used some of these sheets to sew an American and a British flag. When the liberating forces arrived, she proudly hung these flags out of the windows. Both flags reside in the Mons War Museum.

 

 

 

Word came September 2, 1944 that the Americans were coming, and the family walked to the nearby village where their grandmother lived. When they heard the American tanks, they rushed into the main street. The infantrymen walked on either side of the tanks, and as they passed they shook hands with the men and kissed the girls. Mrs. Chase said, "It is impossible to describe our happiness. It was a real hysteria; we were ecstatic!"

 

 

 

But the village had been the site of coal mines, and the excavations left huge hills of earth. The mines had been closed for years. Grass and trees had grown on these hills, providing cover for German soldiers, and they started shooting. The civilians escaped into basements while the soldiers fought. The Americans did win the battle, but when the townspeople emerged, they saw the bodies of American soldiers scattered in the streets, soldiers to whom they "had given so much love for such a short time".

 

 

 

During the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, her brother was 12 years old and returning home from school. A group of retreating Nazi soldiers, in a final act of spite, threw a grenade into a group of innocent children who were playing. One child was blinded, some lost limbs, and several were killed.

 

 

 

Epilogue:

On May 24, 1945, her father returned, "a changed man, but still my dad". After the war, her mom kept in touch with a soldier who had become a friend. He returned to visit and brought a friend, Jim Chase, who became Marcelle's husband in 1969. The Chases moved to Arizona in 1973, and to Carefree in 1999. Jim passed away in 2005.

 

 

 

Mrs. Chase expressed gratitude to all soldiers, many of whom die so young and so far from home. She keeps them in her heart, and will until she dies. Her son Henrique is a career military man who served in Iraq. He is stationed many different places. She misses him. She pointed out Tom Dawkins, a friend in the audience who served in the Pacific during WWII. She also thanked friends Katie and Anton Wilke, who encouraged her to share her story, and Arthur Gimson, who was "so generous with his time and guidance."

 

 

 

I would like to thank you, Mrs. Chase, for sharing this very personal, emotional, and often heartrending story with us. It took great courage to stand up in front of a crowd and breath vivid life into these experiences. You are an amazing woman. I cried listening to you the first time, and I cried again while writing your story.

 

 

The YouTube is 17-1/2 minutes long, but I strongly recommend that everyone take the time to watch it. My writing pales in comparison. Mrs. Chase's speech is shown uncut and uninterrupted. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PnCQIxfY_c

 

 

Lyn Hitchon

 

 

 

Prepared by Carefree Truth

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