Seventy years ago, Maj. Keith Crummer of Chatham and his company became the first Canadians to cross the Seine River during the Second World War. It was at a small French town named Criquebeuf-sur-Seine, and the men had to use their trench shovels as oars after finding an abandoned rowboat.
Last month, two of Crummer’s daughters travelled to Criquebeuf-sur-Seine to learn the details of the liberation of that small community in Normandy and why their father received such a glowing letter in 1975 from the then-mayor.
They left in awe, overwhelmed by the appreciation and hospitality of the host town and host family, and humbled to learn their father was held in such reverence there.
Diane Teetzel and Joan Crummer Rolland headed to France Aug. 13. A week earlier, all Diane wanted was more information about the document that had adorned her parents’ wall and now hangs in her home. She’d called the Criquebeuf municipal office Aug. 7 to learn more about the liberation of that community during the Second World War. She’d feared her broken French had only served to provide a little comic relief to municipal staff there, but wound up speaking to someone who did understand her.
Diane said she received an e-mail the next morning inviting her entire family to come to the liberation fete marking the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Allies – including her father – in August of 1944. The party was taking place Aug. 15-17.
So she reached out to family to find a travel partner. Her sister Joan, who lives in Philadelphia, was able to go.
“This was truly one of the most emotional, wonderful experiences of my life. We were treated like royalty. After marriage and the birth of my children, I would put it right up there,” Diane said of her experience in Criquebeuf. “I think my father and mother would have had the time of their lives there.”
They may very well have had just that back in 1975, when Keith and wife Fran went there to visit the gravesites of some of Keith’s fallen comrades, and returned home with the document that hangs on Diane’s wall today.
Diane said the entire community welcomed her and her sister 39 years later. She was in particular awe of the warmth their host family showed the sisters. They stayed with Johnny and Marijo Heitz and family.
“They are a very connected and loving family. It was amazing,” she said.
Living nearby are Damien and Cecilia Belliere. Cecilia is one of the Heitz’s daughters. Damien was the first person Diane and Joan met from Criquebeuf. In fact, when they cleared customs in Paris, they saw Damien in the greeting area wrapped in a large Canadian flag, Diane said, along with his brother-in-law, U.T. Mumme, who spoke flawless English.
“To think they’d take the time to drive into Paris to pick us up and take us back, and give us such an incredible time,” Diane said.
Criquebeuf lies in a gentle bend in the Seine River, south of Rouen, about an hour’s drive from Paris.
Diane said the landscape, heavy with agriculture and with “wonderful fields of corn,” reminds her of Chatham-Kent.
In many ways, it couldn’t have looked that different 70 years ago, as it hadn’t suffered from Allied bombing, when Keith and his “D” Company soldiers of the Lincoln and Welland Regiment first looked up on it. Little did the major know it, but their arrival, or news of it, helped prevent a mass murder.
The Germans had rounded up about 60 citizens and locked them in the church. The plan was to gun them all down and burn the church to the ground.
As a result, the Canadian liberators are revered in Criquebeuf.
In the 1975 document, then Mayor Y. Legourd shed some light on exactly what transpired.
“Mr. Commander, you and your brave soldiers have left in the hearts of all the dwellers of Criquebeuf-sur-Seine a souvenir and an imperishable friendship,” the letter said. “The friendship is especially dear in the hearts of those 60 hostages which the enemy had locked in the church, all to be shot.”
said a woman from Alsace-Larraine, who was in town during the German Occupation and spoke German, deserved the majority of the credit for saving those hostages.
The woman, Anna Fleck, spent about 45 minutes convincing the senior German officer to not shoot the hostages and burn the church, because the Allies were coming.
The Germans packed up and retreated in short order, gone by noon on Aug. 24, 1944, without an Allied soldier in sight.
It turns out Keith and advance elements of the Lincoln and Wellington Regiment to which he was attached were on high ground overlooking the town at that time, Diane said.
“A great relief for the population, the Germans have finally gone! And it was your arrival which brought joy to all the citizens,” the 1975 letter proclaimed to Keith.
During celebrations in 1975, the community renamed a street “Rue de Canadiens” in honour of its Canadian liberators. Diane and Joan walked that same street and visited the church where the massacre was averted 70 years ago.
They day of the liberation revelry this year, Diane said the entire community was decked out with Canadian streamers and Canadian and French flags.
The chills began when the hosts had a bagpiper pipe a group of visitors, including Diane and Joan, as well as Fleck’s daughter, Simone Roman, and last surviving hostage, Marcel Martin, into the church for Sunday mass.
Medals were handed out for Martin and Frank, as well as for Keith and the Canadians who liberated the town. Diane said it was a very emotional experience.
“Simone, Anna’s daughter, could hardly walk and go up to get the medal. The memory of what her mother had done…,” Diane said. “We (she and Joan) were really fighting back the emotions when the Mayor presented us beautiful medals in recognition of the Canadian heroes.”
The warm hugs and appreciative smiles are things they will forever cherish.
“It was an example of how the French don’t forget. It’s like the people of the Netherlands,” she said. “They do it up so well; they teach their kids what their freedom and democracy is all about.”
Diane said she hopes to return in five years to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the liberation, along with more family members.
“When the 75th comes, if we’re all still hearty, I think we’ll go back.”
Until that time, all she has to do is look upon her wall, or down at the Republique of France medal, to remind her of the role her father played, and how a small down in Normandy will never forget it.
In January my brother and I are retracing the route of my Great Uncle Major Herbert O. M. Lambert MC and the Lincoln and Welland Regiment From Courselles Sur Seine to Kapelsche Veer where the Lincs fought and Maj. Lambert was Killed in action. We will be at Kapelsche veer on the 26th 75 years to the day that he gave his life in the Battle.