November 17th, 1941
Corsica - In the middle of the night, the French submarine Monge surfaces not far from the Corsican coast, in front of Solenzara, and bombards the area with its 100 mm gun. This bombardment causes little destruction, but causes intense confusion, because the Italian guards are convinced that commandos were attacking the area again. The local command declares the panica generale (general alert, simply) and recalls the troops taking part in the patrols in the hills in the area, ordering them to return urgently to defend the airfield. A wild machine-gun fire breaks out and lasts until the first light, when it appears that the guards are only shooting at shadows or at other guards. Unaware of the astonishing effects of its few shells, the Monge has already left for another appointment...
.........
New York Herald Tribune - From our special correspondent Donald "Abe" Lincoln
Corsica bleeds, sings and fights
Corsica's climate is generally very pleasant, even in November. But what is true on the coast is much less true on the heights, deep in the scrub, especially at night, when you are far from any shelter, when it is impossible to make a fire, and when you are going to die the next morning. In these conditions, it is atrociously cold.
A few days earlier, I had disembarked a few days earlier from a French submarine that was as full as an egg, and which was dropping off commandos and their equipment in a small bay. The importance attached by the French to showing the Americans what was going on here, on the "front", can be measured by the fact that in my place, the commandos would have been able to take one more mortar with ammunition. They had even designated an officer, himself born in Corsica, Pascal X... (his family is still on the island) to serve as my guardian angel.
Two days later, I was beginning to know the Corsican landscape, the "maquis", very well and I was very happy that I had not stopped training when I had stopped playing football to become a sports journalist, because walking was our only way of getting around.
Then came the night of Operation Retribution. On November 11th, the commandos and clandestine forces of the Resistance attacked the main airfields on the island. I was a witness to one of these attacks, near a team serving a mortar, but I never felt in danger: while the commandos knew where their targets were, the Italians defending the airfield had no idea where the shots were coming from. Then the charges placed on the planes by infiltrators started to explode. In the chaos that followed, we retreated quietly.
Of course, we couldn't expect the Axis troops to go quietly. But when the Germans and Italians launched columns across the island to find and destroy the French fighters, they simply vanished into thin air. I remember seeing one of these columns pass two hundred yards below our position, without their suspecting our presence. "If we had been a little more numerous," Pascal had said, "we would have fallen on them!" In fact, several ambushes allowed the French to destroy small Axis columns.
Unable to find the French fighters, enraged by the ambushes, the Italians and Germans attacked civilians. But the smoke from the fires and the massacre of dozens of their own, including women and children, only increased the anger and desire for vengeance of my companions.
However, little by little, the law of the strongest imposed itself. Under pressure, the French forces dispersed. There were only four of us left, with Pascal and two resistance fighters, Dominique and Bruno. The day before, we had found refuge for the night in a hamlet called La Maddalena. But in the early morning, we were warned of the arrival of a German column.
The flight had resumed. Did this column have better trackers, or had we been spotted by the Fieseler Storch, the small reconnaissance plane that had flown over us around noon? They were after us. And they had chased us up the mountain, forbidding us to go back down to the coast, finally cornering us at sunset in that corner of the rocks with no way out, while a submarine was scheduled to come and pick up Pascal and me, the following night...
"I'm sorry," said Pascal. "I failed in my mission. I had to bring you back alive, but I owe you the truth: we can't run away anymore. In the morning, they will attack, and your press card will certainly not protect you."
I was aware of that. They couldn't let a journalist go back to New York with the smell of the dead bodies of the children burned in the little school in Santa Catarina still in his nostrils. I was trying not to think about anything, especially not about the people I would never see again, when I realized that the sound I was hearing was not the wind, but Bruno's voice. He was singing in Corsican, with a beautiful deep voice!
- It is a kind of typical song of the country, Pascal explained to me. Made to be sung by men, in choir, but as he is alone...
- And what does he sing?
- It's his own composition. He tells his story. Shall I translate it for you?
- Gladly, I lack a little distraction, you know.
- Well. It goes more or less like... "The Germans were in my home... They told me to surrender... But I didn't know... And I took up arms..." This is the refrain. And here is the last verse: "An old man, in an attic... For the night hid us... The Germans took him... He died without saying anything..."
- Hey, wait a minute, the old man from last night?
- Yes. Didn't you see the smoke during the day? It was La Maddalena, for sure. And the old man didn't talk, because if the Krauts knew there were only four of us, including one non-combatant, they would have attacked already. Now try to get some sleep. At dawn, I will give you a gun, you can use it if you want.
I was about to answer to refuse, when a violent gunfire broke out, deafening. Flat on the ground, we tried to dig ourselves into the rock, and I thought I should have accepted the proposed weapon. Then everything calmed down. An absolute night silence. Five minutes, then Dominique said "I'm going!" Another ten minutes and he came back. "They left. They must have shot at random, to take away any idea of following them."
Gone?" replied Pascal. "Either it's a trap, or they got a message calling them back for something more important than us. We don't have a choice, we have to act as if it was the second explanation. We go down to the rendezvous cove, we have two hours."
In fact, we were very close to the sea. But at more than two thousand feet in altitude! Whoever doesn't know the mountain believes that the hardest thing is to climb. This is not true. Going down is much harder, especially in the dark, by tortuous paths or without paths at all, with an empty stomach and fear in the belly. I stopped counting my falls after the twelfth one. But finally, I felt sand under my walking shoes, heard the waves pounding the shore and I collapsed on a tiny beach.
Pascal was already feverishly pulling a small flashlight from his bag. He began to fire it in the direction of the sea, that is, towards the black line that separated the dark sky from the dark sea. And there, in response, an even blacker mass lit up with the flashes of a searchlight like our own.
When the submarine's boat came out of the darkness, Dominique and Bruno embraced us, Pascal and I, without a word. No, they didn't. Dominique said to me "Thanke you for comingue."
Bruno said nothing, but he put an envelope in my hands. I could not open it until I was in the submarine. There was a text and a score.
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We know how Bruno's song will be interpreted in New York by Corsican immigrants, how it will obtain an immediate success, how it will be taken again in all the musical styles and in all the languages of the Allies. It is less known that its author will be killed three days after the events related above, and that, his name being uncertain, the money of the royalties will be used after the war to help in the reconstruction of Corsica.
