Welcome to the DA France Veteran & Military Families Caucus blog. We have created this space to share news, events, and ideas within the community of our members in France. We advocate on issues important to the veterans and their families within the United States of America and those living abroad. 

Our mission is to support, educate and enlighten our community with social, political and cultural events. In particular, we organize participation in Memorial Day and Veterans Day ceremonies at U.S. landmarks abroad such as military cemeteries, battle sites, and places of historical U.S. military significance. We hope to engage, empower and motivate our members and the larger community of Americans in France to exercise their right to vote from abroad. 

We encourage you to reach out to us to provide content and ideas for this blog in order to keep it as interactive as possible. You can contact the DAFrance Veterans & Military Families Caucus co-Chairs - Anna Marie Mattson and Marie Louise Ferguson at [email protected].

We invite you to visit our Global Veterans & Military Families webpage in order to learn more about our global initiatives and to join the caucus (if you haven't already done so). We also have an active Global Veterans & Military Families Caucus Facebook page as well as a DAFrance group. Please visit us!

2023 DA FRANCE VETERANS AND MILITARY FAMILIES CAUCUS ELECTION CANDIDATES

The nomination period for the DA France Veterans and Military Families Caucus elections is now closed. Members of the Veterans and Military Families Caucus will receive a ballot by email, and electronic voting will end on March 14 at midnight.

The Election Board is pleased to announce the candidates!

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2023 Democrats Abroad Veterans And Military Families Caucus Elections

Run for something!

On March 15, 2023, the Veterans and Military Families Caucus of Democrats Abroad France will hold elections to renew its leadership. We are seeking candidates for the following positions: Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary, Communications, Social Media, Events, and Outreach/GOTV and 2 Members-at-Large.  It’s a good time to get involved!

We work primarily on issues relevant to veterans and military families and share the mission of virtually all the other DA caucuses, i.e. to engage, educate and enlighten our communities while assisting our members to exercise their right to vote from abroad. Remember that change requires voter mobilization and advocacy. 

Over the years the DAF Veterans and Military Families Caucus has participated in ceremonies at US military cemeteries honoring the memory of the fallen, written resolutions to support our veterans, advocated to obtain Covid vaccinations for veterans abroad, provided support for homeless veterans and visited the wounded and ill at Landstuhl Military Hospital.  

The issues we are fighting for today include overcoming veteran homelessness, obtaining Covid-vaccinations and medical care for veterans living abroad, protecting the memory by preserving the Pershing Hall Collection, and securing GI Bill Benefits for veterans living abroad.

DA France-VMF Caucus participated in France's National Deportation Remembrance Day in Paris on April 21st. The invitation was in recognition of the Americans who were deported from France, in most cases because of their involvement with the French Resistance during WWII. About 150,000 people were deported from France during WWII. Over 100,000 never came back.

"We view the Centennial not only as a celebration to remember the burial of the World War I Unknown Soldier, but an opportunity to reflect on what the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier means to America and her allies."

— Gavin McIlvenna, President & Centennial Committee Chairman

We are honored to share with you the opportunity to participate in a series of very special commemorative events in France. The Arlington Sentinels (also known as the Tomb Guards) are here this month to celebrate the Centennial Anniversary of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, 1921-2021. The unknown soldier from World War I buried in Arlington National Cemetery died in France, and their body was repatriated to the U.S. in 1921. Click here for the story.

There are several commemorative events open to the public, Oct 24-26:

• CHÂLONS-EN-CHAMPAGNE - Sunday, October 24, 10am: 100th Anniversary Commemoration Ceremony and Military Parade retracing the route taken by the Unknown Soldier in 1921 beginning at the Hôtel de Ville of Châlons-en-Champagne and ending at the war memorial. No RSVP required. Contact [email protected] for details.
  
  
• LE HAVRE - Monday, October 25, 3-4:30pm: Commemoration Ceremony at Quai Roger Meunier for the 100th Anniversary of the Departure of the WWI Unknown Soldier from Le Havre to the United States in 1921, and the USS Olympia’s mission to bring the Unknown Soldier home. It is here in Le Havre that André Maginot presented, on behalf of France, the Knight's Cross of the Legion of Honor to the Unknown Soldier. No RSVP required. Contact [email protected] for details.
  
  
• PARIS - Tuesday, October 26, 5:30pm: Rekindling of the Eternal Flame under the Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France. Honor and pay tribute to the French Unknown Soldier, standing alongside French and American veterans. RSVP at [email protected].
  
  
• PARIS - Tuesday, October 26, 7pm: The Unknown Soldier Centennial Gala Dinner will be held at the prestigious and historical French Ècole Militaire with the Arlington Sentinels, American Gold Star Mothers, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and US veterans. Live Jazz band, Champagne Kir Apéro, and 3-course dinner. RSVP required - Register Here. Deadline to register is midnight October 23rd. Once you have registered, if you would also like to be seated at a DA France table, please notify Anna Marie at [email protected]

We sincerely hope you can join us to remember and honor all who have served, the Arlington Sentinels, and Gold Star Mothers.

DA France Veterans and Military Families Caucus
[email protected] 

LOOKING FOR PILOT "FRANKIE" WILSON

“No Man Left Behind”

Too severely injured by German anti-aircraft fire to save himself, B17 pilot 1st Lieutenant George F. (Frankie) Wilson Jr. of the 601st Bomber Squadron, 398th Bomber Group Heavy, managed to keep his burning plane flying high long enough for his 8-man crew to bail out while on a mission to destroy a German liquid oxygen factory and a rocket launch site in a gigantic bunker in Siracourt, Pas-de-Calais, in northern France. He died as his bomber exploded in a farmer’s field in Monchy-Cayeux, Vallée Blanche. Declared missing in action: an Army Air Corps pilot from Utah. The date was July 8, 1944. He was 23 years old.

Wilson’s plane was one of the 12 B17s in Bomber Group 601. Photo of the formation.

Decades passed until July 2018, when Wilson’s great niece Sonni Bornemeier and her husband, Air Force Sergeant Erik Bornemeier, were on a humanitarian mission. Having been influenced by the TV series Band of Brothers, they decided to look for the legendary great-uncle ‘Frankie’ and contacted Pierre Vion, a journalist running an online newspaper near the crash site area.

Sonni had heard very little about her grandmother’s brother, just that he was a pilot who died during WWII. Erik, who had newly declassified military records and maps showing crew names, destination, objective and location, left home in Utah and went to Monchy-Cayeux to start exploring the crash site of the great-uncle’s B-17 bomber. Erik was a natural for the job, as he himself was head of a search and rescue team in Davis County, Utah.

The journalist Pierre Vion had written a series of articles about the crash in his newspaper, Le Gobelin de Ternois and called for witnesses on social media. The response was strong and immediate. There were also reports from the crew members. The first one to bail out was Sergeant Ferguson, the only crew member not captured. He was found by a French lieutenant, Arthur Festive, who arranged for him to be taken out of France by the British on September 8, 1944. The other crew members were captured by the Germans upon landing and held as POWs until the end of the war, when all returned home to the US.

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Honoring the Fallen: Laying Wreaths… LEST WE FORGET

Monday, May 31st was Memorial Day. An Action Hour co-sponsored by DAF Grenoble, Marseilles, Brittany, the DAF Veterans and Military Families (VMF) Caucus and DA France gave US veterans and military family members of DA France and DA Germany an opportunity to tell their stories and say who they would like to honor and remember on this day. Another Action Hour item was calling Senators and Representatives to ask them to urge the VA to provide vaccinations for veterans living abroad.

Sunday, May 30th. Laying wreaths for Memorial Day was different this year. There were no public gatherings at the ABMC cemeteries in France except at Suresnes (photo left) and the Lafayette Monument (photo right) but DA France was still able to honor the men and women who lost their lives during WWl and WWll.  

Wreaths were sent for the limited-attendance ceremonies around France performed by the cemetery staff at: the Belleau Wood, Oise-Aisne, Meuse-Argonne, St. James, Epinal and Colleville-sur-Mer. The Toulouse Chapter laid wreaths to honor two OSS Commandos downed during WWII in the Tarn.

Rebecca White, Treasurer DAF Toulouse, Tarn

To further mark Memorial Day, DAF VMF Caucus members joined the American Legion Paris Post 1 at the Mausoleum in Neuilly-sur-Seine and attended the dedication ceremony to celebrate the recent reopening of Pershing Hall.

Pershing Hall Dedication Ceremony                                      American Legion Mausoleum, Neuilly-sur-Seine

After the ceremonies, wreaths were placed on graves of the African American, Asian American, Native American and Jewish communities. At Belleau Wood and Oise-Aisne cemeteries, two very learned guide-staffers gave the DAF VMF caucus representatives a lively, instructive, historical tour. Wreaths were laid on the grave of an African-American soldier from the Pioneer Infantry at Belleau Wood and a Native American at Oise-Aisne. At Suresnes, Tilly Gaillard placed the wreath on the grave of a Polish Jew who had joined the American Red Cross during WW1.

Memorial Day Action Hour

Monday, May 31st 18:30-20:30: Join us in a Memorial Day Action Hour so special that we need TWO hours. You'll hear US veterans tell their stories and about who they would like to honor and remember on this day. We’ll also do an action item together to help our military and veterans. Co-sponsored by DAF Grenoble, Marseilles, Brittany, Veterans and Military Families Caucus and DA France. 

RSVP here for Zoom link: https://www.democratsabroad.org/gretcheningrenoble/memorial_day_action_hour 

Honoring the Fallen: Laying Wreaths…

LEST WE EVER FORGET

Memorial Day will again be different this year. There will no public gatherings at the ABMC cemeteries in France, but DA France will still be honoring the men and women who lost their lives during WWl and WWll.

Wreaths will be sent for the private ceremonies around France to be performed by the cemetery staff at: the Lafayette Esquadrille Monument and in Suresnes, Belleau Wood, Oise-Aisne, Meuse-Argonne, St. James, St. Mihiel, St. Avold, Draguignan, the American Legion Mausoleum, Epinal, La Somme. The Toulouse Chapter will be honoring the two OSS Commandos downed during WWII in the Tarn.  The Normandy Chapter will be sending a wreath on June 6th. We would appreciate any contribution for the wreaths: Donate link.

After the ceremonies, the wreaths will then be placed on the graves of women and those from the African American, Asian American, Native American and Hispanic American communities. At the Belleau Wood and Oise-Aisne cemeteries, there will be a guided tour on May 31st and June 1st. If anyone is interested, please let us know.

THE ROSE OF NO MAN'S LAND

There's a rose that grows in no-man's land

And it's wonderful to see

Though its sprayed with tears, it will live for years

In my garden of memory

It's the one red rose the soldier knows

It's the work of the Master's hand

'Neath the War's great curse stands a Red Cross nurse

She's the rose of no-man's land

                                                    By Jack Caddigan / James A. Brennan

Thank you,

Democrats Abroad France Veterans & Military Families Caucus

           [email protected], Cell: 0614161516

           Whatsapp group: Click here 

           FB page: Click here,   Donations:  Donate link.

DA France Veterans and Military Families Caucus Remembers Americans Deported to Concentration Camps during WW II, April 25th, National Deportation Remembrance Day

In France, the last Sunday of April is National Deportation Remembrance Day. The Democrats Abroad France Veterans and Military Families Caucus has chosen to talk about four remarkable deportees: Dr. Sumner Jackson, his wife Charlotte and son Phillip, and a certain wondrous Virginia d’Albert-Lake.

Dr. Sumner Jackson, his wife Charlotte and son Phillip

Dr. Sumner Waldon Jackson (1884-1945) joined the British Army as a field surgeon in 1916, then transferred to the US Army in 1917, where he met and married the French Red Cross nurse, Charlotte Sylvie Barrelet de Ricout, nicknamed Toquette. After WW l they returned to Sumner’s native state, Maine, but finding life there too conservative, moved back to France in 1921. In order to practice medicine, the French required that he first pass the baccalaureat. He flunked philosophy so moved to Algeria where the baccalaureat was easier, then returned to France and graduated from the Ecole de Médecine. Sumner and Toquette had one child, Phillip, nicknamed Pete (1928-2016) who was proud to be both American and French. 

Dr. Sumner Jackson with son Phillip

Charlotte Jackson, known as Toquette

Dr. Jackson was the Staff Surgeon then Chief Surgeon at the American Hospital in Paris from 1925 to 1943. During WWII, one of the Allied Forces soldiers he treated was an American ambulance driver who had gotten into trouble so Dr. Jackson hid him in the hospital basement. That was the beginning of the Jacksons French Resistance clandestine activities with the Goélette Network. During the Nazi occupation, his family home served as a resistance hub for the exchange of money, information and sometimes even people who were dropped off and picked up by a network of underground resistance fighters … but never arms. Messages heard on London radio about allied bombings or German positions were sewn into “stinky” cheese and sent to Vichy! Since he was a medical doctor, it was normal to see people come and go in his apartment.

At the American Hospital, Dr. Jackson openly treated French and German soldiers but secretly took in wounded British, US and French airmen, Jews and servicemen, listed them as dead in the hospital records, provided false ID papers and helped smuggle them to Spain, on their way to the UK.

In May 1944 his son Phillip, (16 years old), was already a resistance spy when Germans came to arrest him, his father and his mother. They were sent to the Compiegne prison camp. Toquette was shuffled to several camps and finally rescued by the Swedish Red Cross in Ravenbrück and taken to Malmö, Sweden on April 28, 1945. She had no idea what had happened to her husband and son.

Dr. Jackson and his son survived beatings, starvation, and forced labor in Gestapo and SS prisons in France and Germany. They finally wound up near Hamburg at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp for political prisoners where the working hours were long and strenuous. When Dr. Jackson’s finger became seriously infected, he had another prisoner amputate it and kept on working. 

Dr. Jackson spoke little, never explaining why he had been arrested because he was determined that nothing he might say would endanger those for whom he had quietly risked his life. He endured it all with stoicism and dignity that seemed to emanate from his sheer force of character.

In April 1945 the British Army was closing in on Neuengamme. Phillip and his father had spent a year in that camp which had 9000 prisoners. 3000 were shot. Dr. Jackson and Phillip were among the 6000 put in freight cars and then on ships to northern Germany.

On May 3rd 1945, as the POW ships were leaving the Lübeck harbor, the British ordered them to turn back. They didn’t. Unaware that these German ships were full of prisoners, British aircraft dropped bombs and rockets on them. Dr. Jackson’s body was never found. 10,000 people were killed, mostly prisoners. Phillip Jackson, then 17, despite the temperature of the Baltic Sea, swam to shore near Lübeck. Only 600 people survived. They were lined up against a wall to be shot but were saved by British tanks that rolled in just in time. The next day, dressed in a blanket, Phillip approached a British captain and said, “I have escaped and I am alone now”. He enlisted in the British Army and returned to Paris in September 1945 where he was reunited with his mother at the Arch of Triumph-Etoile. Their apartment on Avenue Foch was just as they had left it. After the War Phillip spent years encouraging improvement of Franco-German relations. 

In 2013, The Board of Governors of the American Hospital of Paris created the Jackson Award to commemorate the extraordinary devotion of Sumner and Charlotte Jackson in serving the hospital before and during World War II. The first recipients of the Jackson Medal were Sumner and Charlotte, posthumously. Their son Phillip accepted the award for them and personally received the French Legion of Honor.

Phillip, his father and his mother, Toquette, are the subjects of the bestselling book Avenue of Spies by Alex Kershaw.

Virginia d’Albert Lake 

Virginia d'Albert-Lake (1910-1997) was a schoolteacher from Florida who was awarded the French Legion of Honor, the Order of the British Empire, Croix de Guerre, U.S. Medal of Freedom and Maltese Cross for helping 67 British and American airmen evade German capture during World War II. Many airmen came with family to visit her after the War.

In 1936 Virginia travelled to France, where she fell in love with and married Philippe d’Albert-Lake, the son of an English mother and a French father. Life was peaches and cream. The family had means, apartments, even a château. But in 1940 France had surrendered and Philippe, who had been in the French Army since the beginning of the War, was demobilized and came to Paris. 

One day in the little town of Nesles where they tried to live inconspicuously by staying out of the Germans’ way, the village baker asked them to come to his shop. He was hiding and helping downed American pilots.

When they looked at the young pilots, Virginia and Philippe knew they had no choice. Soon they were working with the Comet Escape Line, the French Resistance network in charge of returning Allied pilots to England via Spain. 

Until Spring 1944, the routine was to receive the airmen at Paris train stations, hide them in their apartment and then guide them out of Paris to a camp in southern France from where they left for the UK.

Many Germans who had been to US, Canadian or British schools pretended they were American pilots. Virginia quizzed them all with cultural questions such as “Who is Babe Ruth” and turned the “fake ones” over to the French resistance fighters. 

On June 12, 1944, fearful of imminent arrest, Virginia, Philippe and 11 airmen left Paris and headed south. As they were bicycling near Châteaudun, a German car stopped Virginia who was slightly ahead of the group. She was ordered to empty her pocketbook. Out fell a list of French resistance fighters. In her haste, she had forgotten to memorize and destroy it.

At German headquarters she admitted to swallowing the list and was told she would be shot in the morning. Instead, she was on one of the last deportation trains to leave France. Virginia was sent to Ravensbrück and other devastating concentration camps until finally being freed by the French Army on April 21, 1945. She left the last camp weighing a mere 76 pounds. Willpower had kept her alive.

After the War, Philippe and Virginia moved to Brittany where she dabbled in the sale of antique dolls to the U.S. market. She died in 1997, Philippe 3 years later. They are buried in a section reserved for Anglo-American citizens in a cemetery in Dinard.

According to her son Patrick, “After her release, I think she thought she’d been given a second life. She loved life. She had a fantastic sense of humor. It was very sharp, very American.” 

Written by Karen Kenny and Tilly Gaillard