"I have always been passionate about military history," says forty-year-old Damien André, who has been helping Le Souvenir Français since 2017 to find the lives of American GIs, heroes of the Liberation of Seine-et-Marne, at the end of August 1944. "It is very important not to forget them and to make them known because no one knows their history," he told us less than four years ago at the inauguration of the monument of ten GIs fallen in battle in Cesson and Seine-Port (Seine-et-Marne).
Thanks to these years of research, several soldiers have been identified. For Corporal Albert Olsen, he was called up to the Army on June 13, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois, his native region. Over the years, he rose through the ranks and became a corporal. He became a radio operator in C Company of the 87th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron of the 7th Armored Division. He and his men will have a commemorative plaque on the monument to the dead of Lieusaint, entirely financed by the municipality.
The grave of American GI Albert Olsen in Arcacia Park, Norwood, Illinois. On May 8, he and his men will have a commemorative plaque in Lieusaint. DR
Duty to remember
This work of research and cross-checking information is quite complicated at times. "I go through the U.S. military archives with the accounts of the attacks. In the case of Corporal Olsen, I had two testimonies: a resident of the Servigny farm in Lieusaint, where the attack took place, and that of a child who saw the Americans pass by in an armoured car in front of his house, "says Damien André.
Report on the facts dating from 25 August 1944 in Lieusaint
The last day of the GI was retraced thanks to the story of the 12-year-old child, Claude Benoît, resident of Seine-Port. On August 24, 1944, this young Seine-Portais noted the arrival of several American vehicles. The boy had offered plums to soldiers occupying a vehicle called "Cherokee". On August 26, accompanied by his friends on bicycles, he discovered several blackened carcasses of armored half-tracks in the Lieusaint area, including one on which he could read "Cherokee".
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At the farm of Servigny, Marie-Thérèse Signolle, 24 years old at the time of the facts, witnesses the disabled vehicle on August 25 in the early afternoon. She explains that the day before, several German soldiers had settled not far from her farm. Moments later, she saw an American armoured car approaching. It was destroyed with two soldiers killed. In the garden, she saw a GI held in cheek by a German and taken prisoner. She confirmed that it was indeed an ambush by the Germans against the Americans.
The ceremony will take place this Monday, May 8 at 10 am at the war memorial of Lieusaint, near the church.
