Common Sense in Normandy

FORTUNE Editor Joseph Jones, in London on Dday, visited Normandy soon after Cherbourg fell. Last week he returned to the U.S. with a firsthand report on the political realities of that fragment of France. His story:

If the common sense and cooperation demonstrated in Normandy by all concerned hold good for the rest of France, the U.S. may yet be able to retrieve its French policy from disaster. U.S. and British civil-affairs specialists learned well the lesson of AMG in Italy, and the policies being followed in Normandy are entirely new. One sentence sums them up: "Let the French do it."

This approach implies the existence of a French authority accepted by the people and recognized by the Allied military. Notwithstanding the President and the State Department, that authority in Normandy is the Provisional Government headed by General Charles de Gaulle (see U.S. AT WAR). There is no question whatever about this fact in Normandy. It is completely accepted by French and military alike. So remote and unreal is the question of recognition that there is no bitterness over past treatment of De Gaulle. That bitterness may come later if the U.S. Government does not ratify the unofficial fact. But the liberated French are in no mood yet to quarrel about academic matters.

Splendid Idea. To De Gaulle's persistence and to General Eisenhower's common sense is due the credit for this happy state of affairs. When, solely on his own initiative, General de Gaulle visited Normandy in June, he left behind Franc,ois Coulet as Regional Commissioner and Colonel Pierre de Chevigne as military representative with instructions to recruit and train a French fighting force in Normandy. Upon his return to England, De Gaulle called on General Eisenhower and casually told him what had been done.

At that moment one of the great decisions of the war was made. General Eisenhower smiled and said that it was a splendid idea.

Thus was created the basis for French unity and for a successful civil-affairs policy in liberated France.

Reasonable Men. The U.S. is also in debted to the leaders of the French under ground. One of many pre-invasion illusions was the fear that these men would consider themselves an elite corps, demanding special privileges and unrestrained purges.

As yet, there has been no sign whatever of such an attitude.

The resistance movement around Cherbourg was originally organized by three groups. One was Liberation, organized by Socialists, scholars and labor leaders; a second was Front National, organized by Communists; and the third was called Organisation Civile et Militaire, a non-political organization, and the strongest in the Cherbourg area. Now by decree of the Algiers Government, combat elements of these groups are merged into the Forces Franc,aises de VInterieure, a unit of the French Army under command of General Joseph Pierre Koenig (see WORLD BATTLE-FRONTS). According to resistance chiefs in Cherbourg, the movement is genuinely nonpolitical, and it seems likely that the leaders will seek military rather than political posts.

At first, a few young civilians suddenly sprang up, flaunted arm bands and weapons, and called themselves resistance chiefs. The French police soon suppressed them with the aid. of legitimate resistance-chiefs. Leaders and members of the real underground were completely orderly, completely cooperative. Normandy has had no purges, no killing of Frenchmen by Frenchmen.

Normans are French. Before the invasion, people outside of France imagined that there would be an unbridgeable chasm between resist ants and collaborateurs. Nor mandy may not be typical of all France.

But in Normandy there is no such chasm.

There were very few outright collaborationists, and the Normans instinctively knew them for what they were. Most of these few disappeared with the retreating Germans.

As for the others--what could one do but hold one's job, even if it happened to be a government job? The Normans are French, and the French hate the Boches.

Going about one's business for four years of German occupation was not enough to change that immutable fact. Two of the underground leaders in the Cherbourg area kept their government posts under the Germans, and shrewdly used their positions to build resistance for the day when resistance would count. Cherbourg's Mayor Reynaud served throughout the occupation, is now working closely with the Allied authorities.

The Friends. In this friendly atmosphere, General Eisenhower's G-5 (Civil Affairs) is doing a magnificent job. G-5 boss in the Cherbourg area is Lieut. Colonel Frank L. Howley, a onetime Philadelphia advertising-agency executive. His team includes 22 officers and 22 men. The officers (a few are British) are specialists in public health and sanitation, water supply, police and public safety, etc.

At the start, Colonel Howley laid down a basic rule: "The business of civil administration belongs to the French. Our job is merely to help them cope with an emergency." He and his men, American and British, have worked on that principle ever since. Within two or three days, most of the essential services were at least in partial operation. Civil Affairs men had even helped to reopen a Cherbourg cinema, revive a local newspaper.

The French in Cherbourg are deeply touched by the deference shown them. U.S. and British authorities are in turn impressed by the friendly efficiency of the French. Says Colonel Howley: "If the French elsewhere in France buckle down to the job of reconstruction as they have here in Cherbourg, leaving recrimination aside, France has a period of greatness ahead of her which even exceeds the past."

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