The Road to the First Page
/The Duty of Memory
It took 5 years to write Sparrow. I hope to finish Duty in less than a year. I returned from my recent 90 days in Europe with 50 pages of hand written notes and all kinds of thoughts bouncing around my head…and a title for my next novel…Le Devoir de Mémoire—the Duty of Memory. I also had a few day-dreams about the cover. Hint: it will include the handsome young man in the photo on the right.
This project started in my mind more than 2 years ago when our family was contacted, via social media, by a young man in France, Pascal Pollet. He was gathering information on his grandfather. He told us his mother wanted to know more about her father. He died when she was only 6, so she never got to know him. What is the connection? Pascal’s grandfather, Juste Desesquelles was a member of the French Resistance and he was a member of the network the helped my father evade capture by the Nazis after his plane was shot down over France on May 10, 1944.
It all started with this email to my sister-in-law:
Hello Mrs Watts,
My name is Franck. I live in Paris, France. I am currently researching the WW2 story of two American airmen who were shot down over France in 1944 : Louis Watts and Joseph Houlihan. Louis Watts enlisted in the US Army Air Forces and joined the 394th bomb group on the European theater. He has lived in Little Rock, Arkansas, and passed away in 1984.
If that person is not a member of your family, please ignore this message with my apologies.
If he is, you might wonder why I am trying to get in touch with his family. One of my friend's grandfather was a member of the French resistance during ww2. We have recently discovered that Louis Watts and Joseph Houlihan had been helped by a number of people in France and had managed to avoid capture by the Germans thanks to these people. Pascal's grandfather was one of these men.
For several months, Pascal and I have been researching the evasion story of these two airmen and we are getting to a point where contacting families and sharing what we have found makes sense, if this is of any interest to the family.
As a long-time LinkedIn member, I know that this type of request is definitely not proper use of a professional social network. But I sincerely hope you will find interest in our research project.
Best regards,
Franck Signorile
Learn More About Their Mission Here
After a few emails back and forth exchanging information on WWII events, we found that Pascal had also managed to find the families of two of my father’s crew-mates who were also helped by his grandfather. Pascal was aided in his search for information by a wonderful organization in France, ASAA Association des Sauveteurs d'Aviateurs Alliés. Their mission is to collect the history of the Allied airmen shot down in occupied France and of those people of the region who came to aid those aviators. Further, they seek to establish or reestablish links between the families of both the airmen and the rescuers.
Being old and retired with nothing else to do, my brothers, their wives and I decided a trip to France to meet these people seemed like an excellent plan. So, in May of 2017 we packed our bags and took off to France for an experience of a lifetime.
The B-26 “Marauder” # 42-96058 belonged to the 394th Bomb Group, 585th Bomb Squadron of the 9th Air Force, also called the "Bridge Busters" based in Boreham, Essex, England. The 394th Bomb Group participated in the preparation of the future Landings in Normandy by striking bridges, marshalling yards, airfields and V-weapons sites.
Sgt. William L. EDGE Navigator/Bombardier Evaded then POW Tuscaloosa, Alabama
S/Sgt. Louis I. WATTS Radio-operator Evaded Little Rock, Arkansas
Pvt. Joseph J. HOULIHAN Tail gunner Evaded Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Juste Desesquelles
The crew of the B-26 #42-96058 ( my Father is lower Left in this photo)
Capt. James A. JOY Pilot POW Edinburg, Texas
2nd Lt. John O. JOHNSON Copilot POW Oklahoma
S/Sgt. Harold J. MAYNARD Enginner POW Racine, Wisconsin
