Fernand GROSS 1922 –
Born on November 29, 1922 in Strasbourg (67), he was the eldest of 6 brothers and sisters.
Until the age of 6/7 and his entry into elementary school, he was raised by his godmother, who lived in the Palatinate in Germany.
Back in France, he entered the “Sœurs de la Providence” school in Strasbourg.
He joined the Cathedral choir school and the Manécanterie (singing lessons and choir).
A gifted child, he went straight from 8th grade (CM1) to 6th grade (did not attend CM2).
He then went on to study business at the Collège épiscopal Saint-Etienne until the 4th grade.
Throughout his youth, he was a member of the choir, first as a tenor, then as a soloist, and a scout (Cub Scout team leader, then patrol leader and finally scout patrol leader).
Stricken by meningitis, which somewhat disrupted his schooling, he easily made up for his “backwardness” and successfully obtained his commercial baccalaureate at the Ecole de Commerce in Strasbourg.
In his own words, “he inherited his mother’s sensitivity and singing ability, and his father’s energy and willpower…hence a leader’s soul”.
In 1939, at the age of 17, when war was declared, he and his family were evacuated to Montpon-sur-l’Isle in the Dordogne (374,000 Alsatians from 181 communes along the Rhine and the German border were evacuated to the south-western departments of France from September 1, 1939).
Fernand Gross’s family settled on a farm in the countryside, trading in pigs.
Fernand sees an advertisement and finds work at “la tannerie bordelaise et de la Gironde réunies”, where he quickly proves his professionalism. When the assistant manager left, he was offered the job.
In 1941, the family decided to return to Alsace (like most Alsatian and Moselle expatriates in 1940-41), and when he came to visit them, he was unable to return to the free zone (Alsatians being considered ethnic Germans had to remain in annexed Alsace).
His sister Alice, like all girls of her age (born in 1927), had to do a year’s compulsory civilian service as an apprentice cook in a rectory in Germany; she was only 14.
Like most young Alsatians of his age, he was drafted in October 1941, but in court, before the draft commission, he refused to sign, like 8 other Alsatians that day. Nevertheless, he had to go to the compulsory labor service with military preparation (Arbeitdienst) at Monbauer near Koblentz in Germany under the registration number K6252 until March 1942. There are 4 Alsatians and 16 Germans per barracks, with the aim of indoctrinating them more easily. Fernand Gross doesn’t let himself be influenced, and even has the courage to explain to them that they won’t win the war.
Meanwhile, in Strasbourg, 10 of his friends were shot by the Nazis for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets; repression became increasingly harsh, with many executions or deportations.
Living conditions and military training during Arbeitsdienst are very difficult. Fernand contracted double pleurisy and a kidney infection. A Bavarian non-commissioned officer “saved his life” by admitting him to the Sacré Coeur hospital in Dernbach at the beginning of December, where he received better care and was much loved by the medical staff. Back on his feet, he had to return to training camp.
A Prussian colonel who had discovered his anti-German “rebellion” doused him with a bucket of water as he was getting out of the showers and getting dressed for leave. He suffered another bout of pleurisy and was allowed to stay in Strasbourg for treatment, which enabled him to be released from his military obligations earlier than expected, and to benefit from a postponement of his enlistment. To speed up his recovery, he decided to take up swimming (in moderation).
Once cured, he enrolled as a student at the fine arts school in Strasbourg, where he won first prize, but the pro-German jury decided to award first place to a native German.
But the war caught up with him, and on August 25, 1942, Gauleiter Wagner decreed the forced incorporation of Alsatians into the German army.
In October 1942, he received a mission order with a roadmap asking him to join a German parachute unit in Eger, Czechoslovakia. Before the train was due to depart, he got out on the opposite side with his best friend Ferdinand and climbed into another, knowing that their absence would not be noticed for 3 days. From then on, he had only one objective: to join the Free French Forces in North Africa!
He wrote a letter to his parents and godfather informing them of his intention to “desert”, and to protect them, falsely indicating his sympathy for the Germans in order to clear his name and avoid reprisals from the German authorities. Ferdinand didn’t… his parents were arrested and deported (they were lucky enough to return).
With Ferdinand, they travel by train to Nouvel-Avricourt (on the border between Alsace and Lorraine), where they meet a smuggler (via his aunt Mélanie and acquaintances). To be picked up by the smuggler, they have to whistle a predefined tune (“La victoire en chantant”) in front of the station. As the train pulled into the station, they spotted German soldiers on the platform carrying out checks: they were wanted! They quickly climbed out of the carriage they had just boarded through the doors opposite the platform and hid in the woods nearby. Sidecars and soldiers with dogs drive along the track and through the woods, but fortunately they are not discovered.
At nightfall, they return to the station to find the ferryman, but as they cross the many railroad tracks of the marshalling yard, they get their feet caught in wires on which pots and pans are hung (placed by the Germans), the noise of which alerts the German sentries and their dogs. Fernand and Ferdinand have just enough time to tear off 2 planks along a fence and put them back before the Germans and their dogs pass them by without seeing them… Fernand’s guardian angel is watching over them again (as he will often say).
Finally he finds their smuggler, who takes them to his house 2 kilometers away, where he had prepared the stamps (which were hidden in his clock) to make them their first false papers. They spent the next night in a hotel indicated by the smuggler, keeping the bedroom window open in case the Germans came.
The next day, they took the train to Lunéville, where they stayed for two weeks with an uncle who confirmed that they were wanted by the Nazis. They went to Nancy to pick up new false papers from a gendarme friend, Mr. Henner (who was later shot).
They travel to Paris, then to a convent in Marsais, near Tours, where one of their aunts, “Sister Claire”, lives, then to a second convent in Barbezieux, where they stay with another sister in the family and/or with an uncle, whom they help with farm work for about eight days. They set off again by coach to Coutras (33), then by train to Montpon-sur-l’Isle in the Dordogne, where they stayed with the Gauchoux family. The former manager of the tannery, Monsieur Goux, gave him the equivalent of 3 to 4 months’ salary to enable them to escape to Spain.
The rest of the journey was made by bus. As the Germans were checking the papers of all passengers, Fernand took the initiative and tried his luck by presenting his papers to the German inspector, who “saw nothing but fire”. They arrive in Bordeaux and are taken care of by the Red Cross, before heading for Bayonne, where they join a smuggler and his group (2 airmen and a woman) to walk to the Spanish border.
When Fernand shakes hands with the smuggler for the first time, his instinct (“his guardian angel”) makes him suspicious that he’s not being very honest.
Fernand immediately threatens him: “…if you don’t come back alone, know that I have a gun and I’ll shoot you first!
The smuggler returns very quickly, unchanged and unaccompanied, but with bottles of champagne…Fernand refuses to drink it, as he doesn’t trust him. To cross the border, the ferryman shows them the first bridge to cross, before abandoning them to their fate. Arriving at this bridge, Fernand again has a strange feeling (today he’s convinced that it’s his guardian angel who has protected him), and decides to cross at the next one, feeling the same way and sensing a trap…they then cross via the third bridge they find, where Fernand thinks there’s no danger. As they crossed, sirens wailed and searchlights came on at the first 2 bridges: they were expected, Fernand had not been mistaken, and thanks to him the group arrived safely in Spain. The date is December 2, 1943.
On arrival in Irun, Spanish customs officials check their papers (and confiscate all their belongings) and consider them deserters, given Fernand and Ferdinand’s age (21 = military obligations). They are transferred to “Villa del Norte” and taken prisoner. There they met the Red Cross and the Germans, who fortunately did not realize that they were Alsatians. They were given 20 pesetas a day for their daily needs. They save up whatever they can to play cards and buy wine to bribe the head guard, making it easier to plan their escape. They tell the Red Cross about their escape plan, and the Red Cross asks them to do nothing to avoid reprisals against the other prisoners. Seeing their determination, the Red Cross rushes in and organizes their release.
Liberated on January 5, 1944, they took the train to Madrid, then a bus to Malaga, where they boarded the “Sidi Brahim” with 1,500 other escapees from France (there was a second boat with 1,500 other escapees, the “Général Lépine”, which made the same crossing) to Casablanca in Morocco.
During the crossing, French and British destroyers intervened to counter German submarines.
As planned, when they arrived in Morocco (landing on January 6, 1944), they transmitted a message over the radio (BBC) to reassure their respective parents: “Zig et Puce have arrived safely”.
In North Africa, he receives his “real” false papers in the name of Fernand GOUX (the name of his former director, who had given him his approval during his last stay in the southwest).
Fernand joined the air force at parachute depot 209 in Blida, Algeria, where he was immediately included in the ranks of the 1st RCP.
His good friend Ferdinand was unable to follow him (heart problem during his medical check-up) and stayed behind as an interpreter.
After 3 months of intense training in Oudja, he left for Sicily with his new unit on March 31, 1944.
He obtained his parachute brevet number 1894 on May 5, 1944. A month later, Fernand was assigned to the 1st Company of the 1st RCP and joined the radio guidance platoon.
In Sicily, he was trained in the American pathfinder method, using top-secret PPN1 “Eureka” Transmitter receiver.
The radio guides are supervised by members of the OSS (future C.I.A.) to be trained in the use of these beacons at Camp Kurz. Parachute drops and exercises follow one another at a frenetic pace, to ensure that the radio guides are ready for any situation.
He joined the regiment in Rome at the beginning of July 1944.
Fernand then followed the regiment’s peregrinations, from the train journey back to Rome in July to its arrival in France on September 5, 1944, where it landed at the Valence-Chabeuil airfield in the Drôme region.
On September 15 1944, the 1st RCP regrouped in front of the Belfort Gap.
At the beginning of October, attached to the 1st French Armored Division, the regiment received its baptism of fire in the Vosges.
Fernand Gross tells us:
“Because of the fortifications built by the Germans around Belfort, we had to bypass the Vosges. Many attacks by German units took place in the winter of ’44, in the cold and snow, and were therefore very difficult: we had to sleep in a snow hole and hide under a white sheet during the day, so as not to be seen by the Germans. One day, as the shooting was getting closer, I warned the others to “get down on the ground” just before a shell burst in front of me, and everyone thought I was dead… I was only slightly wounded in the eye.
Later, still in the Vosges, Fernand recalls a second particularly astonishing episode:
“Walking through the forest, I feel an abnormally hard patch of ground under my foot; I stop moving and suspect I’ve stepped on a mine. I mechanically lift my head and see a deliberately broken tree branch in the air, a sign that a mine has been placed there by the Germans: I immediately remember the training I underwent at the Arbeitsdienst and the “habits” taught by the German instructors for marking a booby-trapped spot. Having also taken a mine-clearing course in Sicily, I’m very familiar with the different types of German mines. I shouted to the others, “Get away quickly, I’m on a mine”… and immediately made a desperate 3-meter leap towards the nearest tree, the mine exploded and miraculously I was unharmed.
Like many paratroopers, he was medically evacuated due to illness or frostbite during the Vosges campaign, then during the fighting in Alsace on January 6, 1945, due to weather conditions and fierce fighting.
The regiment left Alsace for Bourges to replenish its reserves and allow the men to recuperate… Fernand weighed only 46 kilos (he had 70 at the start).
His brother Marcel, also drafted into the German army on the Russian front and missing for some time, was also lucky enough to return home after the war.
Fernand was demobilized from the army on July 3, 1945, and helped his father in the family painting business. He then joined the Singer company, rising through the ranks to become manager of his sector.
He married Alice Daull in Schiltigheim on June 18, 1949, and the family circle grew to 6 children. To make up for Fernand’s frequent absences from work, the couple decided to open a haberdashery and clothing boutique (later 2 other stores).
They decided to settle in Gujan-Mestras, where Fernand built a small house on his own (patented) model, and left Strasbourg in 1987-1988 to finally enjoy a well-deserved retirement in the Arcachon basin. In 2009, they celebrated their golden anniversary together.
Alice Gross, his wife, died on November 5, 2018 at the age of 91.
On November 29, 2022 Fernand had the joy of celebrating his centenary surrounded by family and friends.
Fernand Gross is the holder of :
La médaille des évadés
La Croix du combattant volontaire avec barrette ” 39/45 “.
The Italian Campaign Commemorative Medal
The French commemorative medal for the 1939/45 war, with “liberation” and “voluntary service” bars.
Fernand Gross 1944 – 2023…
