Ernest Hemingway Meets General Leclerc: France, August 1944

Which as a song leaves just about everything to be desired, but as a means of ensuring the young John Bumby Hemingway remembered where he lived when it was taught him by Hadley and Ernest back in the Paris of 1925, had a certain, heart breaking poignancy for Hemingway, and a strange wonderment for Pelkey who intended to visit the street as soon as they reached Paris. It was a goal, a kind of Holy Grail.

The confusion began to clear on the 23rd August when a patrol from Leclerc’s armoured division passed through Rambouillet to scout the Versailles road (despite having received good intelligence reports from Bruce about several dangerous pockets of German resistance) returning badly beaten-up after running into an ambush that left two dead, two wounded, and a vehicle destroyed.

Later in the day, as Hemingway and Bruce were drinking champagne, and talking with one of Leclerc’s badly wounded soldiers, the three star French general himself turned up in a Jeep.

The tall, stiff backed, aristocratic Philippe Marie De Hauteclocque, known as Leclerc, was born in Belloy-Saint-Leonard in 1902 and was, like Patton, destined to become a soldier. He entered the St-Cyr Military Academie in 1922, and after graduating with honours, saw service in French Morocco. He returned to St-Cyr as an instructor in 1925, just as Bumby was learning that dreadful song.

With the outbreak of war in September 1939 Leclerc was on the staff of the French 4th Infantry
Division and saw serious fighting against the German invasion of France.

He was taken prisoner in Lille in May 1940, but within days had escaped and taken control of a remnant of an armoured division and fought bravely to stop the German advance. It was a gallant, but in the end useless act, and Leclerc was seriously wounded and again taken prisoner.

When he regained his health he escaped and joined General de Gaulle in London.

After service in North Africa between 1940 and 1942 Leclerc was recalled to London to start training the Free French 2nd Armoured Division for their part in the Normandy operations. Leclerc and his division landed at Utah Beach – welcomed by Patton himself – in early August and began fighting his way across his beloved homeland.

It was a significant and important time for the fighting Frenchman: no one must get in his way. As with Leclerc it was the same for every Frenchman fighting in the days and months after D-Day. They knew the eyes of the French people were upon them; they must be brave and at their best.

When Hemingway and Bruce were introduced to Leclerc Hemingway immediately began to “fill Leclerc in” on the German positions on the road to Versailles.

Leclerc was not impressed and simply, and in a refined and eloquent French, told Hemingway

“To get lost.”