Wednesday, 7 June
During that meeting, which was held in the 12th century church, Voydie appealed to the citizens of Graignes to place all the resources of the village at the disposal of the Americans. His impassioned plea was successful because at the meeting’s conclusion, there was a unanimous decision to help the paratroopers. This decision was not entered into lightly though, as it carried grave implications. They all knew that if the Germans caught them assisting the Americans, the punishment would be swift and harsh. With a sober appreciation for the consequences, the people of Graignes elected to help the American paratroopers in their midst.
After the meeting, Voydie mobilized the women of the village in an effort to procure, prepare and distribute food for the Americans. Since the paratroopers would soon exhaust the supply of light rations they had carried with them to Normandy, something had to be done quickly. The proprietor of the village café-grocery, 50-year-old Madame Germaine Boursier, was therefore recruited to organize an effort to provide meals to the paratroopers. Her assistance to the Americans actually began during the predawn hours of June 6 when several paratroopers landed in the marsh near her home. She took the cold, drenched men into her home and offered them food from her café. From that point forward, Madame Boursier set the standard for aiding her liberators. Under her direction, the women of Graignes began cooking on a round the clock basis so they could serve two meals each day. Using her café as the base of operations, Madame Boursier even supervised and coordinated the transportation of meals out to the soldiers occupying the many dispersed observation positions guarding the approaches to the village. “Madame Boursier was our Mess Sergeant,” Frank Naughton remembered.
Mayor Voydie also had to deal with the issue of the equipment bundles in the marshes around the village. The paratroopers could not conduct a thorough search of these inundated areas without exposing themselves to enemy observation and possibly enemy fire. The civilians however, could move around in the marsh without attracting German suspicions. So teams of men, women and even children were soon hauling wagon loads of valuable salvaged equipment back to the Graignes perimeter. They recovered much-needed machine guns and mortars – weapons that would make the positions around the village far more defensible. They also recovered large quantities of ammunition that they thereafter delivered into the hands of the American defenders. According to 1st Lt. “Pip” Reed, “…we certainly had more ammunition than we thought we could ever use.”
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Graignes