Memorial Weekend at Freteval

  This last weekend we had the opportunity to go to a special memorial in Normandy for the Freteval Camp near Bellande. It was a secret camp set up during WWII that the resistance used to hide people, mostly soldiers who were trapped in occupied France. My grandpa, Fred Gleason, was one of those men who was shot down while on a mission and spent a month in the camp in the summer of 1944. One of the historians who helped organize the weekend contacted my family and invited us to come. 

 The camp was in the forest of Freteval located about 2 hours southwest of Paris. In the field by the forest they had set up a special exhibition with information and memorabilia about that time. My grandpa had a whole poster up about his story. We toured that and looked at the jeeps and tent they had outside.

On Sunday there was a service in a big tent that was mostly religious (Catholic) with music and prayers too. Then they released some pigeons and paraded down the street to a memorial site. There were a lot of speeches and music there. Then they laid flowers and unveiled the plaque. Then they paraded back up to the field.

 Here we are in front of his sign. Below is the listing of the other men in the plane. Three became prisoners and the other 7 escaped. I haven't read any other accounts of what happened to the other men.
 There were a lot of men in uniform and people of all ages who were living in the area at the time or serving in the war or relative of those who did (like us!). It was really interesting to hear about this camp and what had happened during the war in this region. To see all the people (at least a few hundred there the second day) come and pay their respects and remember what had happened was very touching. Even though it was raining a bit off and on, we were really glad to be able to go and represent my family. 

This map shows where the plane was shot down near Vendrest on their way back from a mission over Munich in July 1944. My grandpa was hidden on a farm for 3 days before being taken to Paris and stayed there for a couple days. He was then taken out of Paris to the camp in Freteval where he stayed for a month before being taken to England. 
 

The pigeons being released.

There were three planes that flew over after the ceremony.