大象传媒

This is a true account of the experiences of Henry Victor Dufour during World War II and the events that followed. There is available supporting evidence.

It is written in his memory, and is dedicated to the families of those allied forces and the millions of Russians who lost their loved ones as they made an ultimate sacrifice against evil and tyranny. To you all I can honestly say, I owe you my life:-

When war broke out across Europe my father, Henry Victor Dufour, was fifteen and living in America as a US citizen. The son of a French translator, and mixed Native American/German father who worked across the world in oil rigs, he was used to travelling and had joined his father in the US where he planned to study.

He couldn鈥檛 quite believe it when his mother鈥檚 homeland, France was invaded by Germany. Suddenly both his mother and sister, who had stayed in France, were at risk. As he reached 16 he knew what he had to do. He went to the US authorities and demanded a position in the army because he wanted to fight the Germans. But, they didn't want to know. America was not interested in this war...not yet anyway.

He didnt give up. His persistence finally paid off. They found him a position with the American Volunteer Ambulance Corps who were serving with the French Army in Paris. Remaining neutral of course.

As German bombs fell around him my father persistently dragged people from burning wreckage. Ignoring personal risk, he struggled so hard that by the age of 17 he had already received commendations for bravery from his commanding officer.

Suddenly his circumstances changed. He had managed to get leave to visit his family in Tours whilst in France, passing under the noses of the German guards who checked his papers, but now he was far away. The Americans Ambulance Corps had eventually retreated, having stretched the point of being neutral just a little too far. Whilst the Germans occupied his mothers homeland Henry found himself back across the Atlantic.

Not ready to give up yet, or wait for the Americans, he did what many others did. He crossed the border to Canada, and joined the RCAF. There he became trained as a rear gunner. At the age of 18 he was a prime candidte. Fit, bright, and - he had already seen action after all.

He left Canada for England. From here he took part in bombing raids over Germany. We have little information on where he was stationed or which planes he flew. What we do know is that one terrible night his plane came down. Turned into a ball of fire it landed in the sea. All of his crew were burned alive. Traditionally rear gunners had the highest risk job in bombers, but on this occasion his life was saved as he struggled out.

His luck was to end there. We don鈥檛 know how it happened, but he was picked up by a German patrol and started his next war phase as a prisoner of war. But there was just one small problem.

Unlike British POWs who they admired, the Germans absolutely hated French Canadians, almost as much as they hated Russians and Poles. To compound things, my father managed to evade being taken to a camp three times, his French background being incredibly useful at the time. But whenever he escaped, he was recaptured. And each time his punishment was worse.

And so, finally trapped in the confines of a concentration camp in the German heartland my father was to experience months of solitary confinement, electric shock, starvation and beatings. A little punishment for his audacity.

After 136 days they finally let him go. They let him go because they needed his labour. Still in Germany, he was forced into hard labour under the watchful eye of his Ukranian guards.

To slacken was to die. For 13 months he worked as a slave in a mine where the key motivational factor, if you failed to please the guards, was to be shot in the head the following morning while you stood to attention on parade. Your fellow workers would be forced to watch, each day wondering if it would be them who would be picked.

For 13 months day after day never knowing when, or if, it would be him the next day, Henry carried on鈥�

One day, in the middle of this hell on earth, where the black coal and sweat glittered in the darkness, his fellow workers heard whispers that the war was turning. It was D-Day. He had survived...so far... He had survived. He had survived.

The war ended. He did survive. He left Germany weighing 5 stone and fearful for the fate of his family. Thankfully my resourceful aunt Harriet and grandmother had managed to survive too. The family was reunited, but my father was never the same again. He couldn鈥檛 face life in France, and just didn鈥檛 feel he belonged in America. After spending several years forced to registeras an Alien in Jersey, he went on to register for the next 10 years at least as an Alien in England. At the age of 43 in March 1965 his life ended.

World War II deprived me of a father, and yet I am of generation, now 40 myself, which should be removed from the direct affect of war. Those in power would do well to realise the full and lasting impact of such horror.

So many died as he did, anonymously, quietly slipping away forgotten in a hospital ward.

But he hadn鈥檛 forgotten. His remaining living years were haunted by the memories of his lost crew, and the pistol shot that woke him each morning. He would cry out in the middle of the night, reliving it all as if it were yesterday.

My mother Margaret would try to comfort him, but what did she know, how could she possibly understand? She wouldn鈥檛 know what we know now, if it were not for some dark spell when he felt the sudden and desperate urge to confess 鈥� confess that he was still alive, when his friends were dead鈥�

I am filled with sorrow for that wonderful brave man who himself risked his life for others, and was in turn saved himself.

He lived only a short while beyond my first birthday, while my mother was expecting my sister. There is no memorial I can visit for him.

He died of heart failure. The doctors said - as a likely result of a weakened heart caused by his prolonged electrocution and starvation.

It is somewhat ironic now, that I have to thank the British Government for a registration scheme that treated my father as an Alian after the part he had played to protect our country from invasion.

All I have to remind me of his existence is his war papers and the little grey book which he had to carry, bearing his photograph. His handsome face, and dark slicked back hair. "Green eyes", it says,and "a scar on his left cheek". The little book tracks his career as he moved from job to job, getting nearer and nearer to what was to become my home town, New Malden in Surrey. In another twist of irony after a lifetime of working as a barman, or engineer, he had just got himself a job as a manager when he died...

But fate, had one little twist left in store for me鈥�

Ten years ago, whilst on holiday in Tunisia I stayed in a hotel, having gone on a reduced rate holiday package. I soon realised why. My boyfriend Peter and I were the only English speaking guests. Nearly everyone else was German or French. I really didn鈥檛 mind at all. It would make a change from feeling like I was in England overseas. And so, when I found myself one evening as the hotel laid on some traditional entertainment, and invited to share a table with a middle aged German couple, I was pleasantly surprised. I spoke appalling German, and my Peter鈥檚 German was worse. The couple spoke no English. Somehow we managed to pass a very pleasant evening using sign language and a note pad.

As the evening drew to a close Helga beckoned. There was something she really wanted to tell me. She got up and found a fellow tourist who could speak some English. He came over to us鈥︹�滺elga wants you to know that her father was a prisoner of war in Scotland鈥� I stared across at her beaming face. 鈥淗e is doing very well, thanks to your people鈥檚 kind treatment of him. He had a wonderful time鈥�.

As I looked at her beaming face I could feel what this meant to her. Someone so close that she loved, who had left her as a young child, and, who could have gone through so much, had been in such good hands.

How so much better, than to have lived the life I had lived, always wondering what my father would have been like... if he would be proud of me... of his family... Good for you Helga. Good for you.

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