Three Months with the English

A Tale of the Battle of Normandy, June-August 1944

Marcelle Fauchier Delavigne (1883-1973) was a woman of letters who lived in Saint-Gabriel, in the French department of Calvados, the day before the D-Day Landings. On June 4th 1944, she ‘took up her pen’ and recounted, day after day, the arrival and the progression of the British troops who came to free the region, then France and Europe. Deeply patriotic, she volunteered to act as an interpreter for the British Army, travelling across the Bessin area on her bicycle, amidst the operations to free France. From D-Day to the liberation of Paris, where her husband was waiting for her, Marcelle Fauchier Delavigne jotted down her observations and her feelings as a committed woman, sensitive to both the local villagers and the foreign soldiers she welcomed to Saint-Gabriel, to her home and to the priory, within the garden Centre.

Her diary is enriched by previously unpublished passages, period pictures, excerpts from handwritten notes taken on the spot, hence shedding light on the comings and goings of a heroine whose daily life was turned upside down. Following in the footsteps of a local civilian, this new version reveals lesser-known episodes of the Battle of Normandy.