Congratulations to Mr. Prewitt. It should be noted, however, that France’s highest order of merit is called the Legion of Honour (Légion d’honneur), not the Legion of Armour, and also that France doesn’t actually have knighthoods in the same sense as Britain does. “Chevalier” (knight) is indeed one of the Legion of Honour’s five levels, and the name is a holdover from the days when France still had an aristocracy, but the French nobility system went out the window with the French Revolution. I once saw a series of amusing cartoons depicting what life in France would be like today if the Bourbon monarchy hadn’t fallen, and one of them showed an irate air traveler standing at the ticket counter of “Royal Air France” and telling the ticket agent “But I’m a baron and I have a confirmed reservation!” The agent replies, “I’m sorry, sir, but the Duke of So-and-so has precedence over you, so we gave him your seat.” In fairness, the same sort of thing actually happens in real-life republican France. A few years ago, there was scandal involving one of the major D-Day anniversaries (I think it was the 50th one), when the French government contacted various hotels in Normany and appropriated some of their existing reservations so that various French officials could have rooms for the event. Some of those rooms, however, had been reserved by foreign veterans of the D-Day invasion. When the story broke on the front page of French newspapers (under such headlines as “Our Liberators Insulted!”), public opinion was outraged and the French government beat a hasty retreat. The prevailing editorial opinion over this affair was: Do this to our own citizens if you want, but don’t do this to the heroes who ended the occupation of France.
Family WWII Story
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My father told me of a story of my grandfather occupation of Germany.
My grandfather fell in love with a German women, a widow of a SS Panzer officer. He spoke of this women often, and spoke of the handsome man in photograph dressed in a black uniform who died on the Eastern Front, that was placed on her fireplace mantle.
I never knew this story until today.
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@ABWorsham:
My father told me of a story of my grandfather occupation of Germany.
My grandfather fell in love with a German women, a widow of a SS Panzer officer. He spoke of this women often, and spoke of the handsome man in photograph dressed in a black uniform who died on the Eastern Front, that was placed on her fireplace mantle.
I never knew this story until today.
It always cool to learn about your family’s history. Especially, something you hadn’t heard before. Did they get married to each other or did he ever hear from her after the war?
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No they were not married, he came back to Texas and married. I think he regretted not marrying her.
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@ABWorsham:
No they were not married, he came back to Texas and married. I think he regretted not marrying her.
Wow, that must have been hard for him. Thanks for sharing his story. :-)
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Thank you Worsham. Must have been a shock to hear that.
Did you ask your father why he waited until now to tell you this story? And where in Germany was your grandfather when he fell in love with this woman? -
Your Grandfather did good ABWorsham, thanks for sharing.