Nothing is yet gained a month after the landing, of which we emphasize the 80e birthday this week. The Allies must advance inland to liberate strategic points. These weeks of fierce fighting killed many soldiers, the youngest of whom was a Quebec teenager.
Measuring 5 feet 9 inches and weighing 140 pounds, Gérard Doré, born in Val-Jalbert, made a good impression on recruiters when he enlisted in Quebec on April 7, 1943. The latter, who described the Saguenéen as “energetic” and “loving action”, saw in him the “potential of a good soldier, even of a good non-commissioned officer”, told the Duty the historian Frédéric Smith. But his imposing stature is an illusion: the young man is only 15 years old.
Wanting at all costs to serve in the army, Gérard Doré lied about his age, subtracting three years from his true date of birth, becoming 1924 rather than 1927. The officers, who believed they were facing a 19-year-old man, sent to England in May 1944, where he joined the ranks of the Fusiliers Mont-Royal (FMR) two days before the landing. The regiment will not participate in this military operation, and will go to France only a month later, on July 8.
I had taken steps to get him out of the army, but I did not believe that he would be sent to the fire so quickly, at that age, although he was very courageous and absolutely wanted to defend the homeland
Alongside three other French-speaking Canadian units, the FMR engaged on July 20 in “fierce fighting” to liberate two farms south of Caen, still occupied by the Germans. The Allies eventually recovered the land on July 25, at the cost of numerous losses, including Gérard Doré, fatally shot by the enemy two days before the end of the mission.
In Roberval, where his family lives, the news is a shock. The father, Isidore Doré, does not believe in the death of his son, who enlisted without his knowledge, according to his military file. “Didn’t he write one last letter?” Isn’t he just missing? », he asks the Ministry of National Defense.
“I had started to take steps to get him out of the army, but I didn’t believe that they would send him to the fire so quickly, at that age, although he was very courageous and absolutely wanted to defend the homeland,” wrote his mother, Marie-Anne Doré, two years later.
Killed at 16 years and 11 months, Gérard Doré is considered the youngest Allied soldier to die on the Western Front during the Second World War. He is buried in the Canadian cemetery of Bretteville-sur-Laize, in Normandy.
The massacre of the Dieppe raid
If he “did not serve long”, it is certain that the teenager showed temerity, because “after the disaster of the Dieppe raid, it took a certain courage to still want to go to war”, underlines Frédéric Smith.
Operation Jubilee, in August 1942, in which 6,100 men participated, including 5,000 Canadians, was a “catastrophe”, particularly dramatic for the FMR, who were “decimated”. Of the 584 soldiers of the regiment who left England, only 125 returned.
All this did not help the “promotion of voluntary enlistment” in Quebec, continues the historian. But the bloody offensive, which aimed in particular to “test amphibious assault techniques, in addition to seizing intelligence and equipment”, made it possible to draw certain lessons for D-Day, carried out two years later.
Unsung Hero
Gérard Doré’s courage earned him a memorial monument at the entrance to the cemetery where he rests, in France. A street in a small town in Calvados also bears his name. But in his native region, this “hero” is “not yet super recognized,” admits Maxime Lamontagne, general director of the Domaine-du-Roy Historical Society, in Roberval.
In recent years, the archive center has been paying tribute to the soldier and trying to “make him known a little more” through exhibitions. “It’s part of our mission to make known the regional history of the area, but also the great people. »
“There are very, very few sources in Quebec that will talk about this soldier and the French-Canadian contribution to the world wars,” confirms Mr. Smith. He also mentions Gérard Doré in his recent work Quebecers in Normandywhich aims to give the participation of Quebecers “the echo it deserves”.
Because military history “is perhaps a little less followed or fashionable [au Québec] than in English Canada,” asserts the author. “War, for French Canadians, is usually synonymous with a loss of collective freedom,” he explains, referring in particular to the “trauma of the Conquest” and to “the First World War, during of which the French Canadians had the impression of being used as cannon fodder.
But the “feats of arms of the French-Canadian soldiers”, previously passed “in silence”, have gained visibility over the last thirty years, according to Mr. Smith. Many veterans, having come to terms with their trauma, have “opened up to their grandchildren, as if there was a kind of will that, despite everything, we do not forget what is happening.” had passed.”
“The duty to remember, especially with the disappearance of the last witnesses, is increasingly a collective responsibility. »
This report is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.