Ile de Ré: she tells the story of her father who landed in Provence 80 years ago

A childish smile on his lips and an American army helmet on his head. Jean Vincent-Dolor is 22 years old in the black and white photo that his daughter is holding in her hands. “It’s wonderful that she’s there,” marveled Catherine Vincent-Dolor. She contemplates the picture, pensive, in the calm of her terrace in Sainte-Marie-de-Ré, and says: “This picture…

A childish smile on his lips and an American army helmet on his head. Jean Vincent-Dolor is 22 years old in the black and white photo that his daughter is holding in her hands. “It’s wonderful that she’s there,” marveled Catherine Vincent-Dolor. She contemplates the picture, pensive, in the calm of her terrace in Sainte-Marie-de-Ré, and says: “This picture has traveled the world. »

It was done eighty years ago, after landing in Provence on August 15, 1944. Catriona was carefully preserved, without removing all the dust. “It was my children who asked more and more questions about the memories,” she recalls. “Say mom, did you tell us that “papito” took part in this journey? », they asked.

“He was only doing his duty”

To answer them, she began to reconstruct the thread of the story, based on fragments of what she was told as a child.

It all starts in the 1930s. His grandfather is a colonial administrator and his grandmother is coming to spend her summer holidays with her son on the Ile de Ré. “They left Dakar on the ship, then they took the train and the paddle boat… Very far away,” Catrìona recounts. Details that this is not one for this old Parisian: “I came to settle on the island eleven years ago when I retired. It may not be innocent, it’s like the circle has come full circle. »

When the Second World War broke out, Catherine’s grandparents managed a number of activities for Charles de Gaulle. The general is very dependent on the colonies. But these early Gaullists were quickly spotted by Pétain who put them under house arrest in Paris.

Left alone with his grandmother in Dakar, Jean Vincent-Dolor joined the American army. He is only 19 years old. Catriona remembers her father’s words: “For me, it was completely natural to get involved.” The same opinion from his grandparents, who found their son three years later in Paris: “They thought he had only done his duty. »

Child of Liberty

Jane still doesn’t know where she’s going when she gets on board. He heard “Sin Tropize” said with an American accent, then landed in Toulon with the first French army led by General de Lattre de Tassigny. Then the soldiers move back up. Arriving in Belfort, the young man meets Catríona’s mother. She has just spent a few days in prison for refusing to give up her place on the pavement to German soldiers.

“Usually it’s a couple that was created as a commentary on the Liberation,” Catriona explained. They married in 1945 and followed Jane’s parents to Madagascar, where their father had just been appointed governor by Charles de Gaulle. In 1949, they had a little girl: Catriona. The independence of the region was declared shortly after his birth and the whole family left for Reunion.

Her father became a journalist there and Catriona grew up there until she was 18… before returning to a completely different island, forty six years later.