Henri Levaufre

Henri Levaufre (March 29, 1931 – February 22, 2019) was a retired electrical engineer and award-winning authority on the battles following the D-Day Invasion of Normandy. Levaufre is the author of We were at Normandy (2008) and has devoted his life to memorializing American soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the liberation. He has spent decades individually researching the subject and has collected artifacts from these battlefields during oversight of the design, survey and installation of electrical power lines in situ. Levaufre, with his son Christian, serve as officers of the 90th Division Association in the capacity of French historians. Henri and his association, “Normandy 44-90th US Infantry Division” are responsible for the Four Braves memorial that is erected in the town square of Périers, Normandy. The life-size statues are of the following four American GIs who were killed during the Normandy invasion: Tullio Micaloni, 9 April 1913 – 26 July 1944; Richard Edmund Richtman, 26 Nov 1924 – 26 July 1944; Andrew Jackson Speese III, 10 Aug 1912 – 6 July 1944; Virgil John Tangborn, 23 May 1920 – 14 June 1944.

Quotes

We Were at Normandy (2008)

All benefits of the sales of the American version of this book that I wrote... will be for the 90th Division Veterans Association, now and forever.

At the end of the war there were no psychoanalysts or other counselors to see if you were going to get out of the terrifying experience of battle without psychological damage. ...some men had such deep ...damage that they ended up in veterans' nursing homes, where they were almost forgotten. Others... just tried to obliterate from their minds the episodes of inhumanity that they had experienced.

Who am I to blame for all this? ...The guilty one is the crazy person who decided to begin a war when all may not have been done to avoid it.

It's not easy to talk reasonably with a potentially insane enemy.

When I go to a military cemetery... I pray for them and their families, but I mainly feel hatred for the war that froze their young bodies in time.

Over the years, tens of thousands of veterans came back to Normandy. Several hundred of them honored us by accepting our hospitality. From them I learned much of what I know.

Each witness to history who leaves us takes with him a page... even if my page is small it is important for the future and for the knowledge of, at the very least, my own descendants.

About my English... I learned more from listening to Hank Williams of Johnny Cash... than from reading Shakespeare.

There was always a natural evolution into my personality over the years. One thing is sure... I am what I always wanted to be, independent. This means obeying no other rules than the rule of law and of my religion.

I am sorry for politicians who have to obey the rules of one party. I am affiliated with none.

My affinities would classify me as slightly to the center-right. However, I occasionally prefer a good man from the left to an idiot of the right, and there are some.

Until I reached ten, I may have been a true pain in the neck. The punishments, including the almost daily spankings from my exasperated mother, fortified me... I didn't have the chance to become a weak human being.

Don't worry about me. I am normal. I have somehow improved with the years.

Quotes about Levaufre

Henri is slow to begin but you cannot stop him once he does begin.
- Mrs. Levaufre, as quoted in We Were at Normandy (2008)

External links