From Canada

Little Greg wrote:... pourrais-tu nous en dire plus sur Sinai ? Merci.

Salut Greg,

Cette histoire est aussi incroyable qu'improbable. Alors que je participais en juin 2004 à la cérémonie tenue à Angoville-au-Plain en compagnie de Laurent, Hubert Achten et autres passionnés de la 101st ABN, un des participants (je crois que c'est Laurent mais je n'en suis pas certain) me présente à Kenneth Moore. J'échange quelques mots avec lui en lui indiquant que je viens du Canada et c'est alors qu'il me dit que mon nom lui rappelle celui d'un paratrooper du 501st PIR qui a sauté dans la nuit du 5 au 6 juin 1944.

Cette information a alors piqué ma curiosité et de retour au pays, je commence à chercher des informations là dessus et tombe sur le site de l'association du 101st ABN. Quelle ne fut pas ma surprise d'y voir une image de Sinaï en compagnie de sa femme Hazel prise lors du congrès annuel de 2004 de cette association. Je suis alors sur le cul et tente de prendre contact avec lui et je crois que c'est Mark Bando qui m'a fournis l'information de l'endroit où demeuraient Sinaï et Hazel. Sans plus tarder, je lui envoie une lettre et quelques semaines plus tard, j'en reçois une de lui et je crois que de part et d'autre, nous étions au comble du bonheur. Moi d'avoir un parent qui a fait parti du 101st ABN et lui d'avoir retrouvé ses origines familiales. Lors de nos nombreux échanges, j'apprends que Sinaï est né pas très loin de chez-moi et que ses parents ont déménagés aux USA au début des années 20. C'était fréquent à l'époque et plus de 100 000 canadiens français ont fait de même à la même époque.





Je suis aujourd'hui en contact avec ses fils Kevin et Leo qui sont très fiers de leur père et je vous fais part de cet article paru dans le Jewett City Herald qui saura vous en dire plus sur Sinaï.

PARATROOPER FOUND FIGHT AT HELL’S CORNERS, CARENTAN

Paratrooper Sinai Joe Bordeleau’s squadron was fired on before members even left their C-47, one of 822 that flew across the english channel to drop 18 000 parachutists. But by the time he drifted to earth, all was quiet. Ahead of the game, cut off from his comrades, he had to go knocking on doors, looking the Germans.

When dawn came on D-Day, June 6, 1944, “Joe” Bordeleau of Jewett City was already four hours into the invasion of Normandy. Bordeleau was a 26 years old Sergeant with the 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles. For the paratroopers, the invasion began at 1h00 a.m., H-Hour minus five. And Bordeleau’s 501st PIR had to go for the enemy.

“I’d been in the parachute infantry since 1938,” he says. “I joined to play baseball and look what they did with me.” Another regiment of the 101st was nearly wiped out in those same pre-dawn hours when members landed shy of their drop zone. Some drowned in the English Channel. Others were riddled by enemy fire when they landed in the village square at Ste-Mere Eglise.

Bordeleau’s group also missed its mark, landing five miles off target, where members began their trek to Vierville, further west. “First, we caught ack-ack before we even jumped,” he says. “One guy got shot through the leg – we had to push him out of the plane so the rest of us could jump. Then, I landed on a cow.”

He and some 18 000 paratroopers drifted out of the night sky onto a sleeping French countryside to usher in the long-awaited invasion. The landing cought the French and many Germans by surprise – not to mention the cow. “For the next two hours, I wandered around, fell into two ditches, up to my neck in water, before I came to a walled courtyard, “ Bordeleau says. “The old farmer was boiling something in the kitchen. I went inside and said to him in french – I learned it from my parents – “I’m looking for Germans. You got any around here?” “No!” he says “But we got an American upstairs.” I go up, and in the bed at 3h00 a.m. – you won’t beleive this - is Butkovic, eating breakfast! The guy we threw out the plane.

Butkovic was out of the war, Bordeleau says, certain to be evacuated to a hospital in England. But the rest of them had an immediate objective: capture the La Barquette locks on the Bourcy River so the Germans couldn’t flood the fields to halt the invasion force. “When I sat down to breakfast, didn’t my Lieutenant decide to show up, “ he says, brown eyes twinkling behind his glasses, “We went down the road, found a few more of the guys, and I knocked on another door. A girl answered. “Where are the Germans,” I asked her, “and how far to the locks?”

The Germans were across the river, the mademoiselle told the troopers, and the locks just a few miles away. As a non-commissionned officer, Bordeleau had been included in the invasion planning and briefed by French resistance fighters back in England, so he knew what lay ahead. His men, like most of the quarter million troopes on hand for D-Day, had endured a number of postponements, the most recent one on June 5.

“The tension was really high,” he recalls. “They had to let it out somehow, so they shaved my head and painted it with show polish. I didn’t mind; it took their minds of the stress.” Once on the move, his men were deadly serious. They captured the locks right on schedule, he said, and moved to blow up the highway and railroad bridges leading to them. Both were heavily defended. The unit took heavy shelling, never knowing whether the invasion had actually begun, and wonderring when, if ever, relief would come.
“We were the cork in the bottle,” Bordeleau says of the parachute infantry assault troops. “We had to capture and neutralize this important support artery.” The 501st fought steadily for two days. Bordeleau was wounded and saw his best friend die horribly. “Emile Tanguay and I, went all through school together, played ball together, enlisted together.” “We were on opposite sides of the road at Carentan. He got hit with a phosphorous shell and burned to death.”

The 501st went on through Holland and Belgium and Bordeleau was wounded again. He earned two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and two presidential citations and was given a battlefield commision to second Lieutenant at the battle of Bastogne. By april 1945, he was one of only two left alive of the Sergeants who had shipped overseas with the unit. He was discharged with the rank of Captain.

“I never wanted to visit Normandy, because of what happened to Emile,! says Bordeleau, who turned 76 April 30. “But I went five years ago and paid my respects. It made me feel a lot better about things.”


Cheers from Canada

Guy