October 1944: Arthur writes a tribute (and proves he is a damn fine writer)

     It's funny what you find when digging through a loved one's papers after they die. There are the usual expected items, like paperwork and old bills, and often a surprise or two, but sometimes, one is lucky enough to unearth a beautiful story, a gift to those who are left behind.   This is about one such gift.

    But this story is quite different from Grandpa's other writing from that time.  He wrote it in his native French for one thing, and for another, I think he was trying to be eloquent. He always was a good writer, but this is something extraordinary.  It must have been important to him, because three years later, he carried this handwritten original across an ocean, and five decades later we found it in his files.

    And unlike his other personal writing, he didn't write it on his beloved yellow legal pads.  Instead, he wrote it on a blank police report of all things.   

Police report used in Valence, France during the
occupation. This is page 3 of a 5-page tribute.

    After France was liberated, government entities stopped using forms that said "d'Etat" on them (as it was associated with the collaborationist Vichy government, which by the end of the war was tremendously unpopular), and so the Valence PD relegated this particular report to be used as scrap paper.  Paper was still in short supply due to wartime shortages, and so scrap paper got used instead of being discarded.  Grandpa's FFI unit also took over the Valence police barracks immediately after the city was liberated at the end of August, 1944, so he would have had easy access to such scrap paper. 

    I've written about the first part of this article before - when I compared Grandpa's three versions of his escape up a mountain, with Dr. Michel Planas's version of the same event, but I now have access to much better transcription and translation tools, and I re-did the translation (as always favoring the literal and use of cognates as much as possible, yet making sure it works in English). Grandpa also used some very complex French sentence constructions that resulted in confusing phrases in the translation that sometimes contradicted what he actually said.  This time, however, I'm including the second part, a tribute to a Swiss war correspondent named René Payot.

    When I finished the new translation, I was left in awe at the beauty of his writing, which reads like it was written by statesman speechwriter with a side gig as a naturalist poet undergoing basic training. He writes of forced marches and storms in the mountains, of the treasured miniature radio he used to listen to Payot, and finally of the freedom of speech and conscience.

    See for yourself (the original French is at the end of this article):

Tribute to René Payot

The marching orders have just been given. The Company is leaving its forward position on the plain to join its comrades holding the plateau some thousand meters above. The endless column snakes along the mountain paths and trails, sometimes visible from afar, and at others plunges into the woods, where it could be said that friendly foliage physically hides it from the gaze of foreign birds of prey.  

Little by little, the pace of our ascent slows. A mounting fatigue takes hold of each man, his shoulders bend under the burdens of his mountain pack, his weapons, and as much ammunition as it was humanly possible to carry. The march has gone on for several hours, yet the company is still not halfway there. Time slips by.  Each step aches, and every moment, the pain in our muscles intensifies. Just two hundred more meters, and it seems we’ll no longer be able to go on. But at the end of that distance, willpower overcomes exhaustion, and we keep moving forward... We are still 10 kilometers from our objective, and drops of sweat flood our faces, stream into our eyes, and blind us, yet we keep moving forward.... 

A storm crashes into the mountain. Lightning streaks through the sky. Thunder crashes, almost wanting to shatter the stony path. Torrential rain drenches the forest.  It could be said that the earth and heavens merge into a single chaos. Not a thread on us remains dry. Our shoes, heavy with the water they have drunk, wade through the sunken trail, now a sudden rushing stream.  But we keep going, we always keep going... 

Night has fallen by the time the company finally arrives at its destination. They are to take over two farms and a shepherd’s hut. In near-total darkness—there is no electricity on the plateau — the various groups settle into sheds and haylofts. Guards are posted and kitchens are set up. 

Despite his extreme fatigue and the cold, the "radio man" leaves the farm in search of the mule convoy, which must have gotten lost in the mountains. Into the opaque night, the darkest night, he hurries off to find the column to which he entrusted his field radio - the little parachuted gem knows as "Biscuit."  

    An hour later, he's finally tuned in. Headphones on, pencil in hand, he jots down a few notes by the flickering glow of a candle. A few minutes later, he announces the latest news: “No message for us - Russian troops advanced 40 kilometers in 24 hours in the Bialystok sector. - A thousand American bombers attacked German fuel depots. - Enemy counterattacks repelled by the British southwest of Caen, etc..." 

In each person’s mind, the same thought arises: “All this and nothing to report — just blood on the distant Polish plain…”  To the west, the long-awaited day has yet to come. 

However, the radio man continues: "Yes, but it's Saturday night - in 30 minutes, at 11:15 we can catch René Payot on shortwave." 

“That’s true,” someone replies. “We missed it yesterday - we must catch it tonight.” 

And despite their exhaustion, a small circle of officers remains beside the radio man to hear what René Payot has to say. 

Who then are you, Monsieur René Payot, that in homes all over France, people gather every week to hear your voice, just as they likely do across all the oppressed countries of Europe where those with the most influence know French?  What explains this extraordinary influence you hold over millions of listeners? 

Above all, we all felt that at heart, you were an ally. Your country’s neutrality did not allow you to express this openly. But we understood, courtesy of your finely ironic and nuanced phrases, the jabs only a Gaullist would catch on the fly but the heavy German mind would miss, and most of all, your transitions, for which no description could ever suffice. 

But this is not the principal reason for your influence. Your sympathy for the Allied cause alone cannot explain your prodigious success, because that sympathy was already shared with us by every voice of the free world. We saw in you, Monsieur René Payot, a man who, in dissecting and analyzing the lives of nations, sought to set aside his own passions and partisan sympathies, a man who strives to judge with logic and intelligence alone. 

Sometimes you arrive at conclusions that dishearten us, and no doubt yourself as well. Yet we still welcomed them, because it made us feel closer to reality.  On the other hand, when you gave us information or deductions that matched our deepest hopes, they brought us even greater satisfaction, because we knew they came from a search for truth, and not from propaganda-- whether for a just cause or a harmful one.

It must not happen in the world of tomorrow, a world that will no doubt be striving toward improving the human condition and achieving a more just distribution of wealth -- it must not happen, I say -- that in such a world, great open minds don't have a place. It is essential that in society there always be men who speak and write freely, obeying only an inner need to seek what seems to be genuine truth, even if their ideas may contradict official propaganda, party rule, or corporate trust. 

I hope that in countries that remained free, and those becoming so again, we will always find both the critical and independent minds like yours, but also the conditions that allow them to flourish and speak. 

In the long dark night of the Nazi occupation, those conditions no longer existed, and yet through the ether, from beyond the Gestapo’s control, came the flickering light of the purest torch of Truth and Liberty.

Arthur Lubinski

Valence, October 1944

   

 Damn. That's good.

    There are a few "it could be saids" and similar phrases still in place, which are a little awkward in English (but are probably smoother in the original French), but I left them in to ensure that I remained true to his actual words. I think he must have written the story for publication, because he calculated the number of words in the article.

Page 6 of Grandpa's article, listing the word counts

     I don't know, maybe it was published somewhere?

    When I read this, I'm amazed at his talent (he was an engineer by trade, and not a writer), but I also feel a little uneasy, because I think just maybe ... that he was a better writer than I am.  

    I've always known my grandfather was a good writer.  He wrote a couple of books and many industry papers. A petroleum engineer once told me the story of taking a casing design class, and the professor handed out a copy of my grandfather's 1962 paper Helical Buckling of Tubing Sealed in Packers, and told the class "when given the choice of what to take with you to a deserted island, Arthur Lubinki's paper, or a beautiful movie star ... always chose the paper. The movie star will age, but the paper will always be beautiful."  

    It's also fitting that there's an industry award named for him, the Arthur Lubinski OTC Best Paper Award, that honors the highest quality paper presented at the OTC conference.  The award is often called "a Lubinski," as in, "he won a Lubinski."

Hommage à René Payot

L’ordre de marche vient d’être donné. La Compagnie quitte la position avancée face à la plaine pour rejoindre les camarades qui tiennent le plateau à quelque mille mètres au-dessus d'elle. L’interminable colonne serpente sur les chemins et sentiers de montagne, tantôt visible de loin, tantôt s'engouffrant dans les bois, dant le feuillage complice la cache, dirait-on matériellement, à la une des oiseaux de proie étrangers.  

Petit à petit le rythme de la progression se ralentit. Un fatigue grandissante s'empare de chaque homme, dont les épaules ploient sous le fardeau du sac de montagne, des armes et l’autant de munitions que il était humainement possible d’emporter. La marche dure déjà depuis plusieurs heures et la compagnie m’est pas encore à mi-chemin. Le temps passe. Chaque pas commence de provoquer une peine musculaire qui s'amplifie rapidement. Encore deux cents mètres, et nous ne pourrons plus, semble-t-il avancer. Mais au bout de cette distance la volonté vaine la fatigue, et l’on avance toujours … Nous sommes encore à 10 km du but, des gouttes de sueur inondent le visage, coulent dans les yeux, aveuglent, mais on avance toujours … 

Un orage s'abat sur la montagne. Le ciel est sillonné d'éclairs. Le tonnerre semble vouloir faire éclater les rochers. Une pluie torrentielle inonde les bois. On dirait que le terre et les cieux se confondent en un seul chaos. H m’y a plus sur nous un fil de sec. Les souliers, alourdis par l’eau qu'ils ont bue, pataugent dans le chemin creux, devenu soudain un torrent. Mais on avance, on avance toujours … 

La nuit est tombée lors qu’enfin la compagnie arrive à destination. Elle occupera deux fermes et une bergerie. Dans la quasi-obscurité, car sur le plateau il m’y a point d'électricité, les divers groupes se cassent dans les remises et les fenières. On organise le service de gardes, les cuisines.

En depit de tomte sa fatigue et du froid, le “radio” quitte la ferme a la recherche de la colonne muletiere qui a du se pendre dans la montagne. Dans la nuit opaque, la nuit incre, il s'élance à la recherche de la colonne a la quelle il a confié son poste de radio de campagne, le petit bijou parachute, dénommé “biscuit”. Un heure après, il est enfin à l'écoute. Le casque aux oreilles, le crayon en main, il prend rapidement quelques notes à la lueur vacillante d’une bougie. Quelques minutes plus tard il annonce les dernières nouvelles: “Pas de message qui nous concerne - Avance rus de 40 km en 24 heures dans le secteur de Bialystok. - Mille bombardiers américains ont attaqué les ressources allemandes en carburants. – Contre-attaques ennemies repoussées par les Britanniques au sud-ouest de Caen, etc…” 

Dans l’esprit de chacun naît ce commentaires “Somme toute R.A.S., sang dans la plaine de Pologne si lointaine … À l'ouest de jour tant attendu n’est pas encore venue”. 

Cependant le "radio" ajoute: “Oui, mais c’est samedi aujourd'hui; dans une demi-heure, á 23 heures 15, nous pourrons capter René Payot sur ondes courtes”. 

“C’est vrai” - lui répond-on- “Nous n'avons pu l’avoir hier, il faut le prendre aujourd’hui”. 

Et malgré la grande fatigue, un petit cercle d'officiers restera auprès du “radio” pour savoir ce que dira RENÉ PAYOT. 

Qui donc êtes-vous, Monsieur René Payot, pour que dans tous les foyers de France on se rassemble une fois par semaine pour vous écouter et qu’il en est probablement de même dans tous les pays opprimés d'Europe en ce qui concerne les élites qui connaissent la langue française? A quoi est dû ce prodigieux ascendant que vous exercez sur des millions d’auditeurs? 

Tout d’abord nous sentions tous que de cœur vous étiez votre allié. La neutralité de votre pays ne vous permettait point de l’exprimer ouvertement. Mais nous nous comprenions, grâce a vos phrases nuances d’une fine ironie, grâce à vos pointes qu'un gaullois saisissait au vol et qui étaient probablement sans justification pour le lourd esprit germain, grâce surtout à vos transitions pour lesquelles toute épithète semblerait vaine. 

Mais la ne gît point la principale raison de votre ascendant. Votre sympathie pour la cause alliée ne saurait expliquer votre prodigieux succès, car une telle sympathie nous était déjà acquise parmi tous les porte-parole des pays libres. Nous sentions en vous, Monsieur Rene Payot, un  homme qui pour disséquer, analyser les faits de la vie des nations, essaye de faire abstraction de ses sympathies, de ses passions, un homme qui pour juger, tâche de n’utiliser que la logique et l’intelligence.  

Parfois vous arrivez à des conclusions qui ne nous rejouissaient pas, - ni vous non plus, j’en suis sûr. Néanmoins nous aimions en prendre connaissance, car nous nous sentions alors plus près de la réalité. Par contre, lorsque les renseignement ou les déductions que vous nous communiquiez correspondaient à nos voeux profonds, ils nous procuraient un contentement d'autant plus vif, que nous les savions issues d'une recherche de la vérité et non d'un désir de propagande que cela soit au service d'une bonne ou d'une mauvaise cause. 

Je ne faudrait pas que dans le monde de demain qui sera sans mil donte oriente vers la recherche d’une amélioration de la condition humaine d’une plus juste répartition des richesses, il ne faudrait pas, dis-je, que dans ce monde, de grands esprits ouverts ne puissent plus trouver place. Je est indispensable que dans la société il y ait toujours des hommes qui puissent s’exprimer et écrire librement en n'obéissant qui à leur besoin inné de chercher ce qui leur semble être honnêtement la vérité, même si leurs ideas, peuvent déplaire à une propagande officielle, au parti qui détient le pouvoir ou à un trust quelaouque. 

J'espère que dans les pays restés libres, comme dans ceux qui redeviennent tels, ou trouvera toujours, à la fois, des esprits critiques et indépendants comme le votre, ainsi que les conditions qui leur permettent de s'épanouir et de s'exprimer. 

Mais dans la nuit obscure de la longue occupation nazie de telles conditions n’existaient plus apportait alors, a travers l'éther, incontrôlable, par la Gestapo, les reflets due plus pur flambeau de Vérité et de Liberté.

Arthur Lubinski

Valence, octobre 1944