I now know that some information here is wrong, but I'm keeping it as it was. It shows how confusing it can be to find out what happened in WW II. In particular, I now know that the bombing was part of the much-opposed "Transportation Plan" lead-up to Overlord. Also, by November , all of the "Hexagon" of France was occupied, not just the part known as Occupied France. I had no idea. Maybe no American knew. I had no idea that schoolchildren were killed by their American allies here.
I had climbed the hill just for the view. I bicycled past the low income housing in this hard-luck neighborhood. I walked across the tall grass to the summit. I had read of the "bombardment that killed and destroyed buildings.
I knew that Saint-Etienne was a strategic location even though there was no actual fighting anywhere near the city. It's the second best route from Paris to Marseilles on the Mediterranean Sea. The coal mines were still active during the war and there was a world-class arms factory. I gave little thought about the victims. I had lived in France five months by then and had adopted some of the French thinking. If you're a country at war, then people die.
And they were all military personnel for all I knew. And it seemed minor compared to the Stephanois soldiers who died in Word War I there was no action near the city at all in that war.
The monument to those dead is an imposing sculpture near the city center in Place Fourneyron. Six thousand young men! But I digress. Now I was facing a memorial to schoolchildren. Did I misread the French? It makes no sense. The view from the hilltop is beautiful; the memorial is haunting. Since returning home, I have tried to make sense of the deaths.
