After 60 years, closure at last
Alton was intrigued to say the least. Why would someone in France want to see a file on his long-vanished cousin Billie? Well, the person in question, a lady by the name of Valerie Quesnel, was something of an amateur historian herself. She lived in Les Ventes, a small, picturesque town in Normandy, in the north of France. In 2004, the town, like many others in the country, decided to mark the 60th anniversary of French liberation from the Nazi occupation.
As well paying tribute to local members of the resistance and citizens who had been killed in air raids, a special ceremony would also honor a Canadian pilot shot down over Les Ventes, a certain Lt. Billie D. Harris. The town reached out to the French embassy in Canada to invite them to attend the ceremony, and the day was a great success. Reports of the ceremony were published in veterans’ newsletters and caught the eye of another amateur historians. This airman, Mr Huard, the president of the Normandy Association for the Remembrance of Aerial, asked. Are you sure he wasn’t American?
It was Valerie Quensel who looked into the matter. Mr Huard was right. Lt. Harris was indeed an American airman. She also confirmed that he was buried at the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-Sur-Mer, just a few miles from Les Ventes. To learn more, she got in touch with the U.S. Army archives department and soon had a folder filled with 200 pages of information relating to the case. These were the same 200 pages Billie’s cousin Alton was sent just a few weeks later.
As soon as he received the folder, he drove to Peggy’s house. She finally had the answer she’d been waiting 60 years to hear. Peggy immediately wrote to Quensel. She thanked the people of Les Ventes for ensuring her Billy had a proper burial, and then for honoring his memory in the years and decades that followed. Bonded by Billy’s fate, the two ladies became pen pals. In Easter of 2006, Peggy flew to France. She would be the guest of honor at a special ceremony dedicated to her husband. With her family, she made the long journey and was greeted like a celebrity by the people of Les Ventes.
It was here that she finally learned the truth. Billie had been shot down on 17 July, 1944. His plane crashed in a forest just outside of the town. Members of the resistance were quickly on the scene, but Billie was already dead. With the Nazis closing in, they were unable to retrieve the body, but they did take the deceased pilot’s name. In their hurry, they read Billie D. Harris as Billie D’Harris and assumed he was a French aviator, a mistake that would lead to decades of confusion.
The day after, Peggy finally visited the Normandy cemetery where Billie lay. She was finally able to say goodbye. For all that she went through, she stressed that she holds no grudges. Indeed, she has only ever expressed her gratitude to the people of France. Peggy never remarried. In the years that followed her discovery, she sent flowers to Billie’s grave around ten times a year. According to some, his is the most-decorated grave in all of northern France, a much-belated happy ending to this tale of true and enduring love.
Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources: