


Breton, British and Irish people join in the remembrance of March 28th 1942

On Wednesday March 28th 2012, CREDTB and Institut Culturel de Bretagne organized a ceremony paying homage to the brave men of Operation Chariot. They sailed from Great Britain and offered their lives for our liberty.

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At 10 a.m., a group of about 60 persons made a silent pause in front of the "Vieux Mole", the symbolic place of the sacrifice of the British and their allies. It's exactly there, where they landed on Breton land , in the port of St Nazaire, that commandos and sailors had the heaviest human losses. Many British and Irish people had come to celebrate their memories with Nazairians on the day of the 70th anniversary of the British raid.The performance of Jean-Paul Strat and Georges Le Corre, two bagpipers from Ar Poulligwenn / Le Pouliguen, was particularly appreciated by our friends from across the Channel. After a minute's silence , a bunch of gorse, was thrown into the waters of the Loire, as a symbol of the land of Brittany.

A little girl from the Breton school Skol Diwan Sant-Nazer had been chosen for this symbolic offer, in the perspective of the transmission to new generations of the memory and the spirit of the courageous warriors of Operation Chariot. The moment was particularly moving for the British and Irish people there, and especially for the kins of the Welshman Morgan Jenkins and the Scotsman Tom Mc Cormack.

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Before proceeding to the official ceremony, the CREDIB asked the town of Sant Nazer/ Saint Nazaire for the making of a "parcours d'interprétation" ( memorial path ) through the places where the raid was made, so that people know of that feat of the second world war.

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We didn't forget the Bretons who helped in the success of this daring raid, thanks to the information they delivered to the British. The artist and ethnologist René-Yves Creston , founder of Seiz Breur, started, as soon as 1940, a network of informers with other Breton militants from Saint Nazaire/Sant Nazer .


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