 |
|
About Herbert Brill Articles/Media Works of Art Available Art Contact Home |
|
 AIR FORCES ESCAPE AND EVASION SOCIETY ARTICLE Spring 2005 "Herb is Awarded Legion d'Honneur" The National Order of the Legion of Honor, founded by Napoleon Bonaparte, recognizes eminent service to the Republic of France. Recipients of this honor are named by decree signed by the President of the Republic. By Don Lasseter Author of Their Deeds of Valor, Exlibris, 2002 Herbert Brill, a member of the Board of AFEES, has been named a Knight of the Legion of Honor by the French government. Formal presentation of the medal will be held sometime this summer. The award, authorized by French President Jacques Chirac, recognizes Brill's work with the Resistance during the nine months he spent evading after a forced landing near Experimont on December 31, 1943. 
Herbert Brill receiving the Medal of Honor from General Michel Kreher. July 2005 On their fourth mission with the 407th Squadron, 92nd Bomb Group, Brill's B-17 was part of a large formation targeting enemy air bases at Merignac, near Cognac. Ten bombers were lost on the raid. After Brill's fortress was crippled by flax and enemy fighter attacks, pilot Lt. Coleman Goldstein (AFEES) conferred with co-pilot Shirley V. Casey (AFEES deceased) and navigator Brill about the possibility of making it over the Pyrenees. It looked hopeless, so Goldstein eased the ship down and managed a perfect three-point landing in an open field. The grateful crew split up in two-man teams and scattered. Brill was teamed with Sgt. Bill Weber. Within a few days, Brill found himself in the hands of an underground resistance group with later became the Section Speciale De Sabotage (SSS). Prior to a dangerous operation one night, the leader asked Brill, "Do you want to come out with us?" "Of course I did," Brill later explained. "They'd been feeding us and helping us, so of course we wanted to help them if possible." His decision led to a series of adventures fighting the German invaders. Brill was issued a false identity card as a quarry worker, "Jacques Robert Litaud." One of the key battles took place in July 1944. The group received word that Nazi troops planned to attack through the village of Javerlac, then move on to destroy Nontron and wipe out a Resistance hospital.  Herbert Brill's false identity card as "Jacques Robert Litaud" A short time earlier, a similar raid had taken place in the village of Oradour-Sur-Glane in which the entire civilian population had been slaughtered. Posting themselves on hills above narrow winding roads, the underground fighters waited for the German onslaught. Said Brill, "Shooting down into their midst, we fought guerilla style all day, touch and go. After they'd lost 56 men, they retreated. We lost eight men." Nontron was saved. A few weeks later, Brill participated in the battle to liberate the city of Angouleme. He returned to England in September 1944. Today Brill and his wife, Millicent, leave California each year to spend several months in their second home located in the beautiful, quiet town of Nontron. They often visit several of his surviving helpers, some of whom have attended AFEES reunions in the U.S. The Brills also work as volunteers in the Angouleme museum of the Resistance and Deportation.  Looking across the valley at some of the homes in Nontron. The Brill's second home is just to the left of the church.
|
 Herbert Brill ARTICLES
BOOKS |
