1:17:00
his father went straight out to
enlist but they said he was too old.
1:17:05
Seeing how upset he was,
1:17:07
his son, who knew nothing
about politics, enlisted
1:17:09
in secret.
1:17:13
Then he dropped
his shorts and showed me
1:17:15
his backside.
1:17:16
Anti-tank shrapnel, he told me.
1:17:19
He spent a month
1:17:20
arse-up in the hospital,
and lost his virginity
1:17:23
to an English girl, who finally
left him to go back to
1:17:27
her English husband.
1:17:29
"I can't show you
that scar,"he said.
1:17:32
Then he joined
1:17:34
the 1st Mixed Brigade under
Enrique Líster. A good place,
1:17:38
he said, to think yourself
1:17:39
a hero.
Next came the scars won
1:17:42
at different battles...
1:17:44
Belchite,
1:17:46
Teruel,
1:17:47
Tarragona.
1:17:49
The front fell
1:17:51
and he withdrew to Catalonia,
still under Líster.
1:17:55
The men said they'd resist, but they
1:17:58
ran away, the Fascists
close on their heels.
1:18:02
After a few days in Catalonia,
in February 1939
1:18:07
they crossed
the border into France
1:18:09
together with hundreds
of thousands of Spaniards.
1:18:13
Then they were put in
a concentration camp on the beach.
1:18:17
It was hell.
1:18:18
Not really a concentration camp,
1:18:20
but a death camp.
1:18:22
The French didn't know
what to do with them.
1:18:24
One day, some French Foreign Legion
recruiters went by and he enlisted.
1:18:29
Just to get out of there.
1:18:30
The outbreak of World War II
1:18:32
found him under Leclerc
1:18:34
in the Maghreb.
1:18:36
Jacques Philippe Leclerc...
Quite a guy!
1:18:39
He rebelled
1:18:41
against Vichy,
formed a resistance in Africa,
1:18:44
and crossed miles and miles
of desert till they reached Tripoli.
1:18:48
They landed
1:18:49
on Utah Beach, Normandy,
1st August 1944.
1:18:55
They were the first contingent
1:18:58
to enter Paris.
1:18:59
By the Porte de Gentilly,
on 24th August.