She was 14 when a U.S. pilot was shot down near her home in France. 80 years later, she’s keeping his memory alive.
Eighty years after an American fighter plane was shot down during World War II, a village in northern France has commemorated the pilot's memory.
SAINT-ELLIER-LES-BOIS, France — It’s almost 80-years on, but Marie Bastien said the memory of the American fighter plane being shot down near her village in northern France remains as vivid as ever.
“I still see it, as if it was yesterday,” Bastien, 94, told NBC News in French last week before widespread celebrations across France on June 6 for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings when more than 150,000 American, British and Canadian forces charged the beaches of Normandy to liberate the Nazi-occupied country from fascism.
Bastien was just 14 when 1st Lt. Paul Chaufty’s fighter was shot out of the sky, but since then she has worked hard to keep his memory alive with her daughter Mireille and her wider network of friends and family.
1st Lt. Paul Chaufty pictured in the cockpit of his P-47 Thunderbolt fighter plane.Chaufty familyHer hard work paid off, and last Saturday she stood alongside some of Chaufty’s American relatives while a plaque honoring his memory was unveiled in the village of Saint-Ellier-les-Bois.
Bastien said Chaufty died on Aug. 13, 1944, the day allied forces drove Nazi occupiers from her home village of Ciral two months after D-Day.
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