Its title first: La Baille à Clairac, its date: 29 November 1943. Even if it still seems unlikely to some people, the Naval School (colloquially called la Baille by its students) took refuge during the Second World War in Clairac, whose port is not comparable to those of Brest or Toulon…
In June 1940, the School created in 1830 had to leave Brest in the face of the German advance, dispersed between Toulon, Dartmouth and Dakar, then demobilised in December 1942. In the summer of 1943, the class of 1942 was recalled, to regroup at Clairac, at the instigation of its mayor, Major Maurice Baril. The village was not occupied by the Germans, its body of water was not negligible thanks to the dam, and the accommodation possibilities were considerable. In the opinion of the occupier, it was a maritime training centre run by former officers but not a military school…
This is how nearly 300 sailors found themselves at the feet of the Benedictine abbey, in the land of plums and tobacco. The General Staff – under the direction of Captain Lacaille d'Esse – moved into the premises of the abbey, on loan from its owners; the cadets occupied the small castle of Castille, on the road to Tonneins, and the officers the castle of Bireboy, halfway there. And the families of the officers, supervisors and civilian teachers settled in the homes of the inhabitants. Soon, barracks were built in Castille to house the classes, and the village began to live to the rhythm of the whaleboat exercises on the Lot and the parades of friendly young men in the streets; moreover more than one of them capsized the hearts of the Clairacaises and gave up rowing to become bakers, electricians…
This cohabitation lasted until August 1944 when 16 officers, 147 naval officers, quartermasters, sailors and 91 “Bordaches” joined together as a fighting unit to reach the maquis of the FFI of Nérac, after a night march of 40 km which took them across the Garonne to the Mas-d'Agenais, in order to support the allies.
Returned to Clairac in January 1945, the unit was disbanded the next day; officers and students were assigned to various vessels such as the cruiser Duquesne.
Even today, the École Navale still remembers this page of its history, as witnessed by the demonstrations of 1964 and 2004, among others. The author of the drawing, Claude Verdier, is the 4th cadet in the bottom row from the right in the photograph below. Born in 1923, he was an ensign in 1945. In 1975, when he was Captain in New Caledonia, he was associated with the invention of the wreck of the corvette Aventure, wrecked in April 1855 off the Isle of Pines south of Noumea.
