Calvados in soldiers' memoirs of Normandy

Hi all,

This is I guess a spin off of my barracks thread about drinks. Is anyone interested in collecting stories/mentions of Calvados in soldiers' memoirs?

In Stuart Hills' By Tank Into Normandy I found first a simple mention of it being a thing they could barter with the farmers for. Then in the chapter on the break-out, he mentions "As the sun fell in the sky so we would sit around a fire, drinking our NAAFI beer ration laced with Calvados, and sing our hearts away."

 

Sgt B Symes
24th Lancers
British Liberation Army B.L.A
(17-18d-7m-44y)

Dearest Phyl + Rob,
Many thanks for yours of the 13th it arrived this evening, so my mail comes in a lot quicker than yours.
My health is O.K. The weather out here has dried up + now we have dust. Not ordinary dusty sort of dust but dust in complete clouds, we make it ourselves of course. There’s no escape from it especially in the back areas. When we rest for a while we wash all our clothes + sponge bath right away, we don’t get dirty now only dusty.
So Rob has become the complete proffessor (that must be spelt wrongly). I hope too that the specs will calm him down.
No I’m not worrying about you, there’s no doubt you will have everything done that can be done, apart from the fact that now you are O.K. you are quite capable of seeing to things yourself.
Casualties don’t find their way into my letters if I can help it, Spud + Eric weren’t too bad, but as you are writing to Lady Arbuthnot I feel I must tell you that her son Sir Robert was killed just over a fortnight ago. It was a sad blow to all of us as he was such a fine young chap, one very seldom met one such as he was. I couldn’t tell you this before as there are certain rules to which we have to conform.
There was a good article in a Sunday paper we had here, The People it was in.
P.T.O.

It said “No wine, no song, no Mademoiselle, Normandy, No Bon.” It’s a curious place, it’s certainly true. They have nothing to sell except a few clothes in some of the shops. There was one thing I would like to have bought had it been possible, a lace blouse or jumper, a most lovely thing. I visited a cathedral the other day; it was untouched by the war. They certainly know how to build them places, it was well worth visiting. As for wine they sell ordinary red wine which used to be five francs a bottle at ten francs a tot, one buys one only, they also sell a drink I know as Calvados, the troops here call it Cognac, it’s raw and is really apple Brandy, so we’re a sober crowd. As for the dames, we didn’t see many before, we see less now, we saw an officer walking with a girl the other day and everyone was quite startled, it really was the only soldier we had seen with a girl, and quite honestly I don’t think the troops are interested. I think the war has become really serious to everyone mind, everyone wants to get it over, everyone is literally sick of the sight and smell of war. We all knew that sooner or later it will end and we all wonder exactly what has to happen first, we know that it is only a matter of time before the German army is either captured or knocked-out just as their navy has been + their air force is almost.
We had a bottle of Lager Beer last night, from Scotland, + Sgts a bottle of Whiskey (8/6) or Gin (6/6). I chose Whiskey, as we are allowed only one each month we shan’t have to drink too much at once.
So that’s all for this time, except that the cows are having trouble keeping the flies down. All my love to you two darlings. Regards to the folks from your loving husband Ben. XX

 

I think sometimes it can be quite hard to tell if something is "Calvados" or the local "potent" cider...

i.e.

Englishman at War

Especially when someone took a big swig of "cider" and found immediately that it was Calvados.

I'm pretty sure Calvados is often mentioned in the IWM audio* and on the BBC people's war website. Unfortunately searches with "Calvados" are hindered a little by "Calvados" also being a "place" as well as the different names that the soldiers used.

Edit... BBC - WW2 People's War - Pierre's Bottle of Calvados

Has for instance...

"The story of Pierre's bottle of Calvados.
In the early '40s Pierre Frénée, my friend from Alençon, suffered under the Occupation of Normandy. He heard the bombers which flew north to bomb Britain. Too often I, the same age, living in Liverpool, was their target.
A few years ago he gave me a bottle of Calvados, the apple brandy from Normandy. Pierre was about eleven when his family made it in 1943. The apple trees from which it came grew on a peasant holding in the Suisse-Normande. They died before their time, their trunks torn to shreds by bursting shells. Human beings are not the only casualties in war.
They are all long dead, the women and old men who picked the apples, crushed them in the mill and supervised the fermentation of the cider. So is Pierre's father who was a spectator throughout, confined to the house after being gassed in 1917. So is Margot, the little Percheron mare who turned the granite stone of the mill.
The distillation, illegal during the Occupation, was done secretly among the steep, heavily-forested hills in a small still, easily taken to pieces and hidden. The young man in charge was a réfractaire, on the run from compulsory labour service, slave labour, in Germany. Later the Gestapo, French Gestapo from Caen, not Germans, caught him with a group of résistants and left him for dead. He survived only because a peasant women found and nursed him.
At the time of the D-Day landings, fearing the destruction and looting to come, the family dug a deep, wide trench inside the barn housing the farm carts. Into it they lowered a big, old barrel. This they filled with the things that grand-mère thought valuable: her sewing machine; household linen; china; and several milk churns, full of the new Calvados. They filled in the trench and moved back the carts.
Shortly afterwards the Germans, terrified of the Allied air forces, moved the carts out of the barn and hid an armoured half-track there, complete with a cannon and a couple of machine-guns.
Now the family lived in daily fear not only of the uncertain temper of the occupying troops and the bombing their presence might attract. They were concerned, too, that the weight of the vehicle, ten or twelve tons, might crush the barrel and what was in it. Luckily the tracks fitted neatly either side of the trench and there was no weight on the earth above the barrel.
The British troops advanced through the rugged hills and little boys slipped through the lines along the forest paths, taking information about the whereabouts of the Germans and bringing back English cigarettes. Some of these they gave to the Germans, turning their despondency into panic.
Not too soon after the Liberation, for even liberating troops pillage, especially when there is liquor to be had, the family dug out the barrel and its contents, quite unharmed. It is a bottle from one of those churns that I have.
Pierre prescribed how I am to open it in the company of good, discerning friends, preferably students of history, in the manner laid down by Talleyrand. I am to pour it and, as we raise it to the light, we will admire its transparency, its colours and tones, the reflections and glints as the light passes through it. We will raise it to our noses and savour the complexities of its perfumes. Then we will put it down so that we may talk about it, reminiscing as we do of other fine liquors we have known.
At this point Talleyrand's exquisite advice runs out and English common sense will take over, "A la bonne vôtre, Pierre!"

Edit #2 : IWM - drinking Calvados - Search | Imperial War Museums

 

I wonder why the Germans declared distillation illegal! Anyone know? That story of Pierre's Bottle is quite brilliant.

 

There's a mention in Peter Beale's Tank Tracks but its a bit grim as before Hill 112 they get drunk on Calvados because it was a Lieutenant's birthday... and he was killed the next day.

 

On the 18th of July, 1944 the daily orders for the 11th Cdn Field Ambulance reported the death of a Canadian soldier caused by drinking arsenic laced wine.
It is plausible that this info would have been widely circulated to the troops and influenced drinking desires. On this date the 11th's Advanced Dressing Station was set up West of the Carpiquet Aerodrome and was receiving British and Canadian casualties.

 

Looking with...

german distillation laws during ww2

Via Google gives...

A Farewell to Sobriety, Part Two: Drinking During World War II - War on the Rocks

Having...

"Disappointingly, accounts of the nature and fate of Germany’s alcohol industry during the war are rare, possibly due to the localized nature of it. Beer in particular was still a decentralized industry, with most decently sized towns possessing at least one or two breweries. Likely a vestige of Germany’s former life as dozens of principalities, the practice of producing and consuming beer locally continued throughout World War II. Given the ubiquity of Allied air raids in Germany towards the end of the war, it’s plausible that a good number of German breweries were damaged or destroyed, as happened to Hofbrauhaus. One compelling topic of study would be the differing fates of breweries in what would become East and West Germany. For the soldiers’ part, Wehrmacht officers permitted and initially encouraged their charges to consume alcohol as a coping mechanism, believing it essential to good morale. This attitude shifted with the capture of France, when Hitler issued a statement proclaiming, “I expect that members of the Wehrmacht who allow themselves to be tempted to engage in criminal acts as a result of alcohol abuse will be severely punished.” Severely was no understatement — medical officers were instructed to admit soldiers with alcoholism to treatment facilities where they were evaluated for risk of passing on hereditary diseases. Adhering to Nazi doctrine, that evaluation could result in forced sterilization or euthanasia."

And...

"France fared poorly against German advances early in the war, with the government of the Third Republic collapsing in June 1940. Following the establishment of a pro-Nazi collaborationist regime, no state-on-state fighting would occur within French borders until the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944. While a number of military personnel rallied to de Gaulle’s aid in the Atlantic and North African theaters, French civilians mounted a determined underground resistance against the occupation. This effort included espionage and sabotage conducted for the protection of France’s profitable wine industry. After the Nazi invasion, Hitler appointed a bureaucracy of weinführers to manage the seizure of French wines for supply to the Wehrmacht, or for sale to the international market. During their use of old-fashioned spy craft to preserve France’s best vintages from requisition, the resistance managed to glean a bit of information about German military movements and positioning as well. They discovered that large orders from the Champagne region usually preceded major Nazi offensives, and were thus able to anticipate the beginning of Rommel’s North African campaign, information they passed along to British intelligence. Deprived of the means to fight the Nazis, France used its enviable endowment of alcohol against its invaders."

And a few wiki pages...

Including: Moonshine by country - Wikipedia

With bits on France & Germany.

And curiously for a Google question on distillation: Drug policy of Nazi Germany - Wikipedia

Edit - Though the section on alcohol containing...

"Alcohol
At the start of World War II, alcohol consumption was widespread among members of the Wehrmacht. At first, high-ranking officials encouraged its use as a means of relaxation and a crude method of mitigating the psychological effects of combat, in the latter case through what later scientific developments would describe as blocking the consolidation of traumatic memories. After the Fall of France, however, Wehrmacht commanders observed that their soldiers' behavior was deteriorating, with "fights, accidents, mistreatment of subordinates, violence against superior officers and 'crimes involving unnatural sexual acts'" becoming more frequent.[3] The Commander-in-Chief of the German military, General Walther von Brauchitsch, concluded that his troops were committing "most serious infractions" of morality and discipline, and that the culprit was alcohol abuse. In response, Hitler attempted to curb the reckless use of alcohol in the military, promising severe punishment for soldiers who exhibited public drunkenness or otherwise "allow[ed] themselves to be tempted to engage in criminal acts as a result of alcohol abuse." Serious offenders could expect "a humiliating death."[3] This revised policy accompanied an increase in Nazi Party disapproval of alcohol use in the civilian sector, reflecting an extension to alcohol of the longstanding Nazi condemnation of tobacco consumption as diminishing the strength and purity of the "Aryan race."

 

See it routinely at parties in north Georgia, or used to see it before this stupid covid thing. Never the only libation there but available. I've never tried it.

 

Not quite Calvados - but a rather similar theme...

How Champagne Helped to Defeat the Nazis…Or at Least Cause Some Severe GI Discomfort

 

Calvados is mentioned only once in my father's letters, although as you can see the base cider was more of a feature, he even recounts using for shaving and making tea!
This is a short passage from his letter to my mother dated 27th August 1944.
We are living quite well at the moment and very rarely use our rations. In this part of France there is plenty of milk, cream, butter, cheese, fresh eggs, fresh veg, cider, Calvados, Red wine, White wine and so on. The things which really are short are good cigarettes, Soap and Bread. We haven't any Bread to spare but the locals will swap anything for Soap and things, tins of Bully, sardines, prepared meals etc, which none of us really want after the good fare we can get in exchange for then. After 2 and 1/2 mouths we are getting rather fed up of the same old tinned stew and Bully, so everything works out alright to satisfaction.

 

Has anybody here ever tasted the stuff? From what little I've heard Calvados is supposed to be pretty potent.

 

I visited North Carolina many years ago and learned that they have a variety of 'shine there called Screaming Purple Jesus, because that's what you see when you drink it.

 

The bottle I have is 40% alcohol by volume... I mean as potent as any other strong liquor I think.

If you drank it thinking you were being given a cup of cider.... Yeah.

 

From a sample of extracts of letters from Old Stoics in the Forces, with cider and Calvados high in the list of memories of Normandy...

The Stoic - (magazine of the Stowe School) Number 65 - December 1944 edition... (pdf online * )

IN A FRENCH ORCHARD

Just now I'm in an orchard about a quarter-mile from the Boche, but luckily out of observation - so no sniping. In fact today has been very quiet - hardly any mortars, unlike previous days. These are the worst trouble out here and I dig in about an extra foot every day! Our only other enemy is a whacking great gun which looks for us now and then, but has never got nearer than 20 yards. I never cease to wonder how everyone so quickly gets used to the appalling noise, and why more people aren't hurt. You'd laugh if you saw us all diving into slits and under our vehicles when the old whistle starts. One moment lots of men standing or sitting about and the next not a soul. After one rather big and close bang yesterday I yelled to my Sgt. Driver to see if he was still O.K., and his voice answered from underneath me! I'd had no idea that anyone could have moved quicker than I did. But the main things I shall remember will be: (I) the cider one finds everywhere in enormous barrels (a little Calvados too); (2) the dust both friendly and enemy (both bad) ; and (3) the vast numbers of dead cows which lie and stink in almost every field. They swell to elephantine proportions and turn gradually on their back with legs and udders in the air, looking like a sort of main and auxiliary anti-aircraft armament. Horrid.

Edit: * Old Stoics - OS Archive
December 1944

 

I tried some when I was Limburg in 2014 with a 30th ID veteran, Marion Sanford. It was akin to drinking Drano.

Mr. Marion had spoke of drinking Calvados while in Normandy in 1944 and driving across France and Belgium with a small keg in their half track. He said they finally finished it sometime in October, he thought. He said they drank it slowly, that they couldn't take much at a time.

During our trip in 2014, we were having dinner one night in Heerlen, Nederland and the subject of calvados came up. He talked about its potency. During the meal, I slipped a request to the waiter to bring some with dessert, which he did.

Mr. Marion was surprised by it, but didn't want to drink it. He was a 91 yo man at the time who had already had two glasses of wine and he knew where the line was for him. We were able to talk him into to taking a sip. It lit him up!

We all had a good laugh with him.

I don't know what to compare it to other than to say it was like drinking Everclear, but with some actual flavor to it. Not apples, mind you, just some kind of flavor. Oh and it will set your throat aflame.

 

1944. Bill Downs Visits Mont-Saint-Michel

Bill Downs - War Correspondent for CBS -

"It was in a wide bottomed flask with a narrow neck, and inside the flask were two big pears. It seems that she tied the flask over a branch of pears 50 years ago and they grew in the flask. She added the calvados—applejack to you—and there it was. Very good and strong enough to knock your hat off."

 

50 year old! Imagine!

 

Of course Calvados is the traditional short in Normandy with a abv limit of 40% distilled under the Appellation Calvados Controlee.
However it is a liquor which is easily illegally distilled in the rural areas by farmers and suchlike.

Remembering an autumn holiday in the Mortain gap area when we stayed in a delightful cottage owned by a British couple who gave us a taste of the illegal Calvados distilled by a local farmer. The abv was much higher than ACC certified Calvados. We bought a bottle...a covert transaction for the Gendarmes were known to make random searches for illegal distilleries.

At one time, about 40 years ago. a certificate was issued on a legal purchase of liquor or wine to qualify the purchase as legal should the purchaser be stopped by the Gendarmes and questioned about alcohol found to be in a car.

As regards the liquor adulterated by arsenic. I wonder if this wine was left by the French as a booby trap for the Germans. The occupational forces did not require much of an excuse to loot a farm or premises where alcohol was known to be. As it was, it would be normal for Allied unit standard orders to stress to be cautious of the risk of drinking from unvalidated sources.