CORNWALL — On Nov. 11, the 90th anniversary of the World War I armistice (Veterans Day in the United States, Armistice Day in Europe), Cornwall’s Donald Hart received the highest honor the French government bestows on individuals, the French Legion of Honor, for extraordinary service in World War II.
The “Légion d’honneur,� also known in French as “Ordre national de la légion d’honneur,� was established by Napoléon Bonaparte on May 19, 1802. The order’s motto is “Honor and fatherland� and its seat is at the Palais de la Légion d’Honneur, on the left bank in Paris.
Hart, 91, accompanied by his wife, Elvera, was one of 11 United States Armed Services veterans who receivedthe award, naming him a “chevalier,� or knight, of the Legion of Honor.
Hart learned of the honor a year ago, and shared his story with The Journal, while he was still living in his longtime residence here: the converted West Cornwall train depot (which is up for sale).
Upon receiving his medal at the French Consulate in New York last month, he repeated his strongest feeling about the honor: His sadness that he is the only one of his military unit still alive. There is no one he can share it with.
Two years before he received notification of the honor, the OSS Society (an organization created in honor of the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA) had advised him he should seek the medal.
Hart had served the Office of Strategic Command in 1944 and 1945 at General Omar Bradley’s headquarters in Normandy, where they worked with members of the French Resistance doing what was officially termed “intelligence.�
“We blew up railroads, factories, anything that would help the war effort,� he recalled, noting that those activities were really sabotage, not information gathering.
He recalled that General George Patton had unwittingly thwarted a key OSS initiative by sweeping toward Germany faster than Hart’s detachment could get its advance sabotage missions approved. At the end of the war, Hart was in Paris, debriefing intelligence personnel who were coming out of undercover assignments.
The Harts now reside at Noble Horizons in Salisbury.
