The stories that follow, from
wartime or peacetime, I dedicate them as a whole to the memory of René
Guastalla, teacher of French, Latin and Greek in the third and second
grades at the Lycée Saint Charles in Marseille in 1929 and 1930.
This admirable teacher, who made us play Antigone in the text at the
theatre in Gémenos on 26 June 1930, used to take us to the beaches
of my native Provence on Sundays when the weather was fine with a book
of Greek under his arm... Unforgettable memories...
So I had a lot of trouble grasping, intellectually speaking, the great
masquerade of 1968! Had I aged so much or had the University changed
so much?
Each particular story: the bridges of Sedan (14 May 1940), the perches
of the Oued Tenafodh (Rio de Oro, 1942), the 'flak' fields of the Ruhr
(Gelsenkirchen, 11 September 1944), etc... bears the name of a former
student of Le Piège, who died on the Field of Honour.
I knew and loved all these dead while they were alive. I do not forget
them...
Glimmers on a title
These stories of the past have a title which was inspired by a poem
of Victor Hugo that René Guastalla had read to his class, during
this blurred period of July which was already not the school year
and not yet the holidays...
Memories of the old wars
For France and the Republic,
In Navarre, we were fighting,
If sometimes the ball is slanted,
All the rocks are bastions.
Our leader, a grey beard,
The captain, had fallen,
Having received, near a church,
The rifle shot of an abbot.
...............................................
The crescent shone on our heads.
And we, pensive, thought we saw
As we walked across the plain
Towards Pamplona and Teruel
The captain's collar
Which appeared again in the sky.
Victor Hugo
Songs of the streets and woods
3-1 A vocation as an aviator
- April 1935:
In memory of my "Mole"
comrade (1932-1935) Albert Preciozi of the Guynemer promotion, Captain
in the Normandy-Niemen fighter regiment, killed on the Field of Honour
during the battle of Orel (U.S.S.R.) on 28 July 1943
There are precocious children, even
prodigies, who from a very young age, before the amazed eyes of their
blissful parents, proclaim loudly while beating their chests: "I
will be a great surgeon... I will be an admiral... I will be an illustrious
writer... etc.". In order to restore a fair balance, others do
not decide until the last minute: this was my category.
In April 1935, as a "mole cube" at the Lycée Thiers,
in Marseille, I had no idea about a future profession. According to
the routine of the students of Special Mathematics, I had registered
for the month of May, for the entrance exams to the Ecole Polytechnique
and the Ecole Normal Supérieure, Science section.
In the previous classes I had always considered the annual and eternal
French composition subject: "What will you do later? ". I
didn't know, and I wasn't the only one, so much so that in Seconde A
(Latin and Greek), a delegation of students went to see our teacher
René Guastalla to tell him about the indecision we were having
about our future career choice. With an easy approach, this teacher
was willing to admit our point of view and, with a wry smile, replied:
"I'll give you another subject... Since Andromache is on the programme,
you'll imagine this lady's farewell to Hector, at the Sealed Gates.
You are not allowed, of course, to take your inspiration from the Illiad!
"
Some people moaned that we had fallen from Charybdis into Scylla, but
we played the game: if it was not easy for fifteen year olds to recreate,
from scratch, the heartfelt outpourings of the Trojan warrior and his
grieving wife, it was better than breaking our heads to invent a profession
that we would probably not practice!
...In an unforeseeable twist of fate, in the early days of April, I
found a white-covered booklet on a dilapidated table in the no less
dilapidated Physics and Chemistry class, giving the syllabus for the
competitive entrance examination to the Ecole de l'Air. So there was
an Ecole de l'Air...first news! The book had Preciozi's name in pencil.
I went immediately to see him. He had every intention of entering the
competition. Why shouldn't I do the same?
As we leafed through the document more closely, we noticed to our horror
that the deadline for submitting applications had passed by a few days.
Without wasting a minute and in short strides, we went to the Prefecture
of the Bouches du Rhône to see the official in charge of receiving
the files of the candidates for the Grandes Ecoles: he was a small,
scowling man, a real bookworm, his arms corseted with glossy sleeves.
He told us, with visible satisfaction and a mocking smile, that all
we had to do was go back with our papers... in 1936! I was about to
start cursing when, his Corsican temperament getting the better of him,
Preciozi threw a volley of invectives at this awful man which made a
few of the leatherheads spread around the vast room look up. Sensing
that things could go too far, I pulled my comrade by the sleeve and
said to him: "Let's go back to the Lycée, let's get the
Administration (the "strass" in Mole slang) involved. They
have to get us out of this mess, as they were unable to inform us about
the Air Force Academy.
When we returned to the school, still in small strides, the administration
was informed of our approach. Aware of its negligence, it struggled
so much and so well - it is quite rare, it must be said - that the paperwork
was ready the next day, the civil status certificates and other documents
having been taken by a secretary full of audacity, from the individual
school files.
There remained the very formidable test of the medical examination.
Here, unlike Rodrigue's battle against the Moors, we left with eight
and returned with four, two students having had the unpleasant surprise
of learning that they were colour-blind and two others that they did
not have sufficient visual acuity...
It was in Paris, at the Capoulade restaurant (six-franc menus), that
my mathematics teacher, who had followed those eligible for the Normale
Supérieure, announced to me that I had passed the written exam
for the Ecole de l'Air. I had just finished the last oral examination
at rue d'Ulm, No45 - a rather disastrous chemistry 'paper' on the
oxidising properties of I don't know which metalloid - and my chances
of admission to 'Gnouf' were slim. The Ecole de l'Air therefore seemed
to me to be the haven of salvation: all I had to do was to review the
whole history and geography programme, sciences unknown in the Mole
class.
As I was staying at the Cité Universitaire, with a former fellow
student of the Lycée Saint Charles, who was studying law in Paris,
we put together a hasty revision programme... with some solid dead ends.
I was lucky enough, in the geography oral, to get "the Mediterranean
coast from Perpignan to Nice". I was more lacklustre in history
on the beginnings of the 1914 war, the VII plan, the Schlieffen plan
and other nonsense that had never really attracted my attention. This
high school friend, a long-legged athlete, did me the immense service
of training me on the asphalt track - most of the time deserted - of
the Cité Universitaire, to reach the end of the 800-metre flat
race, which had to be run in 2 minutes 20 seconds to obtain the maximum
mark of 20. At the first attempt, I had to stop, with a terrible stitch
in my side, after 400 metres and collapsed on the grass. Gradually everything
settled down as I trained hard, early in the morning and late at night.
In the competition, I managed 2 minutes 35 seconds (which gave me 17
points out of 20), running behind that great devil Lamaison (1936),
who almost stuck the spikes of his running shoes in my kneecaps several
times! He led the train from start to finish. He was a splendid boy...
As I was accepted without any glitter - but with the hindsight of time,
the thing does not matter any more - 56th out of 60 admitted, I wonder
if this sporting "exploit" was not the decisive element of
my entry to the Air Force School !!!
And so, in the space of four months, from April to July 1935, I was
slowly transformed into a future aviator...
3-2 Gallery of portraits
and anecdotes :
- The origins of the word 'trap'.
In the existence of any promotion, there are ups
and downs. The class of "Guynemer", who was stationed in Versailles
from 1935 to 1937 at the Petites Ecuries, was no exception to the rule.
In the depressing periods of the "lows" it was common to say:
"This School is a real Piégeac". This semantic contraction
of three words into one does not require any superfluous explanation...
This curse was especially uttered when the promotion left, in bumpy
trucks, to fly to Villacoublay, where they did the soldier's school,
the bad weather - Villacoublay being a real meteorological chamber pot
- forbidding any flight on the famous Potez 25 of the time. The three
brigades therefore spent a few dreary hours doing "right turns",
"section, halt", etc...
It must be said that this first
promotion, which included a good number of former 'moles' over-saturated
with mathematics, did not like theoretical studies very much and was
only really happy in the air, with the joysticks of the good old planes
of those very old days - Morane 315, Morane 230 and Potez 25. My goodness,
these young people had a natural desire to be aviators... So they were
very depressed by the "biffe" sessions in front of the Villacoublay
hangars!
One day in 1936 when the class was
waiting, in a freezing mist, for I don't know what or I don't know who,
at the foot of the "Villèle" staircase in the greasy
cobbled courtyard of the Petites Ecuries, the cadet Marvier, of the
third brigade, went to engrave with the point of a penknife, on the
stone blackened by the grime of the centuries, the word "PIEJAC"
in letters ten centimetres high. Below these six letters, he drew an
arrow pointing to the staircase which served as the official entrance
for the students. I would like to point out in passing that with the
time wasted waiting by the class, we could have instructed at least
two other classes!
This inscription defied time and
remained there for more than thirty years, standing out in light yellow
on the increasingly black stone. Only a very few initiates knew of its
existence.
...It disappeared in the great washing
of public buildings and monuments, undertaken by Mr Malraux: the stones
found their beautiful original colour, but the "PIEJAC" died...
In the course of time, the imprecation
became civilized, courteous and only the "Piège" remains...
- On the use of Arabic numerals at the
Setif air base (August 1939)
In the hot summer of 1939, the 38th
Bombardment Wing, usually based at Metz Frescaty, was in Algeria, at
Ain Arnat airfield, a few kilometres from Sétif. This month of
August had a strong smell of war: nobody had any doubt about the German
dictator's aims. Only Italy's intentions remained unclear. The 38th
Wing was in a waiting position: in case the Latin sister followed Germany,
the Wing would operate from a field near Kairouan and throw its bombs
on Sicily and the south of the peninsula.
The Amiot 143s sat, dark, weathered
masses, on the sides of the fuselage huge Roman numerals next to the
squadron insignia. Why Roman numerals? A mystery! Perhaps they are more
legible from a distance.
On 25 August a state of alert was
declared. Staff Sergeant X was ordered to replace the Roman numerals
with Arabic ones. This non-commissioned officer, a good boy who had
not invented gunpowder, had the serious defect of being caught between
two wines at dawn. In Algeria, he had opted for anisette. The group's
mechanic officer had taken away his concern for maintaining an aircraft
in good condition and entrusted him with the less responsible function
of storekeeper.
So, with the help of some soldier-painters,
he was given the task of redoing the Amiot's costing, and he laughed:
"Wow! That's a bit strong! Because we are in Algeria, we have to
paint Arabic numbers! ". Goguishly, his more intelligent friends
explained to him that since the "école communale",
he had only counted that way!
An "Oh really?" was his
only comment.
Italy having not moved an eyelash
at the declaration of war on September 2, 1939, a few days later the
38th Wing, via Tunis, Bastia and Istres, was going to take up its winter
quarters in Auxerre.
3-3 The bridges of Sedan
(14 May 1940)
In memory of second lieutenant Vial,
of the Astier de Villatte promotion, killed on the Field of Honour on
16 May 1940
In the early hours of the 14th May
1940, after landing at Chaumont-Semoutiers airfield, the crews of the
2/38 Bombardment Group who had just shelled road and rail junctions
at Recogne (Belgium) were ordered to wait on the spot and therefore,
as a direct consequence, not to go to their billets in Chaumont or in
the neighbouring villages.
I was staying with a couple of farmers
in their sixties in the village of Villiers-le-Sec (within cycling distance
of the field), where from early morning the din of roosters, tractors
going to the fields and all the morning work in the countryside made
sleep impossible. The day before, on my return from a previous night
mission, my host, full of concern, had welcomed me at four o'clock in
the morning with a glass of a brandy that must have been about sixty
degrees! Out of courtesy I swallowed without flinching at this too early
morning swill, but I firmly insisted to this good man that he should
not bother any more, my return times being fanciful, even subject to
the hazards of war: in fact I was apprehensive about the routine risk
of the little morning drink.
The wait in the field was motivated by very serious events: the military
situation was rapidly becoming catastrophic in Sedan and the Amiot 143s
were called up for a daytime mission on the bridges of the Meuse.
Let us listen to Lieutenant Christophe
(1935), who wrote the history of the G.B. 2/38 in September 1940:
"On the morning of 14 May, on returning from the missions, the
crews were warned that they had to be ready to leave at dawn. The planes
are reloaded immediately, the crews try to rest a little, lying on air
mattresses. Despite the fatigue, little sleep is given. Everyone thinks:
for Amiot 143s to be sent on a daytime mission, the situation must really
be tragic.
In the morning, the orders became clearer and the objective was set:
to bomb the boat bridges that the Germans had built on the Meuse, towards
Sedan. The take-off, initially set for six o'clock, was gradually delayed
until eleven o'clock. Everyone took advantage of this extra time to
comfort themselves in the mess and to finalise the setting of the machine
guns. But were we really defending ourselves on Amiot 143? The hope
that one might have had of not encountering the enemy's fighters, if
it was permitted at six o'clock, was no longer permitted at noon. At
eleven o'clock the six planes finally took off and headed for La Fère,
where they were to meet up with the friendly fighters. The order of
march was as follows: Captain Destannes, Captain de Contenson, Lieutenant
Christophe in the first section, Lieutenant Marey, Lieutenant Jean and
Lieutenant Jeanne in the second section. On arrival at La Fère,
the fighters took off and took up positions to the left of the bombers.
Four Amiot 143s were positioned in front of those of the G.B. 2/38.
They were planes of the 34th squadron, under the orders of Captain Véron.
The whole group - 10 planes in total - took the road to Sedan, accompanied
by the fighters. According to the information given before the departure,
the Germans had just reached the Meuse and nobody assumed they were
settled. The 'crews' were quickly disabused of this belief: as soon
as they reached Sedan, a plane of the 34th Wing, left wing, was shot
down in flames. The others continued eastwards, at an altitude of 800
metres, in the middle of a sheet of black flakes. The shots were perfectly
timed and the shrapnel hammered the metal sheets of the planes and fuselages.
At their posts, the gunners and radios fired every time a Messerschmitt
came within range, while at the front, the aircraft commander waited
to bomb the signal of the section leader. The Blochs provided impeccable
protection, but could not prevent two aircraft of 34th Wing from being
shot down and an aircraft of G.B. 2/38 from having an engine hit.
This aircraft, forced to land, managed to reach the Mourmelon area.
As soon as the bombs are dropped, the survivors dive to the ground and
leave this inhospitable area as quickly as possible. At 1.30 p.m. five
planes landed at Chaumont-Semoutiers.
It is remarkable that during this expedition, there was no loss of life
or even the slightest injury to G.B. 2/38. In all the planes, the floors
were pierced through and it is a miracle that no one was hit. Miraculous
also was the return of two aircraft with damaged control cables...'.
What Lieutenant Christophe does
not say, I will write, even if his natural modesty suffers; I found
again, with great pleasure a few months ago in the great city of Marseille,
this comrade of promotion.
Not having been part of the night wave of crews that had bombed Recogne,
Lieutenant Christophe had been awakened at dawn - in his lodgings -
on the orders of his squadron commander, Captain de Cotenson. The crews
for the Sedan expedition having been designated, he spoke this Cornelian
language to his captain: 'My captain, if you are shot down during this
mission, tomorrow I will have no moral authority to succeed you as commander
of the squadron. So I have to do this mission. The captain, who always
made decisions quickly, agreed and informed Chief Warrant Officer W.
that his crew was no longer designated. I don't know what the chief
warrant officer's reaction was, but when, at the beginning of the afternoon,
five of the six Amiot 143s - safe and almost sound despite some severe
abrasions - landed, he had this charming word: "Ah, my lieutenant,
you took my place to get the Croix de Guerre faster! "
The sixth plane, with Lieutenant
Jeanne in command - an engine on fire - had been superbly landed by
Chief Warrant Officer Boussicut, a pilot of rare mastery, near Tahure,
about twenty kilometres north-east of that dreadful "seaport"
of Mourmelon where the class of Guynemer had spent three long weeks
of very dusty manoeuvres in 1937. At Mourmelon, in the first third of
the 20th century, the showers were, as the saying goes, replaced by
a long whistle: Glory to the French Army!
The group commander, Captain Destannes,
was quite happy to have got everyone out of this infernal pit. On 15
May he wrote the following letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Aribaud, commander
of the 38th Wing - a moving memory, for he was to be killed, following
an engine failure on take-off, with Second Lieutenant Vial, on the evening
of 16 May a few kilometres from the airfield:
15 May 1940
My Colonel
Yesterday, I apologise for not waiting for you at La Fère; I
followed the 34th Wing which left La Fère at 12:22 p.m. I do
not regret having done this mission (since I was lucky enough to bring
back all my people) because I was able to realise the danger of this
kind of operation, where the enemy is not always on the alert. I do
not regret having done this mission (since I was lucky enough to bring
back all my people) because I was able to realise the danger of this
kind of operation, where you expose a large number of crews for a mediocre
and null result. At night, we would have done the same job much better
with infinitely less risk. I have the impression that these daytime
attacks do not pay off when they are carried out with equipment like
ours.
As soon as we arrived at the objective, we were engaged by an extremely
dense D.C.A. - cannons and machine guns - and a few seconds later, the
hunt.
Out of four aircraft of 34 Wing, one was shot down by the fighters just
behind me, in territory occupied, I believe, by our own. I saw three
parachutes come down before the plane crashed.
As far as we were concerned, all our planes were hit and by an incredible
stroke of luck, neither the crews nor the essential parts of the planes
were hit... It is better, if possible, not to repeat this kind of expedition
which does not pay off, because I insist, the results of the bombing
seemed to me to be mediocre. The 12th Wing, with its Le O 45s, could
perhaps have done better, as they were faster and had less trouble than
we did...
Finally, I have the impression that we were expected on the objective
(this is also the impression of everyone here): it seemed unbelievable
to us that there was such a concentration of D.C.A. and enemy fighters,
by chance, at that hour...
I brought my group back to ten metres altitude by diving as quickly
as possible as soon as the bombardment was carried out and I believe
that it is to this manoeuvre that I owe, in part, the avoidance of the
Messerschmitt.
My whole group followed me and stuck together very well, they all kept
their cool and bombed calmly. Vial, in particular, who was in my aircraft,
took aim as if on the firing range...
To be perfectly clear, it must be
said that the six Amiot 143s of the G.B. 1/38, which had left Troyes
with Lieutenant-Colonel Aribaud at the head of the unit, had missed
the rendezvous with the hunters at La Fère due to a navigational
error, and had therefore not carried out their mission.
Lieutenant-Colonel Aribaud, in spite of being well into his fifties,
was always on the breach. He was an admirable and tireless war leader.
After the armistice he wrote the history of the 38th Wing. I extract
from it these lines relating to the Sedan affair: "...the situation
is dramatic at Sedan. The enemy has created a bridgehead on the south
bank of the Meuse. The idea is to destroy the peacetime bridges and
the new bridges built by the enemy on either side of Sedan, between
Vrigne sur Meuse and Bazeilles, with 50 and 100 kg bombs. These proper
names bring to mind the sad capitulation of 2 September 1870.
Will take part in the expedition of immediate support:
- 6 Lé O 45 of group 6,
- 6 Amiot 143 of group 9,
- 12 Amiot 143 from group 10.
Thirty to forty fighters, based at La Fère, will provide protection.
This operation was to repeat, in the air, the final charge of the Margueritte
division on 1 September 1870.
General Escudier stated that he had not been able to get the old and
slow Amiot 143s to take part in this sacrificial mission from the Grand
Quartier Général. The command uses what it has at hand...'.
Finally the bridges of Sedan had
been attacked by 6 Lé O 45 of the 12th squadron and 10 Amiot
143! It was pathetically derisory! As a "fire officer" in
the group, I had in hand in peacetime the "consumption tables"
which gave, according to the size of the objectives to be destroyed,
the tonnages of bombs necessary. Having had the opportunity to deal
with a few particular problems, notably that of bridges, one-off targets
that are not very sensitive to blasts if the shots are not on target,
I had seen that giant expeditions were needed to destroy them. This
was far from the case with the sixteen planes sent to Sedan!
The presence of the six Lé
O 45s, faster, equipped with a more accurate sight than the old Amiot
pinnae sight, had not changed anything. Here is the testimony of General
Genty, too soon deceased, then lieutenant-commander of aircraft in the
2/12 bombing group:
"...We could not believe our ears that morning, 14 May, when we
were given the mission: to attack the eastern exits of Sedan. How could
it be that the German armoured vehicles were already there? If they
crossed the Meuse four days after the Rhine, where would we stop them?
on the Marne? as in 1914, but miracles only happen once, as is well
known. So? it was the invasion again, but this time it was carried out
at an incredible speed by a mass of armoured vehicles, supported by
an air force of unsuspected efficiency. Numbers and quality! These were
two assets whose power we had not properly assessed. And yet, we had
been told often enough that the Luftwaffe, pushed too fast, suffered
from a congenital malnutrition: few pilots, few mechanics, few reserves.
On that 14th May 1940, over Sedan, the situation had become painfully
obvious to me: the deserted town, the old "bahut" where I
had been a schoolboy a few years earlier; this Ardennes countryside
that I had so often travelled through, the heights of Floing, from where
William in 1870 could not help but admire the desperate charges of the
cavalrymen of the Imperial Guard: "Ah! the brave people! "All
these places of my childhood, I had hardly had time that day to recognise
them: only the gatherings on the Meuse, to the south of our objective,
attracted my attention; already the Germans were crossing the river
on boat bridges and gaining a foothold on the other bank.
Like the previous ones, the mission had been tough. The Flak, dense
and precise, had once again seriously tested us: a Lé O 45 shot
down, all the others hit, but the most painful thing for us had been
to come across an expedition of 12 Amiot 143s on the way back, which
were climbing towards the hell we had just left and, like us, at low
altitude. What madness! and what distress if the command had to throw
these slow, poorly defended, old-fashioned aircraft, armed with a few
bomblets, into the battle during the day...".
What emotion and what style in these few lines!
As for the 34th Wing, its four Amiot
aircraft - led by Captain Véron, who commanded the 1/34 G.B.
- met a tragic fate.
Commander de Laubier's plane, which, on leaving Amiot No. 56, which
was already on the move, had brought down a machine-gunner to take its
place, was shot down in flames. I saw him, a terrible sight, to my right
and a little behind, dive towards the ground, a ball of fire which crashed
with the commander, Lieutenant Vauzelle and Sergeant Occis. Only Sergeants
Ankaoua and Gelly managed to parachute out.
Lieutenant Foucher's aircraft, although severely hit, escaped the chase
at ground level and was able to reach its base.
Lieutenant Marie's Amiot was shot down by Messerschmitt 110s. The five
crewmen left the plane by parachute, although the aircraft commander
and the pilot, Warrant Officer Speich, each claiming the privilege of
jumping last, only managed to evacuate at the last second!
Captain Véron had his plane badly damaged by a burst of 20-millimetre
shells. The pilot, Warrant Officer Milan, managed to land it, one engine
cut, on a field.
At the dawn of 14 May 1940, the
author of these lines (or of this compilation of stories, as you wish)
had a furious desire to sleep soundly and he did not welcome with a
light heart the idea of going to drop his bombs, in broad daylight,
with a dark brown aircraft, a very nice target in the bright May sunshine!
Some cried treason because, on our
arrival at Istres on 11 October 1939, coming from North Africa (where
the 38th squadron had waited in vain in Sétif for a possible
decision on belligerence from Italy), the command had said that the
slow and old Amiot 143s would only operate at night. But how could such
a promise be kept in the face of the German advance? The young executor
that I was - a million miles away from any high strategic cogitation
- could not help thinking that the 'great leaders' of the war must have
been tragically desperate to resort to these old machines.
I learned after the war from a senior officer, who later became a distinguished
air corps general, that the sending of the Amiot to Sedan had been the
subject of very bitter and heated discussions between the ground and
air high commands, the latter refusing to send these kites to the carnage,
but having to bow: the roundels had to be flaunted at all costs, assuming
that the fighter on the ground had the leisure to look up.
This ill-prepared affair - it would have taken dozens and dozens of
bombers to destroy such tiny targets as bridges - left a very bitter
impression on me.
The French campaign continued until 13 June, when the humiliating flight
southwards of the 38th Bombardment Wing began, via Nuits, Feurs, Avignon,
Perpignan, Avignon again and finally Saint Martin de Crau, which had
certainly fought bravely but with very little result.
A poignant memory: when I left Villiers le Sec, the good villagers who
had sheltered me for five short weeks, realising that the fate of France
was settled, wept loudly. No matter how much I told them that nothing
was definitively lost, that the bombing planes were still far behind
the front lines, nothing did it... I left them, with a heavy heart,
full of anger towards the politicians who had thrown France into this
abyss.
Four years later, on my first operational
sortie over Halifax - seven crewmen, seven thousand two hundred horsepower
in four powerful engines, four hundred kilometres of hourly speed, five
tons of bombs, sophisticated navigation and bombing equipment - when
I saw my sixteen two hundred and fifty kilo bombs rushing towards the
German target, six thousand metres below, I quickly forgot - revenge
was finally here - the sinister day of the bridges of Sedan...
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