Le FORUM - University of Maine

Le Forum
(N.D.L.R. This article first appeared in the Bangor Daily News,
Tuesday, July 24th, 2012, and is being used with permission)
Memorial Caretaker to visit family
Maine soldier revered in France
By Nick McCrea, BDN Staff
(Grandson to Raynald Martin and great-nephew to
Normand and Onias Martin.)
BANGOR, Maine — Three centuries
after his family crossed the Atlantic looking
for a new life in a New France, 2nd Lt. Onias
Martin was tasked with pushing Nazi forces
out of the homeland
of his ancestors.
On August 10,
1944, the Madawaska
native sat atop a
tank — part of the
5th armored infantry
division — as
it rolled around a
bend in the road,
near the tiny village
of Bonnétable
and into the sights
of an anti-tank gun.
German forces
had fled the area surrounding
the village,
knowing the Americans
were coming.
A pair of German
soldiers, just teenagers,
had been left
behind to cover the retreat.
They had manned
a captured French
cannon and turned
it on the approaching
Allied column.
Seeing the gun,
Onias jumped off the
tank. The tank and gun fired almost simultaneously,
but the tank round struck first, shifting
the aim of the gun. The shell hit Onias,
killing him instantly. He was 25 years old.
O n e o f t h e y o u n g G e r m a n s
was killed and the other captured.
Onias’ body was left on the side
of the road that night, according to Bonnétable
newspaper reports. The next day,
when the body was retrieved, the newspaper
reported that one of the villagers had
laid flowers around the body overnight.
The villagers built a crude memorial,
including a cross and a piece of the
6
destroyed anti-tank gun, near the spot where
Onias was killed. Later, it was replaced by
the stone monument that stands there today.
The caretaker of that memorial, Frédéric
Raynald Martin (from left) and Normand Martin, brothers of WWII 2nd Lt. Onias Martin,
chat with the caretaker of Onias’ monument in Bonnetable, France, Frédéric Gaignard
and his wife, Véronique, during a party at Normand Martin’s home in Bangor on
Saturday. The Gaignards and their two daughters are visiting Maine and plan to travel
to Madawaska, Onias’ hometown, to learn more about the fallen soldier and his family.
Gaignard said Onias is revered and honored in Bonnétable, where he was killed by an
anti-tank shell in 1944, making him the only Allied casualty of the war in that village.
Gaignard, 37, his wife, Véronique, 41, and
daughters Alexine, 7, and Zoé, 5, are visiting
Maine this week to learn more about Onias,
see where he came from and meet his family.
Much of the conversation has
been in French, which is still spoken
by many of the elder Martins and a few
members of the younger generations.
“In France, we never forget about
the sacrifice the USA and G.I.s made for
our liberation,” Gaignard said Saturday
during a barbeque with members of the
Martin family at the Essex Street home of
Normand Martin, one of Onias’ brothers.
Gaignard said the respect and reverence
for the soldiers who helped free France has
been passed down by the older generation.
Gaignard volunteered to start caring
for the memorial
five or six years ago
because the Bonnétable
men who
took care of the site
BDN Photos by Nick McCrea
previously were
getting older.
Gaignard said he
felt compelled
to take up the
effort to keep
Onias’ memory
alive 68 years
after his death.
Onias and
the young German
were the only
casualties of WWII
i n B o n n é t a b l e .
O n i a s w a s
one of thousands
of Americans killed
during the liberation
of France. But for
the people of Bonnétable,
there was
something unique and
endearing about this
Acadian-American.
His name was
French. He looked
like a Frenchman. He shared their language
despite the fact that his family left
the country hundreds of years before.
He came from a place in the United
States called “Maine,” which shares its
name with the traditional French province
in which Bonnétable is located.
The village wanted to know everything
about Onias, this long-lost Frenchman. The
doctor, the local newspaper editor, the priest,
town leaders all sent letters in the years after
the war to members of the Martin family.
(Continued on page 7)