I am Looking for my Horse by Art Lusk

I Am Looking For my Horse

                       by Art Lusk
I was in the 7th Traffic Regulating Group of the Transportation Corps., of the U.S. army in France during the war (World War II).  Our duty was to oversee the American Army's interest in the French railway system. My first post was in the town of St. Breuc, France railway system. I was in a group of about fifteen men, we were billeted in a four story stone hotel. It was on a street named Rue De Fere Legoff translated to the Street of the Legoff Brothers. Out of our own pockets we hired a French woman to cook for us. We were living the good life there.

One day a group of us were standing on the sidewalk outside of our building just having conversation or chewing the fat when a young man dressed as a French peasant asked us in perfect English if we had any American cigarettes and could spare a few. We were amazed because he looked like a French peasant. Here is his story: he and his wife had a beauty shop in Saint Louis. She was French and her mother and father lived on a farm about three miles out of St. Breuc. Her father had died and her mother was ill. "We delayed going home and leaving her. When she died and we could go home, it was too late. The Germans were here, so we buried our American clothes and dressed as French peasants."

He told us this story: "A Canadian airman had been shot down in the neighborhood. Afterward the neighbors brought him to us because they knew we spoke English language. We hid him in the hay mow in the barn. Then we decided to get him to safety. We buried all of his clothes and everything that wasn't French and dressed him in peasant clothes. We then coached him in French to say, 'I am looking for my horse.' We gave him a horse halter and told him to act like a retarded man. If the Germans suspected he was an airman, he was in deep trouble. Then we briefed him on the route to the Spanish border. About four months later, we got a note in the mail that he was with his people and thanked us."

This was written by Art Lusk after 1996. Before the 50th anniversary of D-Day, Art would very seldom speak of his actions in the war. Around the 50th anniversary, he began to tell more of the stories of the things that happened to him during the war. This is one of those stories.