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Quinquin, his codename, followed orders and crossed enemy lines to pass messages if necessary. He was ultimately killed by friendly fire, at the age of 6, probably France’s youngest member of the Resistance fighting the Nazis during WWII.
Marcel Pinte has been getting what he deserves recently. Last week his name was inscribed on a memorial to the war dead in Aixe-sur-Vienne, a city of fewer than 6,000 inhabitants in central France, near its area of operations. He is among the fallen who are honored on Wednesday (local time), when France commemorates the armistice of November 11, 1918 that ended World War I and pays tribute to all who have died for the nation.
The boy lived in the heart of the “army of the shadows”, as the Resistance fighters were known, led from London by General Charles de Gaulle and on the ground in his part of France by his father, Eugene Pinte, a head of the local Resistance. which established a center of operations on a farm on the outskirts of Aixe-sur-Vienne. His farm received coded messages from London and parachute drops of supplies into a nearby field. A street is named after the father, whose code name is Athos, four years ago for leading the liberation of the city.
Uncredited / AP
This photo provided by the Bremaud family shows Marcel Pinte. Quinquin, his codename, followed orders and crossed enemy lines to pass messages if necessary. In the end, he was killed by friendly fire, at the age of 6, probably France’s youngest member of the Resistance fighting the Nazis during World War II.
Marcel, the youngest of five brothers, went to work helping the fighters with a variety of tasks. He could, for example, escape to nearby farms to pass messages, according to accounts published by a relative, Alexandre Bremaud.
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Nicknamed Quinquin by the Resistance fighters, from a nursery rhyme in northern France where he was born, he served as a true liaison officer, but was also a boy.
“There was a bit of a nonchalance due to his age. A resident told his father to be careful because Marcel sometimes sang songs learned from the fighters, ”Bremaud told Le Figaro newspaper.
Uncredited / AP
This photo provided by the Bremaud family shows Marcel Pinte’s Resistance card.
But the songs were not what would take his life. A sensitive Sten automatic pistol dropped from a weapons and ammunition parachute into a field unleashed a flurry of shots as the weapons were distributed on August 19, 1944.
Marcel was beaten and died.
The day before, her father had led an enemy defeat that converged on Aixe-sur-Vienne. “Very moved by the disappearance of his son … the commander did not change his plans and continued to encircle (close) Limoges with his troops,” reads a speech delivered by Bremaud and another relative, Marc Pinte, on the occasion of the inauguration in 2016 from the street called Eugene Pinte.
Uncredited / AP
Marcel Pinte, photographed with an unidentified Resistance fighter.
Top Resistance commanders attended the boy’s funeral on the morning of August 21, 1944. His father helped liberate Limoges that night.
Several days after Marcel’s death, the containers hit the field in a final drop, but the parachutes were black.
“The British knew that little Marcel played a real role. This parachute was the business card that was sent to the family, “said Marc Pinte, who gave Le Monde a guided tour of the area.
On August 12, 2013, an official card for “volunteer Resistance fighters” was issued in the name of “Monsieur Marcel Pinte” by the National Office for Ex-combatants and War Victims.
