José Oliveira and his family died on May 27, 1944, during a Allied bombing that targeted the coastal batteries located in Saint-Valery-en-Caux, a town between Dieppe and Le Havre, in northern France.

The Portuguese - a mason by profession - died when the house he lived, at number 12 of Rue d'Ectot, was hit by bombs around 1 pm. Suzanne Marie Romain, his 33-year-old wife, and their two sons, Joseph (9 years old) and Michel (8 months old) also died.

During the day and night of May 27, 1944, Saint-Valery-en-Caux was targeted both by American B-24 bombers - during the day - and British Lancaster - during the night. Taking into account the time at which the Oliveira family's home was hit, the responsibility for the deaths most probably resulted from the attack of the North American planes.

During WWII the commune of Saint-Valery-en-Caux was the stage of several combats that caused dozens of deaths. Intense battles between British/French forces and German advancing units destroyed about 70 percent of the houses in may/June 1940. In 1944, the coastal batteries installed in the area where too near of the D-Day beaches, coming under close attention of the Allied air forces that made several sorties to destroy them.

Carlos Guerreiro 

Note: I am grateful for the collaboration of the historian Raphaël Distante, from Saint-Valery-en-Caux, who kindly sent us information and copies of the documents that we reproduce.