Lieutenant Rouyer, of the 48th Breton Infantry Regiment, who fought notably in Ham-sur-Sambre woods, took part in the Memorial Ceremonies and, in 1952, gave a talk on his war memories. Let's listen to him:
"We had witnessed, during the night, the bleak spectacle of fires and the panicked flight of women, the elderly and children. But, all of a sudden, one of our men discovered a little baby, unaware of the danger beneath the gunfire that reached so many of our fellow soldiers. He took it to the Colonel, who kissed it so gently that the gesture affected we soldiers, almost all fathers, more than the call to battle. The little girl was collected and looked after by the family I had stayed with the night before.
A few months old, her mother had carried her away held tight in her apron. In her frantic flight, she had lost her... She never knew, throughout the whole of the war, what had become ofher, doubtless believing her dead under such circumstances! A little after the war, she learnt that a child who had been found had been taken in by a family called 'Drapier' in Fosses. This is how her name was discovered: Noëlla Genot, born in Ham-sur Sambre on 6th December 1913. "Mimi of the Woods" was officially adopted by Emile Drapier in 1939, becoming Noëlla Genot-Drapier.
She joined the Sisters of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul at Ans, those nuns with the large cornet wimples who cared for the sick. After a life in the service of the sick in various locations, she died in Ans around 1995.
