As they Were Format: other

An insightful and evocative glimpse of France during the “phony war” between September 1, 1939 and May 1940.

As They Were offers an insightful and evocative glimpse of France during the “phony war” period between the September 1, 1939 German invasion of Poland and the Nazi attack on the Netherlands, Belgium, and France in May 1940. A. Peter Dewey, a young reporter for the Chicago Daily News, deftly chronicled the daily routines of life in Paris as its citizens, suspended between the world that they knew and an inevitable war ahead, tried to maintain the equilibrium of the French capital. Dewey spoke fluent French and considered the country the home of his heart: his parents had purchased the abandoned Abbaye de Sainte-Marie on the coast of Normandy in 1931 and restored it; the abbey was seized by the Nazis during the war and was later reclaimed by the family.

After a childhood that included several years spent in France, Poland, and Switzerland, Peter Dewey participated in some of the most dramatic and important episodes of World War II. A graduate of St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, and Yale University, Dewey was in Paris in September 1939 when France and England declared war on Nazi Germany. Dewey covered the war as a reporter on the Chicago Daily News Paris desk and then joined the Polish Army as a member of the Polish American Volunteer Ambulance Service. During and after the war, he served in the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner to the CIA. He was killed in 1945 while on a mission in Saigon.

Nancy Dewey Hoppin was 18 months old when her father, Peter Dewey was killed in 1945 in Saigon. She has reissued her father's work with additional photogrpahs and maps. She lives in New York City.