Saving the Light at Chartres: How the Great Cathedral and Its Stained-Glass Treasures Were Rescued during World War II

About this book

Built around 1200 and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site that draws more than a million visitors and pilgrims each year Chartres Cathedral is one of the jewels of Western Civilization. How Chartres Cathedral and its priceless stained glass (today the largest such collection in one location) survived World War IIs widespread destruction of cultural monuments is one of the great stories of recent history. Saving the Light at Chartres begins half a decade before World War II when a young French architect developed a plan to save the cathedrals precious stained glass. As war engulfed Europe in the fall of 1939 master glass artisans dismantled the hundreds of windows and soldiers tradesmen and laborers with local volunteers crated thousands of glass panels stowed them in the crypt and months laterjust before German invaders reached Chartreshauled them across the country to an underground quarry. This effort to save the stained glass is but a prologue. By August 1944 the U.S. Army had broken out of Normandy and was racing across France toward Paris and the Seine. Chartres became a key battleground. Allied bombing blew out the cathedrals temporary window coverings and when the Americansassisted by French Resistance fightersentered the city in the face of unexpectedly heavy defiance and snipers in the cathedral many soldiers believed German artillery spotters were occupying the cathedrals spires. When Colonel Welborn Griffith Jr.a senior operations officer of Twentieth Corps in Pattons Third Armyarrived some were pressing to countermand the armys standing order to avoid the cathedral and threatened to destroy it to neutralize the German spotters. Griffith was skeptical. He inspected the cathedral himself climbed its towers but found no Germans so he rang the bell waved an American flag and ordered that the cathedral be spared saving it from destruction. Griffith would be killed later that day. Victor Pollak tells both storiesthe rescue of the windows and Colonel Griffiths fateful rolein a compelling narrative. Saving the Light at Chartres honors the government and local teams who saved the windows the Resistance that performed a vital role in the liberation of Chartres Welborn Griffith and the enduring treasure that is Chartres Cathedral.