September 2019 Classic & Sports Car 183of the SD (literally) more than once – even
surviving his London flat being bombed as he
interviewed to officially join the SOE.
As the Allied troops prepared for Normandy,
Benoist and the French Resistance were shutting
down Nantes and Caen daily. The invasion cost
him the chance to see his dying mother, herself
once incarcerated because of her two sons’ activ-
ities. His late visit led to his capture and detention
at Buchenwald, where he was later shot.
Wimille, recruited to the cause, escaped capture
by lying in a stream awaiting Benoist’s return
when their safe house was raided.
Davis, meanwhile, was finally on his way.
‘The Americans were well in,’ he recalled, ‘Caen
was a nuisance. The solemn skipper of our craft
led us to understand that what we would want on
the voyage was a band as otherwise it would be
a “mite monotonous”. It was true.’
One of those ‘well in’ Americans was Bud
Moore, NASCAR Hall of Famer. He’d joined
the Army on his 18th birthday, boarded a ship
and, as he wrote in Memoir of a Country Mechanic,
was ‘taken down to a little town called Wales’.
Within a year he was preparing for a D-Day
dry run, only this was no practice: ‘We were
circling around probably 30 minutes ahead of
landing, ¾ mile out to sea, when all hell broke
loose. I said, “Boys, this is going to be a piece of
cake, ain’t nobody going to be alive over there.”’
He was to drop into the shoulder-high waters
of Utah Beach. Except, ‘I stepped straight into a
shell hole in water over my head. I didn’t let my
tripod go; we didn’t have much small arms fire.’
Clambering over the dunes, he saw the 101st
Division parachute in through bright moonlight.
Moore’s efforts gained him five Purple Hearts,
awarded for being injured in combat, and two
Bronze medals, one for capturing 15 soldiers and
five officers almost by accident. He fought at
Bastogne,freeingthatBandofBrothersofthe
101st, and has never been back to France.
Instead he formed his eponymous NASCAR
squad that won two championships and 63 races.
Davis took to shore at Arromanches, linking
up with ‘McEvoy of the McEvoy Special’. He
rigged up a false booby trap to pinch a remote-
controlled German tank, feared he’d been
booby-trapped himself when commandeering a
desk from a disused Luftwaffe facility, and evaded
mine after mine in an eventful tour of duty.
His racing heart still beat, though, and he was
allowed to set off for Le Mans ‘to renew old
acquaintances of the racing world... armed to
the teeth, mine detector included’. Digging uptools and clearing mines was the official reason,
but in truth it was a promise made by the deputy
director of Mechanical Engineering Corps.
This was no plain-sailing run along the A28
like it is today, but down mine-filled lanes flanked
by signs saying ‘verge OK’ or ‘verge not tested’.
‘Then, at last, we reached that long familiar
highway that had seen so many teams of British
cars go forth to battle at Le Mans and so many
return in triumph. But the fear gnawing at one’s
heart was that Le Mans would be in ruins and
many of one’s greatest friends dead or injured.’
Instead he was greeted by race officials and
took off for a lap, ‘fast on principle.’ The road
ran out at White House, but he fought on to find
the pits and grandstands in ruins. They travelled
back through the Falaise pocket the day it
collapsed with Moore’s assistance.
On 9 September 1945, the two worlds collided
and racing returned at the Bois de Boulogne.
Amédée Gordini won the Robert Benoist Cup,
Henri Louveau the Coupe de la Liberation, and
fittingly – and with unimaginable emotion – the
Coupe des Prisonniers was won by Jean Pierre-
Wimille.Ina Bugatti,of course.Top: Benoist in a Delage
15 S8 chases the Talbot
700 of Albert Divo in the
British Grand Prix of 1926,
at Brooklands. Left: the
Jaguar C-type of Hamilton
and Rolt in the Goodwood
Nine Hours – Rolt escaped
Nazi camps seven times
and was sent to Colditz“The fear gnawing at one’s
heart was that Le Mans
would be in ruins and many
of one’s greatest friends
would be dead or injured”