Rare Medal of the Dam of the Girotte Lake – 1942-1948 – Signed by Robert Cochet (1903-1988, collaborator and friend of Lucien Bazor)
In bronze
Weight: 151.2 g
Diameter: 67 mm
Bastion of the Resistance (see history at the bottom of the description)
Obverse:
BARRAGE
DU LAC DE LA GIROTTE
1942 – 1948
Side view of the Girotte dam and its pillars.
Reverse:
Another view of the dam.
At the bottom:
ÉLECTRICITÉ DE FRANCE
Mr DUVERNOY
Edge:
Cornucopia hallmark (Paris Mint) + BRONZE
History (source Wikipedia):
The Girotte dam is located in France in the commune of Hauteluce, in the Savoie department.
It is a concrete multiple-arch dam perched at an altitude of 1,700 m in Beaufortain, in the northeast of the department.
It was only during the war, in August 1942, under German occupation, that the construction of the current dam really began. The construction of the dam served as an alibi for the resistance fighters, who, under the leadership of Captain Jean Bulle and his deputy Louis Pivier (known as Beauregard), commander of the 3rd FTP battalion for the “Ugine – Albertville sector”, created the Compagnie du Lac in 1943, which was a “maquis-silo”, serving as a support point for the “dormant maquis”. The workers had the right to move around and were given ration tickets in quantity, due to the altitude, because the Ugine factory was considered a priority by the Occupier who manufactured special steels there. On August 1, 1944, a very large parachute drop of equipment and weapons was made just opposite the lake, at the Col des Saisies, which allowed about 3,000 men from the various maquis from Val d’Arly to Maurienne to be equipped, in order to accelerate the Liberation of Savoy. The Compagnie du Lac fought during the liberation of Albertville, losing about twenty men, including four officers, including Jean Bulle.
Slowed down by the cold (18 metres of snow fell in 1944-45) and the war, the work was not completed until 1949: 400 to 800 people, completely autonomous, connected to the valley by two cable cars, worked on the construction of this structure. To accommodate them, it was necessary to build two reception villages: one in Belleville, the other near the lake.
The dam is entirely made of concrete, there is no steel reinforcement inside. The support points on the rock being poor, the vaults of the dam are convex, in the east-west direction and curved from bottom to top, which allows the water to press vertically on the pillars, some of which are also topped with observation towers.
A stronghold of the resistance during the Second World War, the construction site of the Girotte dam is mentioned in Roger Frison-Roche’s novel Les montagnards de la nuit. Born to parents from Beaufort, the writer spent many stays in this locality during his childhood.
