D-Day Remembered

Commonwealth Cemetary, Bayeau France

Statue outside the Canadian Museum on Juno Beach

Today we visited war museums, the first showing the overall invasion of Normany on D-Day, and the second was the Canadian museum at Juno Beach.  We spent the rest of the day driving along the astoundingly beautiful sea coast, hardly able to believe that such a great deal of violence and suffering took place here, in June of 1944.



Today we walked to the main D-Day Museum here in Bayeau and arrived just as the museum opened.  Although it is very much a "stand and read" type of museum, there were several cases showing the kit and dress of the various combatants, and a 20 minute film that really helped set the stage for what we were to see for the rest of the day.  We walked to the British cemetery, and then walked back to town with a greater feeling that the invasion and all of its unimaginable violence was absolutely required to defeat Hitler, and amazed at the bravery of people who put themselves in harm's way in order to stop tyranny.

We headed off to the Canadian museum at Juno beach, and it was good, but the real sense of the place was found as we walked on the beaches and visited the towns around us.  The gratitude of the people of the area -- liberated at the cost of their homes and many innocent lives -- can be seen in the many monuments to the liberators of the area.  Near the Canadian museum is the huge cross that marks the spot where General de Gaulle came back to French soil on June 7, 1944, after his exile in England.

It was an experience looking at pictures of the assault on the beach at Bernieres, and then realizing with shock that the house in the background was the one in front of us today.  The house is now privately owned, but there is a list of names of people killed in the assault attached to the front of the house -- 90 people killed, not in the area or throughout the war, but on that spot within site of the house, in only a few hours.

It was awe-inspiring as we looked out from the vantage point at the top of the hill above  Arromache and saw the true scope of the harbour that was constructed to supply the troops for the invasion.  There are so many stories of heroism and horror.

It is amazing that the place that holds the history of the Norman invasion of England also was the first city to be liberated at the end of World War II.  This is reflected in the words in Latin from the British cemetery: "We who were defeated by William, have returned to liberate his country".

The remains of the British Mulberry Harbour.  They couldn't take a harbour, so they brought their own with them.  The American Harbour was damaged in a storm on June 19th.  The sheer size of what is left today is incredible.