Memory is long on the battered coast of France

D-Day commemoration is something the seaside communities in Normandie still take to heart, even 80 years after the allied landings

Jun 05, 2024

Sculptures made from welded washers are a remarkable contribution to the D-Day Garden at Arromanches-les-Bains, overlooking the British Gold Beach landing site.

There’s little doubt about the sincerity of the appreciation that the residents of Normandie, France, feel for the allied soldiers who stormed five beaches spanning 80 kilometres of coastline 80 years ago today.

I had originally thought that the D-Day decorations that dominate every town and village along the coast were a temporary thing for this year’s 80th anniversary, but I was assured they were raised every spring and only taken down in the fall, when rough weather would cause major damage to the memorabilia.

Thousands of pennants hang from posts commemorating the lives of individual soldiers who had done something significant in the area where the banner was chosen to fly. And none are repeated. Each life given, each sacrifice made, each heroic effort is honoured individually, every year, by the current generation of French villagers. The tributes are everywhere, from town squares to farmhouses on back country roads.

Although the number of people with a personal connection to D-Day diminishes year after year, the appreciation is passed on in succeeding generations.

Hardest of all for me to grasp is that many of those who were saved by the allied invasion were also victims of it in one form or another, as more than 3,000 French civilians were killed in D-Day action and many more would die or become homeless in heavy bombardment of German-held objectives of places like Caen and Le Havre. It must have been emotionally overwhelming to be thankful to people who may well have also killed your friends or family as they liberated your country.

Freedom had a cost for them as well, something it’s also important to remember in D-Day commemoration.

Many forget that the success of the D-Day invasion was in part due to the sacrifice nearly two years earlier of Canadian soldiers and British sailors and airmen at the disastrous raid at Dieppe, intended to test the German defences. Of 5,000 Canadian troops that participated in the Aug. 19, 1942 landing, 3,367 were killed, wounded or taken prisoner.

If you ever plan on doing a D-Day tour, I recommend you start with Dieppe, because the lessons learned through the mistakes made here are the legacy of the many young Canadians who drew their last breaths on these beaches or in German custody.

Nearly 1,000 Canadian soldiers died at Dieppe.

I was going to try to review some of the other D-Day sites today, but it’s a little bit of a disservice to rush through four days of exploring just because today is the anniversary. The sites will still be here the day after, so I’ll get back to exploring Normandie with you in a few weeks.