NORMANDY 

Normandy - Bayeux - War memorials

Memorial sites
and beaches main page

D-Day beaches and War Memorial

Ste-Mere-Eglise

 Caen-Musée pour le Paix

 Pegasus Bridge
Benouville
Ranville

We arrive to BAYEUX coming from the D 516 from Arromanches.
Bayeux, fortunate city. Maybe the only bigger city having that didn't suffer heavily from war destructions like St.Lo and Caen, very popular with visitors but which somehow maintained its sanity. Through the eye of a needle…thanks to the surprise effect of the Allied troops who liberated Bayeux on 7 June 1944 as first French city. Therefore the city kept an agreeable nucleus of historic buildings located to the south.
But this section, dedicated to the landing sites and memorials will be only about the memorials in Bayeux. For the tourist visiting part, which is important and interesting, check the” Normandy tourist” section and Bayeux in this particular subject.
First memorial is the MUSEE MEMORIAL DU GENERAL DE GAULLE 10, rue Bourbesneur, tel 0231924555. Open only from March 15 to Nov 15.
The museum celebrates the life of the French political leader, who was welcomed into the city on 14 June 1944. A column in a tree lined park, place General de Gaulle, celebrates the victorious speech he made that day.
MUSEE MEMORIAL DE LA BATAILLE DE NORMANDIE is on the boulevard Fabian-Ware tel 0231929341 fax 02318511. If you are interested in weapons, this is the place! The largest collection of its kind in France. It provides mainly a thorough account of the war with the aid of maps, photos, newspaper front pages and the announced weapons and equipment meant to be used to destroy: glass mines (causing horrible injuries), "mustard pots", bouncing bombs, wooden mines (undetectable), handle-grenades, fumigant traps....
Less ambitious as the one in Caen, this museum, located in a vast modern building presents nevertheless a complete and thrilling panorama of the military operations of 1944. At the ceiling, one of the puppets parachuted by the Americans to fool the enemy! Interesting is to read the propaganda published at that time (completely under the control of the nazis), relating the multiple and horrible massacres perpetrated by the Allies among the French population. The kind of: "40.000 French killed in Caen!"
It’s introductory film compilation, using newsreels of the day, is one of the best of its kind to be found anywhere.
A little further along the same boulevard but on the other side of the road, facing the museum is THE BRITISH CEMETERY. Under sober and simple white pickets, 4.700 British soldiers including from Canada, South Africa and Australia, rest in peace. They gave their lives to liberate France. A minute of silence please. You measure here the enormous part taken by Great-Britain in these combats.

To see in the near neighbourhood of Bayeux:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
LE MUSEE DES EPAVES SOUS-MARINES DU DEBARQUEMENT (Museum of the submarine wrecks of D-Day) at Commes, route de Bayeux tel 0231211706. Open from June to end September.
Hundreds of vestiges patiently pulled out of the water: plane debris, sunken tanks, war ship debris, personal belongings, diverse rams scattered around on the beaches...are gathered in a large shed.  It's crazy what you can find under water!

Bibliography

A holiday history of France, by Ronald Hamilton (London-Hogarth press), Region Normandie, ses merveilles, ses cicatrices, by Louis Letellier (ed. Cloison, Rouen 1995), Holt’s battle field guides, Normandy Overlord by Holt, (Tonie and Valmai ,Sandwich, Kent), La France des petits chemins: Normandie, by J. de la Valléé (ed. Cité presse, Paris 1998), Six armies in Normandy, by John Keegan, (paperback ed. Pimlico), Routard 1999 (ed. Hachette), Bayeux la miraculée, by Paul Letellier (presses univ. Paris 1987)

Ouistreham

Arromanches artificial port

Bayeux War Memorials

 Omaha beach 
     
 
Pointe du Hoc
     
 
Utah Beach