REMEMBRANCE TOURISM GUIDE 2020 HOW IT ALL BEGAN... THE SECRET BUILD-UP


From left: US soldiers and supplies flood onto the Normandy beaches; trucks exit from the hold of a US Landing Ship Tank; map of the various beaches attacked by Allied forces


If you visited northern France in June last year, you can’t have failed to notice the widespread celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the Normandy Landings. The region’s customary D-Day Festival sprang to life with extra vigour at various locations along the coast in May and June. Locals and visitors joined the parades and enjoyed concerts, firework displays, re-enactments, music and dancing from the 1940s. In the skies above them, 30 Dakota aircraft marked the occasion in the Daks Over Normandy aerial show.


Special exhibitions, events and educational activities filled the region’s museums too: including at the D-Day Landings Museum, Utah Beach Museum and the Normandy Victory Museum. While the Exposition Grandes Femmes dans la Guerre 1939-1945 ran from March at the Juno Beach Centre.


June last year also saw the Commonwealth War Graves Commission unveil its CWGC


130 ❘ FRANCE TODAY Apr/May 2020


Experience visitor centre in Beaurains, Pas-de-Calais. Here, visitors to the battlefields of Northern France can glimpse what this remarkable organisation does to commemorate the war dead. In the foyer, the extent of its work can be seen on a world map – it’s a real eye-opener. Watch skilled craftsmen at work carving the iconic headstones and find out about its restoration and conservation work at the cemeteries, as well as its work identifying and reburying of the many bodies still being discovered in the poppy fields of northern France.


Normandy has a rich diversity of permanent historical information and sites too, of course. The Mémorial de Caen museum offers a comprehensive, interactive overview of the Second World War and Normandy’s place within it. Equally impressive is the Arromanches 360 Circular Cinema and its film dedicated to the soldiers and civilians who


died during the area’s 100 days of warfare.


In 2020, there’s another anniversary – it’s 75 years since Victory in Europe (VE) Day. It’s a public holiday and


commemorations are much more low-key. France is perhaps saving itself for the triple anniversary of one its most celebrated military men – Charles de Gaulle. This year it’s 130 years since his birth and 50 years since his death. During the Second World War, de Gaulle headed up the French Resistance, and it’s 80 years since his historic broadcast from London, during which he famously rallied his supporters against Nazi Germany. Lille, de Gaulle’s birthplace, will be celebrating him with light shows in June and November, as well as a programme of events under the banner ‘Année de Gaulle’ (www.hautsdefrance.fr). Set to be opened to the public in September 2020 is the British Normandy Memorial in Ver-sur- Mer, which will look out over


Gold Beach. This poignant site will be the first to honour the 22,000 troops who died fighting under British command on D-Day. The Normandy Memorial Trust is the organisation behind this venture. For more information, visit www. normandymemorialtrust.org/ Normandy-landings. With events marking the 75th anniversary of the D-Day Landings still fresh in our minds, here is some background to the momentous events that took place in northern France three quarters of a century ago.


D-DAY LANDINGS This term was commonly used to refer to the Normandy invasion by some 156,000 Western Allied troops (61,715 British, 73,000 American and 21,400 Canadian), which took place on June 6, 1944 during the Second World War. The invasion marked the beginning of the end for Adolf Hitler’s German occupation of France, and within a year the war was over.


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