Normandy Day 6

Bayeux War Cemetery. This visit was a very moving experience seeing the ages of those who gave their lives as young as 17 and on the whole no older than 40. Some graves bore no name but at least they had a decent burial. Sons, fathers, husbands all in the name of duty for their country. Makes you feel very humbled and thankful. There was a group of teenage students there on a visit from UK. They laid a wreath which was lovely. It was such an awful war and these soldiers knew what lay ahead! The cemetery was completed in 1952, and contains 4,144 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, 338 of them unidentified. There are also over 500 war graves of other nationalities, the majority German. The BAYEUX MEMORIAL stands opposite the cemetery and bears the names of more than 1,800 men of the Commonwealth land forces who died in the early stages of the campaign and have no known grave. They died during the landings in Normandy, during the intense fighting in Normandy itself, and during the advance to the River Seine in August. Sorry this post is somber but it’s reality…..certainly in the area of Normandy we are in!