The Normandy Invasion Lives On. Mark this date, June 6, 2019, to witness a re-enactment of what changed the course of history. Airborne divisions with hundreds if not thousands of parachutists will be falling from the skies from the UK to the Abbey of Mont St Michel, located at the mouth of the River Couesnon – a dividing line between Normandy and Brittany. The thunder in the air, the rumble of the earth will be deafening. And the sights will be breathtaking.
I along with dear friends ~ French, British and American ~ will be spreading our picnic blankets, hauling our day’s worth of eat & drink out to the polders of Mont St Michel at dawn, to witness the immense orchestration of the re-enactments of D-Day.
Events all over France, the UK and beyond are in final preparations these last few months before the wave hits.
For people who’ve not touched this, it’s ‘removed’ and not infrequently, disassociated from living a day in the life (i.e. many Americans) because bottom line, is it was not on American soil. This was me, before I went to Europe many years ago.
But all one has to do is spend an increment of time to come in touch with the war … la guerre. Walk the lands, take in the cliffs, Pont du Hoc; any of the cemeteries that honour the lost ~ or simply talk to people who live there.
Whether in France, or anywhere in Europe, remnants, wounds and stories abound – and abound sacredly – about the D-Day Invasion – from the initial frontal assaults of the Normandy Invasion, to the hard-fought/hard-won movements through the bocage ~ the hedgerows ~ across the country.
En fait, so many of my French friends hold in their attics pieces of that past, tucked away for safe keeping … a ‘last letter’ from a Resistance fighter to his parents after he had been caught … small ramshackle wooden boxes inside a high attic window ~ still with old hay ~ waiting for the return of messenger pigeons …
For me, each and every encounter is a humbling experience, and a necessary one for proper perspective.
Nobody made this up.
It happened.
