D day trip

onlyagame said:
Been to a few War Cemeteries in Belgium & France. Wasn’t far from Arras last week, just not sure about going to visit. It must be interesting to see the trenches etc but also don’t want to be a voyeur.
Have a good trip, hope most of the money your Mrs spent goes to a good cause and not a travel agent
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You should definitely go to the Arras Memorial if you're nearby again OAG. I always stop there for a while if passing as one of my great uncles, Fred, is on the memorial wall. The cemetery obviously has many wargraves (including a couple of German ones that I'm not entirely sure Fred would've approved of!), but the wall at the top of the cemetery is engraved with around 45,000 names of British and Commonwealth soldiers and airmen who died in the battles around Arras and have no known grave. Standing in front of that wall, with those thousands of names, and knowing they are just the poor sods that have no known grave out of the many more that were killed, is humbling.... there is a terrible enormity about it that is hard to describe. The Arras Memorial is very much like the Menin Gate or the Thiepval Memorial in that respect.
It's not voyeuristic at all. Have a wander reading the headstones, leave a poppy or wreath or message at the wall, give your thoughts to all those blokes for a short period of time while you are there, and I guarantee you will feel that you did something very worthwhile afterwards. Sort of puts many things in our modern lives into perspective I find, especially when you consider that it really wasn't that long ago, only 2 generations for me.
I also have to say, that while I am generally no fan of the French, they really do look after our war cemeteries fantastically. They are tended to with great care and kept immaculate. That is the least anyone might do, some may think, but it has always impressed me how well the cemeteries are looked after in France.
 
onlyagame said:
Watched a programme the other night on PBS America about what happened to German civilians in other countries like Poland & Hungary after the war. Well it wasn’t pleasant & when the grown ups were killed by the kangaroo courts the little children had to dig their mums graves and then fend for themselves. They also showed a “short hanging” of a German General. It’s about a three foot drop so you don’t die straight away and one of the executioners shoves his hand in your face while you suffocate. Unbelievably cruel stuff but it’s still going on all around the world as we speak
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Not pleasant at all, granted, but those who collaborated with the invading Germans had it coming.
Towards the end of ww2 my grandad ended up attached to a unit of free-Dutch soldiers. When Germans surrendered to them they were shot. My grandad tried to stop this (he absolutely detested Germans but tried to stop it nevertheless) but was told by the senior Dutch NCOs "you can't stop the men killing Germans, you did not see what they did in Rotterdam"... and that was that basically.
 
hardleyse16 said:
Civilisation is only a thin vineer.
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Looks like it’s kicking off in Kosovo, frightening really
King of The Jungle said:
You should definitely go to the Arras Memorial if you're nearby again OAG. I always stop there for a while if passing as one of my great uncles, Fred, is on the memorial wall. The cemetery obviously has many wargraves (including a couple of German ones that I'm not entirely sure Fred would've approved of!), but the wall at the top of the cemetery is engraved with around 45,000 names of British and Commonwealth soldiers and airmen who died in the battles around Arras and have no known grave. Standing in front of that wall, with those thousands of names, and knowing they are just the poor sods that have no known grave out of the many more that were killed, is humbling.... there is a terrible enormity about it that is hard to describe. The Arras Memorial is very much like the Menin Gate or the Thiepval Memorial in that respect.
It's not voyeuristic at all. Have a wander reading the headstones, leave a poppy or wreath or message at the wall, give your thoughts to all those blokes for a short period of time while you are there, and I guarantee you will feel that you did something very worthwhile afterwards. Sort of puts many things in our modern lives into perspective I find, especially when you consider that it really wasn't that long ago, only 2 generations for me.
I also have to say, that while I am generally no fan of the French, they really do look after our war cemeteries fantastically. They are tended to with great care and kept immaculate. That is the least anyone might do, some may think, but it has always impressed me how well the cemeteries are looked after in France.
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Great post, will do one day
 
When living in France I was told about a place called Oradour Sur Glane. It was a town that the nazis massacred hundreds of people shortly after D day. The place is kept just as it was and is a permanent reminder of the atrocities. Very sobering experience walking around in silence and seeing it.
 
chopsboysie said:
When living in France I was told about a place called Oradour Sur Glane. It was a town that the nazis massacred hundreds of people shortly after D day. The place is kept just as it was and is a permanent reminder of the atrocities. Very sobering experience walking around in silence and seeing it.
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Yeah I've been there mate. Really unnerving place, one of those places where you can really feel that something terrible happened there. The bastard SS massacred the entire civilian population in retaliation for the resistance killing a senior officer I think, but they actually got the wrong village, not that that really matters.
They set fire to everyone's homes and murdered the men, then herded the women and little children into the church. They then set fire to that and machine gunned any of those who tried to escape. The marks from the machine gunning are visible on the church walls.
I believe even some other SS units were disgusted by the massacre, which if memory serves was carried out by the Das Reich SS Division, which could be particularly brutal and cruel even by SS standards. Absolute bastards.
 
King of The Jungle said:
Yeah I've been there mate. Really unnerving place, one of those places where you can really feel that something terrible happened there. The bastard SS massacred the entire civilian population in retaliation for the resistance killing a senior officer I think, but they actually got the wrong village, not that that really matters.
They set fire to everyone's homes and murdered the men, then herded the women and little children into the church. They then set fire to that and machine gunned any of those who tried to escape. The marks from the machine gunning are visible on the church walls.
I believe even some other SS units were disgusted by the massacre, which if memory serves was carried out by the Das Reich SS Division, which could be particularly brutal and cruel even by SS standards. Absolute bastards.
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Yes mate it definitely had an effect on me. A very eerie place
 
chopsboysie said:
When living in France I was told about a place called Oradour Sur Glane. It was a town that the nazis massacred hundreds of people shortly after D day. The place is kept just as it was and is a permanent reminder of the atrocities. Very sobering experience walking around in silence and seeing it.
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That is not far from me, about 45 mins.
What happened that day was just atrocious.
 
obeney said:
I think it was the Das Reich that massacred about 50 Norfolk Regimeny lads in a barn during the retreat to Dunkirk. As you say really,.really nasty bastards. Death would be too good for them.
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Yes I think you are right about that also being Das Reich. They put them in a barn and chucked grenades in. Scum.
 
Saint Mere - Eglise, a pretty village in Normandy has a fanstastic museum and a lovely market.
One of the first to be liberated by the allies, we were still treat like kings when locals heard the English accent.
They still have a paratrooper (dummy) hanging by his parachute from the church.
Certainly recommend a visit
 
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