It was great to have a week’s holiday in Normandy in France this summer. A chance to get away from the daily grind of politics and re-charge after two election campaigns.
One of the places I visited was the British Normandy Memorial, which is near the D-Day beaches, and records the names of the 22,442 servicemen and women, under British command, who fell on D-Day and during the Battle of Normandy in the summer of 1944. This includes people from more than 30 different countries. There is also a French Memorial, dedicated to the memory of French civilians who died during this time. It was opened in 2021, 77 years after the invasion.
This year there was a striking addition for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, which is a silhouette for every service person who died on D-Day itself.
The 1,475 silhouettes of British soldiers, sailors and aviators represent the total number of people in British units who lost their lives on D-Day, 6 June 1944. They are placed near the Memorial, overlooking ‘Gold Beach’ where British forces landed on D-Day.
In this 80th anniversary year of the D-Day Landings, the silhouettes have had a huge impact. It certainly made me think when I stood there. They’ve been visited by many thousands of visitors from around the world and they’ve brought home the scale of the sacrifice as the Allies began the operation to liberate France from the Nazi occupation.
The silhouettes were placed at the Memorial at the start of April by the British charity ‘Standing with Giants’. They will be returning to Britain in September to fulfil an obligation to go on display at Stowe House, a National Trust property in Buckinghamshire.
The Normandy Memorial Trust is hoping it will be possible for the ‘Giants’ to return to the memorial next year. Although it might be good to have them tour the country, so the impact can be shared around.
Only two of the dead were women. Both were nurses on a hospital ship, HMHS Amsterdam, which struck a mine. Seventy five wounded soldiers were carried up and delivered into lifeboats. Two of the nurses, Dorothy Field, 32, and Mollie Evershed, 27, went back below and went down with the ship. They are the only two women whose names are on the memorial.
There are a number of Suffolk Regiment men named on the memorial. The 1st Battalion landed on D-Day and were used to push out of the beaches and destroy two German strongpoints codenamed “Morris” and “Hillman”. Part of the route they took is now called the Rue du Suffolk Regiment. I don’t think we have a road commemorating the Suffolks in the county town?
At the end of the Rue, is the site of the former Hillman strongpoint, which was captured by the Suffolks on D-Day. I enjoyed an interesting tour of the site. There are several bunkers, with concrete up to 3 metres thick, surrounded by barbed wire and minefields. A tough nut to crack. I did hear that the last Suffolk Regiment D-Day veteran passed away last year aged 102.
The names of the men killed were read out at a D-Day commemoration on the 6th June this year, at the Ipswich war memorial in Christchurch Park. Ipswich paid its respect to those men from the town who fought and died in June 1944.
The Suffolk Armed Forces Day will be centred in Ipswich next year, which will give the town another chance to show our support for the armed forces.