Personal
Remembrances
This site is pretty self-indulgent, but I hope it might be of use or interest to Normandy Veterans, their families and anyone with an interest in the events of June 1944… it is based on a trip I took in June 2003 to see some of the places where my late father was involved in the war, including photos and video footage, and as such it is based around him, and biased to his sphere of operations (Royal Engineers, in tanks)- thus there is not much about the airforce or navy, and much of it is purely my opinion. Some of the pages have a lot of big images, so leave them a minute to load. Although I am a historian, it is not in this subject, so information here should not be taken as gospel!
Please also check especially things like opening times of places, travel regulations etc. The travel information and much else on the site is biased towards those travelling from the UK; for other countries there are plenty of websites that will hold the correct information for your location.
Many of the French websites to which I link have English-language versions; you might need to click on a text link or the Union Jack icon to get there.
|
Navigation: Each page on this site has
this link return
to home page at the bottom of the page; which will bring you back to
here.
Museums and cemeteries
I visited in Normandy:
Omaha Beach and
Coast (including links to many others I couldn’t visit in the time
available)
Royal Engineers-related including pictures from Bayeux Cemetery
Books, videos and other materials on the subject
D-Day (Jour J) 2004: the 60th Anniversary Celebrations – the 50th anniversary of the landings was marked with a huge outpouring of emotion at countless events in Europe, and given that any adult involved in the landings will now be close to 80 years old as a minimum, the 60th anniversary is likely to be the last time a very major celebration and remembrance occurs in Normandy, or at least one with a lot of the most important and honoured guests present: thus the French are going all out to make it something extra-special; the events are going on for 80 days (!!) and details can be found on the link above.
UK veterans and their
spouses are being offered free UK passports to attend the events overseas.
There
is also a series of events at the D-Day museum in Portsmouth; see here.
D-Day and
Veteran-related Museums and Organisations in the UK and America:
D-Day Museum,
Portsmouth, UK
Imperial War Museum, London D-Day Museum USA Tank Museum,
Dorset, UK
HMS
Belfast, London Military Vehicles Trust,
UK Commonwealth War Graves Commission The Royal British Legion
The Second World
War Experience Centre The Assault Glider Association Public
Records Office
Tracing
medals and service records here
BBC
Wales WW2 Oral History Project
The Normandy Veterans Association don’t appear to have a
national website, but if you do a web search for them you should find the
branch nearest your home town. An extensive list of Veterans
Organisations appears here and
this site is very useful for veterans
reunions information
On June 6 2003, the 59th
anniversary of the D Day invasion, a new version of the American Memory
presentation After the Day of Infamy: "Man-on-the-Street"
Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor was released; created by the
American Folklife Center in the Library
of Congress. The address is http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afcphhtml.
This page designed and made
by Dave Evans, June 2003. Any feedback welcome; to here please, including
telling me about any non-working links
[ Sign my Guestbook]
- [Read my
Guestbook ]
[Guestbook by TheGuestBook.com]
Copyright: The images and videos on these pages were taken by me, and you are welcome to use them for any non-commercial purpose. I would appreciate it if you could let me know, though.